The Chichester Singers celebrate their 70th anniversary

Remarkably Jonathan Willcocks is only the second musical director the Chichester Singers have had in those seven decades together: “In the very earliest days when it was just a group of teachers it's not quite clear who the director was but since then it is only been myself and Anne Lawrence,” Jonathan says (Anne from 1952-1979 and then Jonathan from 1979 when Anne was taken ill and sadly died).

The great news is that the anniversary finds the choir in excellent spirits: “I think some organisations have found it challenging coming back from the pandemic. Having perhaps clung on by their fingertips during the lockdowns, some organisations are finding it difficult to pick up the pieces now. So I'm just thrilled by the way that the Chichester Singers have kept going. We did Zoom rehearsals for a while during the lockdowns which was very unsatisfactory but somehow it just kept the spirit of the choir alive and then when we were able to do our first season of concerts back after the pandemic, the concerts were really excellent. I've been so proud and pleased by the way that the concerts were received. You just really didn't know after what was effectively 18 months how things would do. We weren’t together from March 2020 until the autumn of 2021 but the choir have come back so strongly. It was a period of constant frustration. At first it just wasn't clear how long it was going to go on. When we had to cancel concerts in March 2020 we organised them for June and July and then we had to organise them again for the autumn when it was clear it wasn't going to be short run. But we have come back so strongly.

“I think audiences are still something of a challenge. I think with the pandemic people got out of the habit of going out to live events. There were quite a lot of things on offer with a lot of theatre companies and opera companies starting to stream things. People got their pleasures just sitting on their own at home and quite often without even having to pay for the pleasure. Maybe that was slightly less so for the choral groups but I do think sometimes people are a bit reluctant to come out still. But I'm confident that the Chichester Singers continue to offer something really strong with extremely high standards and the concert that we're doing for the Festival of Chichester this year is going to be really quite unusual in that it is a totally secular programme we are doing. It is all British music and in the first part we have got a piece by a living composer, Ian Assersohn. I have known Ian and I have known his work. I've come across him in various capacities. The music that he writes is very practical and attractive both for the choir and for the audience. It is a piece based on the tradition of shanties and it will be very exciting to do. And Ian will be coming to one of the rehearsals. I think that will give the choir an extra insight into the piece.”