Past Events
2025
Storm Cycle - St Gabriel's Pimlico - October 2025
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The Fourth Choir's autumn concert - Storm Cycle - was a tempestuous voyage through songs inspired by storms, sea journeys and finding refuge.
Featuring a trio of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the concert also showcased the epic Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi and atmospheric choir favourites by Kerry Andrew and Imogen Holst. We were particularly delighted to be joined by composer Joanna Marsh as we performed the UK premiere of her choral work No Final Shore setting texts by the Syrian poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said Esber). |
Songs of Ourselves Launch - Royal Vauxhall Tavern - September 2025
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On 19 September we celebrated the launch of our first full-length album Songs of Ourselves with a knees-up at London's iconic queer performance venue the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
The choir performed our first two feature tracks from the album Surge propera amica mea by renaissance nun Raffaella Aleotti and Marie-Claire Saindon's The Imaginary Garden, a setting of a poem by Iranian prisoner of conscience Mahvash Sabet, and members of the choir shared insights and memories of the album's recording and fundraising campaign. Songs of Ourselves is available to buy or stream on all major platforms now. Photo: Dave Cross |
My Beloved Man - Het Concertgebouw - August 2025
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The choir were thrilled to be making our Amsterdam Concertgebouw debut with our My Beloved Man programme in our first overseas tour since COVID, and first with Musical Director Jamie Powe.
Benjamin Britten's letters were read by Classic FM presenter Zeb Soanes, and Peter Pears' by Ab Nieuwdorp, presenter on Dutch radio station NPO Klassiek. The concert fell on the day of the Amsterdam Pride parade and was a celebration of the love of Britten and Pears with music by Britten himself as well as their friends, contemporaries and influences. "A stunning tribute to Britten and Pears. The quality of this non-professional choir is outstanding." |
Queer Cosmos - Wigmore Hall - June 2025
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With CN Lester
In association with Classical Pride The ecstasy of mystical experience and its consummation in physical love, and the yearning desire for home, beauty and a world purged of hatred and greed, were among the themes of Queer Cosmos. The choir celebrated Pride in London in this concert with works that span nine centuries of human experience. Kicking off the concert with a mystical work by American contemporary composer Meredith Monk featuring a solo by CN Lester, the concert also featured works by Dominique Phinot, who was executed for his sexuality in the 16th century, contemporary gems by Michael Genese, Mary Offer, Caroline Shaw and Kerry Andrew and the world première of Though You Have Left Me: a heartbreaking recently rediscovered poem by Siegfried Sassoon set to music by the choir's own Kit Grahame. Photo: Matthew Johnson |
A Requiem for Those Who Had None - Farm St Church - March 2025
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From the 14th to 19th centuries, thousands of people all over Europe were sentenced to death for being in queer relationships. A Requiem For Those Who Had None commemorated these martyrs of the LGBTQ+ community to ensure they are not forgotten. The Fourth Choir dedicated this concert to telling their stories.
Held in Farm St Church – the home of LGBT+ Catholics Westminster – the concert featured Herbert Howells' Requiem and extracts of Alonso Lobo's Lamentations of Jeremiah as well as contemporary works celebrating love including I Gaze Upon you by Gabriel Jackson, Jake Runestad's Let My Love Be Heard and a setting of texts by the poet Sappho by the choir's Musical Director Jamie Powe. The concert was previewed in Gramophone Magazine and The Tablet. Photo: Kathleen Holman |
James Joyce's The Dead - Wilton's Music Hall - January 2025
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Set at a New Year’s party in Dublin in 1907, James Joyce’s masterpiece, The Dead, was hailed by TS Eliot as one of the greatest short stories ever written. The story tells how a casual overhearing of an Irish folk song triggers memories so powerful that the dividing line between those who have died and those that remain becomes vanishingly thin.
This performance, dramatically narrated by Niamh Cusack, explored how unaccompanied singing adds layers of emotion to a powerful story. The music includes Irish folk songs, an exquisite Tudor Ave Maria, works by contemporary Irish composers, Áine Mallon and Rhona Clarke, and a new arrangement by The Fourth Choir’s Music Director, Jamie Powe, of Bid Adieu, the only known song for which Joyce wrote both the words and the melody. Plus wintry Christmas music by Joanna Marsh, Sarah MacDonald and Bo Holten. Photos: Kathleen Holman "Exceptionally polished" "A highly effective synthesis" |
2024
Music for a Winter's Night - St Clement Danes - December 2024
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During the dark days of December, the world can seem a cruel and difficult place and, as human beings have done since the dawn of time, this is the time when we are drawn to congregate together in places of light, warmth and companionship, to refresh the spirit and seek comfort from the sound of voices raised in harmony.
In this year’s Music for a Winter’s Night, Jamie Powe, our Music Director, crafted a beautiful, varied programme of Christmas music that can be enjoyed by people of every religion and none. It included pieces by Joanna Marsh, Bob Chilcott and Reena Esmail, a gorgeous Ave Maria by Tudor composer Robert Parsons, and the atmospheric, 8-part ‘First Snow’ by Danish composer Bo Holten. We were also joined by Alicia Bruce-Doig, a representative of the Cambridgeshire-based LGBTQ+ charity The Kite Trust and took a retiring collection to support their work with young people. Photo: Kathleen Holman |
BBC Proms - Royal Albert Hall - September 2024
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In September we were enormously excited to make our debut at the BBC Proms in a large scale performance of Handel's Messiah at Prom 65, part of a day celebrating choral music in all its forms.
The Fourth Choir joined forces with no fewer than five other choirs to create a giant "massed choir" to give the Messiah choruses their full dramatic potential – and were even joined by members of the audience for the iconic Hallelujah chorus. The Messiah, in Mozart's orchestration, was conducted by John Butt and played by the Academy of St Martin's in the Fields and the other choirs performing in the work were the Philharmonia Chorus, the J Max Ferdinand Singers – who also performed in their own prom earlier in the day – London Youth Chamber Choir, the Bath Minerva Choir and Voices of the Rivers Edge. Photos: Kathleen Holman & Elly Dragonetti "An astonishing display of vocal coordination" "The choirs were fully focused and word-clear at every point ... I'd not reckoned with the sheer joy of the overall impact" |
Classical Pride - Barbican - July 2024
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In July we returned to the Barbican for the second outing of conductor and producer Oliver Zeffman's Classical Pride festival.
This year the festival was expanded to a full week and we were delighted to be invited to perform the London premiere of our My Beloved Man concert at Milton Court. In the concert the letters of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears were read by actor Samuel Barnett and presenter Petroc Trelawney. We also joined with queer singers from across London in an expanded community choir, singing Szymanowski's atmospheric Symphony No. 3 "The Night" with the London Symphony orchestra and tenor Russell Thomas in the star-studded finale concert of the festival. Photos: Matthew Johnson At the Barbican, as part of its five-day Classical Pride festival I heard the excellent Fourth Choir perform music across the centuries in My Beloved Man |
Songs of Ourselves – March 2024
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Songs of Ourselves is The Fourth Choir's first full length album recording – a project launched to celebrate the choir's tenth anniversary and which was made possible through the generous donations of our members and supporters in response to a fundraising campaign launched at the end of the previous year.
The album showcases works by underrepresented composers from throughout history and which have not been previously recorded. Featured composers include the renaissance writers Raffaella Aleotti, Caterina Assandra and Vicente Lusitano as well as contemporary composers Derri Joseph Lewis, Cooper Baldwin, Marie-Claire Saindon, Jessica Curry and Shruthi Rajasekar. The album also includes two commissions written for the choir by Kerry Andrew and Stuart Beatch. We recorded the album over three weekend days at the stunning St Jude-on-the-Hill supported by a fantastic production team of Jacob Ewens and Tom Mungall. We were also pleased to share a preview of the music featured on the album with our supporters in two preview concerts at the sparkling Fitzrovia Chapel and St Gabriel's Church in Pimlico. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
2023
A Christmas Gaiety - Royal Albert Hall - December 2023
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The Choir was invited back again to the Albert Hall to take part in their camp, Christmas extravaganza, A Christmas Gaiety. As well as singing our hit from last year’s concert, The Twelve Gays of Christmas with alternative words by a Choir member who wishes to remain anonymous (Rioghnach Sachs), we were the backing singers for drag legend, Le Gateau Chocolat, in a powerful and moving version of Nothing Compare 2 U, a tribute to the late Sinéad O’Connor, which brought the audience to its feet for a sustained ovation. Anna Lapwood put the Albert Hall organ through its considerable paces, Sandi Tokvig brought effortless star power and the BBC Concert Orchestra (almost) camped everyone else off the stage. Quite a party!
Photos: Andy Paradise |
Music for a Winter’s Night - December 2023
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We returned to the beautiful church of St Clement Danes in the Strand, our regular winter venue for some years now. We were delighted that our audience numbers had returned to pre-pandemic size and, for the first time since Lockdown, our Winter Concert was sold out, with a waiting list for returns.
Jamie Powe, our Music Director, selected a wide range of Xmas music that can be enjoyed by people of every religion and none. The Choir sang pieces by some of our favourite composers such as Cecilia McDowall, Nathaniel Dett and Richard Rodney Bennett. Well-known works, such as In the Stillness by Sally Beamish and an exquisite choral arrangement of Away in a Manger, were contrasted with Renaissance rarities by the Portuguese Vicente Lusitano, believed to be the first published black composer, and the Italian nun, Isabella Leonarda, who, despite living in a convent from the age of 16 until her death at the age of 83, was one of the most prolific women composers of her time. An address was given by Thelma Ndaula, Operations Manager of the charity Say It Loud Club which provides social, emotional, educational and advocacy support for LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
Shoulder to Shoulder - November 2023
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For its 10th anniversary concert The Fourth Choir celebrated the Life, Loves and Legacy of Dame Ethel Smyth at Milton Court Concert Hall in the Barbican.
Dame Ethel Smyth – suffragette, passionate bisexual and the first female composer to be made a Dame of the British Empire – provided the inspiration for a journey through a thousand years of choral masterpieces. We heard music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 19th century and the present day, including two world premieres, specially commissioned for this concert: a setting of poetry by Emily Dickinson by composer Kerry Andrew, and a special collaboration that paired words by actor and poet Ashleigh Wilder with music by singer-songwriter and activist CN Lester. Conducted by Jamie Powe, the concert was narrated by leading actors on stage and screen Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply; Wolf) and Charlie Josephine (I, Joan; Cowbois). Photos: Matthew Johnston "That really was phenomenal. Even aside from the adventurous programming and creative composition of the whole, the singing was really beautiful. Such a blend and subtle dynamics. Just lovely. I found it so moving” “The choir is incredible, world class. But also that it is rooted in the identity it has and commissions from that place is so inspiring. |
My Beloved Man - August 2023
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The love that Britten and Pears had for each other during their 39-year relationship was at the heart of this concert. Using the letters they wrote to each other, read by Radio 3’s Petroc Trelawny and Capital Radio’s Zeb Soanes, Britten and Pears told their story in their own words - falling in love, living together illegally as a same-sex couple, exile in America, the hardships and separations of the War, their international success and the challenges of Britten’s failing health in his final years.
The Choir illustrated their story with a cappella choral music, not only by Britten and his friends and contemporaries, including Imogen Holst, Tippett and Samuel Barber, but also by the composers of earlier centuries that Britten loved and was influenced by, such as Purcell, Monteverdi and Pérotin, giving a 360-degree portrait of the man, his music - and his Beloved Man, Peter Pears. The Fourth Choir performed My Beloved Man at Snape Maltings, the concert hall that Britten and Pears built together, and were overwhelmed by the audience response, not only at the concert but afterwards on social media. Photos: Kathleen Holman "I’ve never known an entire choir to need to come back to take a second curtain call and I’ve been going regularly to Snape for nearly 40 years! So well deserved.” Alan F |
Classical Pride at The Barbican Hall - July 2023
Watch the encore - we also joined rising-star soprano Ella Taylor in a choral arrangement of the White Lotus theme music which brought the house down!
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The Fourth Choir, along with members from several other choirs, sang in Classical Pride, a special charity event to celebrate the profound contribution that the LGBTQ+ community makes to classical music.
We sang a new piece Echoes by Julian Anderson, written especially for the occasion, with baritone soloist Davóne Tines and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Oliver Zeffman. The concert also featured music by LGBTQ+ composers, from Tchaikovsky to Poulenc, Bernstein, and Caroline Shaw as well as LGBTQ+ soloists Pavel Kolesnikov, Samson Tsoy, Nicky Spence, and Ella Taylor. It was a wonderful occasion, raising money for three fantastic LGBTQ+ charities: Terrence Higgins Trust, Amplifund and Rainbow Railroad. Photo: Matthew Johnson The Anderson "was rapturously sung by the LGBTQ+ Community Choir assembled for the occasion". [The choir's] "echoes of the eloquent, statuesque American bass-baritone Davóne Tines's words were vividly affecting". |
Love, Loss & the Whole Damn Thing - June 2023
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We were thrilled to make our debut at the world-famous Wigmore Hall with a special Pride concert, celebrating exclusively the music of queer composers.
Titled Love, Loss & the Whole Damn Thing, there was love - a passionate setting of an ancient Irish poem by Samuel Barber, Gian Carlo Menotti’s lover of more than 40 years. There was death - a boy & and a boy, a celebration of a lifelong queer relationship by the Canadian composer, Stuart Beatch, formerly the Fourth Choir’s resident composer. The poem is a queer riposte to the well-known piece by Eric Whitacre, A Boy and A Girl. There were laughs - Jennifer Higdon’s witty Telegram which references both Elvis and Emily Dickinson. And there were tears - Aaron Copland’s heart-breaking motet Help Us O Lord and Michael Tippett’s rousing setting of the spiritual Deep River. Plus music from from Benjamin Britten, Meredith Monk, Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, Peter Maxwell Davies, Kerry Andrew, William Linthicum-Blackhorse and Leonard Bernstein, queer composers exploring everything in this life and beyond. Conducted by Nicholas Chalmers, presented by Petroc Trelawny with an introduction and special performance by our Patron Ann Murray DBE. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
Memorial Service - April 2023
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The Choir was honoured to sing at a Memorial Service at Hinde St Methodist Church organised by OneBodyOneFaith, a charity advocating for a change of attitude by all the Christian denominations in the UK towards the LGBT+ members of those church communities.
The purpose of the Memorial Service was to raise awareness amongst church leaders to the loss of life to suicide and the wider experience of harm experienced by LGBT+ people, following exclusion from and mistreatment in church environments. Representatives from ten Christian denominations attended the Service. |
The Only Planet - April 2023
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Guest Conductor (and Fourth Choir bass) Dusty Francis hails from Ohio and the music he selected for The Only Planet at the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse had an American flavour.
The concert was structured around the three verses of In the Cool of the Day, a haunting ballad by Jean Ritchie, a folksinger-songwriter from the Kentucky Mountains who was a major influence on Bob Dylan. Each verse contains a stricture that we may only live in the Garden if we keep the grasses green, feed the lambs, keep the waters clean. Evocations of the beauty of nature by William Billings, an 18th century composer from Boston, and contemporary composer Carol E. Barnett from Iowa, gave way to compositions by queer composers Samuel Barber (In the Coolin’) and Stuart Beatch (a boy & a boy), in which the beauty of nature became a metaphor for the happiness of loving couples. Further reflections on nature were provided by New Yorkers Adolphus Hailstork (Nocturne) and William Hawley (Not One Sparrow is Forgotten) and Dale Trumbore (Returning) from Southern California. Europe was represented by Judith Bingham (The Drowned Lovers), Vaughan Williams (Full Fathom Five) and Finnish composer, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, whose Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae, a lament for the 852 lives lost when a ferry sank in the Baltic in 1994, is an acknowledged choral masterpiece. The concert culminated with Cooper Baldwin’s excoriating Libera Me in which words from the Latin Requiem Mass "Deliver me, oh Lord, from the day of wrath when you come to judge the world by fire” intermingle with extracts from the 2022 IPCC Report warning of the effects that global warming will have on this Garden, this Earth, our Only Planet. Alto solo by Cara Curran in The Drowned Lovers by Judith Bingham. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
2022
Music for a Winter's Night - December 2022
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Our December concert was a celebration of winter, in the stunning church of St Clement Danes in the Strand. The first half of the concert explored themes of miraculous birth from the Christian tradition and beyond, with early works by underrepresented composers including Vicente Lusitano – the first black composer published in Europe, and the recently rediscovered legacy of women composers who worked in Renaissance Italian convents. Composers such as Isabella Leonarda, who didn’t start to compose until the age of 50 and went on to compose over 200 works. These were paired with more modern works by Nathaniel Dett, Cecilia McDowall and Shruthi Rajeskar's shimmering Star of Rohini, which draws parallels between the mythologies surrounding the births of the infant Jesus and Krishna.
In the second half of the concert the choir sang traditional and reimagined carols and seasonal works in Swedish, Spanish, Hebrew and German. A poignant trio of lullabies leads on to Jonathan Dove's dramatic The Three Kings before a blissful and atmospheric ending of Jan Sandström's arrangement of Pretorius' Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen. An address was given by Aderonke Apata, who founded African Rainbow Family, a charity that supports LGBTIQ+ refugees and asylum seekers of African heritage fleeing persecution from their countries of origin. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance - November 2022
Watch just The Lords' Prayer here, or watch the full programme on BBC iPlayer (UK only) or on YouTube (International).
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We were very honoured to have been asked to perform in the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance 2022 at the Royal Albert Hall. The Festival is a commemorative event dedicated to all those that have served and sacrificed from Britain and the Commonwealth.
Other performers included Andrea Bocelli, Hollywood actor and singer Luke Evans, West End star Hannah Waddingham, musical theatre sensation Marisha Wallace, actress Shona McGarty, spoken word poet Jaspreet Kaur, and The Bach Choir. His Majesty, King Charles and members of the Royal Family attended and The Festival was broadcast on BBC One. The Choir was conducted by Jamie Powe and sang a setting of The Lord's Prayer by William Petter for the Service of Remembrance. We also joined actress Shona McGarty in a rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and sang the hymns Jerusalem and Sunset (based on the traditional bugle call) with the Bach Choir and congregation. For me your singing of the Lord’s Prayer was perfect for the moment and took us beautifully on from the prayers to the poem. The singing of the Lord's Prayer made a beautiful contrast to the powerful, martial music of the Muster prior to the service. |
From Great Kings to Great Gatsby - October 2022
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The Fourth Choir was thrilled that our Autumn Concert was in the historic - and chic - Eltham Palace and the music that we chose reflected both characteristics of the Palace. In the first half we sang Tudor music to the accompaniment of a lute and interposed Cecilia McDowall’s evocative O Oriens (“The splendour of the eternal light from the East”) to commemorate the visit of no less a figure than the Emperor of Byzantium who spent Christmas 1400 at Eltham Palace.
The music in the second half reflected the Gatsby designs of the Courtauld renovations. We sang music by Gershwin, George Shearing and, in his 150th anniversary year, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ luxuriantly beautiful Serenade to Music. The concert was conducted by Hillary Campbell, with Jonatan Bougt on Lute and Guitar, and Ian Shaw on Piano. James Tucker took us through readings on the history of the Palace as well as The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
Love in Bloom - July 2022
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For its Pride Concert this year, The Fourth Choir celebrated that endlessly fascinating subject, LOVE! We included music by Kate Rusby, Michel LeGrand, Leonard Bernstein, Robbie Burns, Cecilia McDowall and Judith Weir. The concert also featured a performance of The Hymn to St Cecilia, an astonishing twelve-minute masterpiece by those queer geniuses, Benjamin Britten and WH Auden, which asks whether love should be chaste or sexual - St Cecilia or Aphrodite.
The concert was at Stone Nest, scene of the Limelight, London’s most hedonistic nightclub in the 1980s. And because we were performing in the heart of the West End, we celebrated music theatre with wonderful choral arrangements of pieces from Rent and West Side Story. Conducted by Ben Horden with a solo by Dame Ann Murray. |
The Politics of Polyphony - Music to Die for - March 2022
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This concert followed the fascinating history of polyphony from its earliest beginnings, through the turbulent and dangerous days of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, to the present day. How did composers comply with the diktats of kings, queens and popes - even when they felt that to do so would imperil their immortal souls - and still manage to produce some of the most beautiful choral music ever written?
A thousand years of music was performed in the Romanesque majesty of the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield (founded in 1123 and about to celebrate its 900th anniversary). The masterpieces of Josquin, Byrd, Tallis and Palestrina were be paired with more modern compositions by Judith Weir, Kerry Andrew, Rosephanye Powell, Nathaniel Dett and Poulenc, revealing surprising similarities in music composed worlds and centuries apart. Conducted by Jamie Powe with a narrative performance by actor Nick Mercer. Photos: Kathleen Holman |
Winter Light - January 2022
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At the darkest time of the year, poets - especially in northern Europe - turn to the celebration of light. Last year, during a very dark time we were deprived of the consolation of music and community so the Fourth Choir was delighted to be return once again to the beautiful church of St Clement Danes in the Strand to celebrate light and new life.
Hilary Campbell conducted the Choir in winter-themed masterpieces by William Byrd, Gerald Finzi, Nicola LeFanu, Sally Beamish as well as the deliciously French Hymn à la Vierge by Villette. We also moved northwards to Russia, Denmark and Latvia where they really know about winter light. Rachmaninov’s Nunc Dimittis, perhaps the most beautiful movement from his All Night Vigil Vespers, leads into Winter Hymn by the Danish composer Per Nørgård, a choral work of almost symphonic breadth and intensity. The concert closed with Stars by Erik Ešenvalds, accompanied by the other-worldly sound of singing glasses. |
2021
A Meeting Place - October 2021
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A Meeting Place was a collaborative performance project between The Fourth Choir and an ensemble of Deaf professional musicians and performers and was held at Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican. The performers were conducted by Nicholas Chalmers and included Dr Paul Whittaker OBE, Raffie Julien, Stacey Ghent, Sean Chandler and Becky Barry.
The concert took a step beyond interpretation and created a fully bilingual and bicultural programme that deeply explored how to marry sung and signed performance and created a musical "meeting place" between the Deaf and hearing world. We included a cappella music spanning over 450 years and premiered an innovative new choral commission by Kate Whitley, that used an original British Sign Language poem by DL Williams as its source text. With support from The National Lottery Community Fund and D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust. |
The Breath of Life - July 2021
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After 18 months without an audience, the Fourth Choir lifted up our voices once again in St Augustine's Kilburn Church and reflected on the pain and losses of the pandemic. We sang the Requiem of 1603 by Tomás Luis de Victoria, interspersed with pieces by contemporary composers: Songs of Sorrow by Sheena Phillips, a lament for the war in Syria; Jessica Curry’s Home, a setting of a poem by Warsan Shire that became famous during the refugee crisis (“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark”); and a setting for double choir by William H. Harris. The rest of the concert consists of songs of hope by James MacMillan, Joanna Marsh, Eric Whitacre, Ēriks Ešenvalds and Cecila McDowall’s Regina Caeli with its thrilling opening exultation of “Alleluia”.
Esther Jones: Guest Musical Director |
A message for Earth Day - April 2021
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Earth Song by Frank Ticheli
'The scorched Earth cries out in vain' To mark Earth Day 2021 we collaborated with another queer classical ensemble Cor Flammae from Vancouver, Canada to record this haunting song by Frank Ticheli. Planned, recorded and edited in isolation. |
