It’s our 20th wedding anniversary this month – so who from 1996 remains on the local musical scene? (Strictly speaking, I didn’t arrive in Bath till late August, but I started investigating choirs before I moved here.)
In Bath, we have Peter King as organist of the Abbey (but he’s about to retire), Keith Bennett still conducts the Paragon Singers (but hands them over at the end of the year), and Nigel Perrin is in charge of the City of Bath Bach Choir. On the orchestral front, Jason Thornton conducts the Bath Philharmonia, though they are now a professional group. I’d be interested to hear of anyone else still waving their arms in front of the same group of people. [The DoM at my church points out that he will have been in post 20 years, at the end of this year.]
I’m less sure about Bristol, as I didn’t really have contact with its musical scene for the first few years I was in the area. But one piece of continuity is that John Marsh still directs the Lord Mayor’s Chapel choir, having taken over 20 years ago, as a retirement post! (Sadly his predecessor died just as he was giving up the job.)
In that time some choirs have disbanded: the Chantry Singers, the Bath Festival Chorus and the Brandon Hill Singers for example. I also note that I’ve been waiting to sing with some local groups for almost as long as I’ve lived in Bath. I went on a waiting list for auditions with the Paragon Singers in 1998 and although I’ve been on the dep list for the Lord Mayor’s Chapel for 20 years I’ve never been asked to sing with them or with the Lord Mayor’s Chapel Singers. When 3 Choirs folk ask me ‘why are you singing with a choir so far from where you live?’ I sometimes point out that this is what happened when I tried locally.