FINCHLEY CHILDREN’S MUSIC GROUP

“one of the finest kids choirs around” - Evening Standard

Founded in December 1958, 2008/9 marked the 50th anniversary of the Finchley Children’s Music Group.  FCMG is a highly versatile group of mixed-voiced choirs, three upper voice choirs and an SATB chamber choir, and is committed to the promotion of singing and choral music for young people aged between 4 and 18.  The choirs are well known for their natural, vibrant vocal quality and high level of musicianship and professionalism.

The choir was established following the London premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Noyes Fludde, at Southwark Cathedral and since then has maintained strong links with the works of Benjamin Britten and the opera itself. Perhaps the most notable FCMG staging was for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 1991, with Donald Maxwell and Della Jones as Mr and Mrs Noye, and Dame Cleo Laine as God.  Other staged works performed by FCMG include Britten’s Children’s Crusade at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Barbican broadcast live on Radio 3, and Malcolm Williamson’s Julius Caesar Jones, last produced in 1994 at Sadler’s Wells, for the group’s 35th anniversary.  Over the years, many FCMG singers have sung with opera companies including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; English National Opera, and major European opera houses.

FCMG enjoys performing a wide and varied repertoire in London’s major concert venues and abroad. In addition to our own regularly self promoted concerts, FCMG is frequently invited to take part in performances of larger choral works and as part of festivals including the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival and City of London Festival, with professional choirs and orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Singers. The choir has performed major choral works from Bach St Matthew Passion and Orff Carmina Burana, to Britten Spring Symphony and Ravel L’Enfant et les Sortilèges under conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Richard Hickox, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Andre Previn and our President Sir Colin Davis. Equally at home with other areas of the music industry, the choir has also performed live with Madonna for Live Earth at the new Wembley Stadium and recorded with Paul McCartney and George Martin at Air Studios.

At the time the choir was founded, very few composers wrote specifically for children’s voices and since its inception, FCMG has had a policy of commissioning new works to develop and widen the available repertoire. These include the operas Potter Thompson by Gordon Crosse and Julius Caesar Jones by Malcolm Williamson and works by Richard Blackford, Brian Chapple, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Finnissy, Christopher Gunning and most recently song cycles written for our 50th anniversary by James Weeks and John Pickard. FCMG has also performed works by many contemporary composers including David Bedford, Orlando Gough, Hans Werner Henze, Elizabeth Maconchy, Paul Patterson, Wolfgang Rihm and Alec Roth. FCMG also enjoyed a strong link with the Italian composer Luciano Berio, under whose direction they performed his work Ofanim in Rome, Florence, Madrid and Vienna.

In December 2008, FCMG held a reunion concert at St John’s Smith Square, performing Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and St Nicolas. Other recent engagements include concerts at Kings Place, Barbican, and the London premiere of Michael Finnissy’s opera Mankind (concert performance) as part of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music.  FCMG enjoyed a long association with English National Ballet, singing the “snowflakes chorus” for their annual production of The Nutcracker at the Royal Festival Hall and the London Coliseum.  Last year FCMG joined forces with Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford, for the London performances of Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light at Sadler’s Wells with the Rambert Dance Company.   FCMG has just given the premiere of Terry Mann’s Common Dance at the Borough Hall with Greenwich Dance Agency and choreographer Rosemary Lee as part of Dance Umbrella 2009,  and last December they performed at Kings Place with the Henschel Quartet to give the UK premiere of Derek Smith’s Carolingua. Future performances include the world premiere of Steve Block’s Solaris with the Hertfordshire Chorus under David Temple at the Barbican.

This spring, FCMG will premiere The Jailer’s Tale, a children’s opera commissioned as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations by Malcolm Singer with libretto by Nick Toczek.  A concert performance of the opera will be given at the Menuhin Hall in early February before the full production moves to the Pentland Theatre at the “artsdepot”, Finchley later that month.

FCMG has recorded regularly for radio, television, film and on the Hyperion, Naxos, Somm, EMI and Decca labels.  Over the last two years the choir has been used extensively to record tracks for Sing Up!, the government initiative to encourage singing in primary schools.

New members are always welcome to join FCMG.  There are four different choirs and the age range of the children is from four to eighteen. The Beginners and Intermediates choirs are open to all. In order to enter into the Senior and Chamber choirs, it is necessary to audition. Children may join FCMG at any time - it is not essential to have passed through the early stages of FCMG in order to audition for the Senior Choir, although having done so will have provided children with a very sound musical basis on which to build.  There is an annual Summer School which provides a week of intensive music making at the highest level.  Every other year a European Tour enables the children to perform in some of the major cathedrals on the continent including Notre Dame, Paris, and in other prestigious venues and concert halls.

FCMG is a registered charity. We have no premises of our own, but rehearse in rented space at a North London primary school. Apart from the music staff and a part-time administrator, the choir is very much dependent on parents who voluntarily take on all other aspects of its organisation including fundraising, chaperoning etc.  Choir members pay a termly subscription to cover weekly rehearsal costs but there is financial assistance available in cases of hardship to ensure that children are not prevented from joining by family circumstances. 

Although based in North London, and maintaining strong links with the immediate community, members come from throughout London and neighboring counties.  The children and young people are drawn from a wide variety of social, economic and cultural backgrounds with some members are in foster care.  There are currently a little over 150 members of FCMG.

For more information visit www.fcmg.org.uk