Bournemouth Male Voice Choir Music
Put simply, we sing anything, as long as it’s good of its type. In reality we have moved away from the traditional “male voice choir” repertoire and tend to specialise in repertoire that we find interesting and (from all feedback) our audiences have also found stimulating. We programme each concert as a sort of “musical odyssey” – touching on as many different styles and genres as we reasonably can. Our inspiration comes from many different places; we particularly love the work of Chor Leoni (from Vancouver), The King’s Singers, Primus Amabile Men’s Ensemble and Orphei Drängar (from Sweden).
We are committed, in particular, to new music; we believe that the future of choral music depends on new compositions being written for choir and (in the case of male choirs) this is vital to their survival. If you are a composer of music for choirs and would like to write for us please get in touch using our contact page. Over the recent years we have given European premieres of music by a number of contemporary composers. Our most recent in 2019 was Flight Song, with music by Kim Andre Arnesen and Words by Euan Tait — We were delighted that Euan was able to attend the premiere. We are currently singing late 20th Century and 21st Century music by Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Timothy Takach, Goff Richards, Alan Simmons, Randall Stroope and many more.
We also enjoy folk songs and fine arrangements of songs from the British Isles and from further afield are often found in our concerts; these arrangements are often unaccompanied. Some of the best arrangers who have ever written for men’s voices have written settings of these songs and we have works by Marshall Bartholomew, Hugh Roberton, William Smith, John Rutter among many others that we enjoy very much.
We sing a wide range of sacred choral music too, from Palestrina to Poulenc, via Mendelssohn, Schubert and so much more; there is even room in there for the excellent Welsh hymn tune “Llef” – the Musical Director’s favourite “male choir” piece. New additions to the sacred repertoire include Rosephanye Powell’s new setting of Non Nobis Domine – an exciting rhythmic piece that has an almost primal urge!
But do we let our hair down? Well yes, more than you might think! The last set in our concerts is invariably our “lollipops” – doo-wop, songs from the shows, boy band numbers, romantic ballads and some fancy footwork shows that we aren’t all work and no play. Many of these arrangements are exclusive to the choir; either written especially for us and tailored to our resources or gifted to us by arrangers who enjoy our work, we are very grateful to both those sources for bringing so much to our work. Current more modern music we are working on includes songs by Billy Joel,Snow Patrol and Queen. Stagecraft, choreography and a great deal of Joie de vivre goes into making these sets a lot of fun for us and for our audiences.
We sincerely believe that our concert repertoire has something for all tastes, both in terms of the enjoyment of audience and singers alike. We make no apology for constantly searching for new highs in our music making, for the new experiences that will compliment the old. We are “Proud of our past but looking to the future”.
Listen to a Sample of our Music
Seal Lullaby
Taken from the album - One Voice
To listen to the full song click here