NORTHERN SINFONIA CHORUS AT 40
For 40 years Northern Sinfonia Chorus has been an integral, ever-present part of the Northern Sinfonia musical family drawing on talented and committed singers from across the North of England.
Choruses allow an orchestra to present the great, stand-out works from history; Mozart’ s Requiem, Bach’ s Passions and Haydn’ s Masses and performances of these have formed the core repertoire for Northern Sinfonia Chorus. However its role in Sage Gateshead’ s classical programme is altogether more ambitious matching the breadth of repertoire of the orchestra itself. Regular performances of the classics are frequently placed alongside modern masterpieces and the chorus now regularly features in both Hall One and our more eclectic Hall Two series, Late Mix.
Former Northern Sinfonia Timpanist Alan Fearon founded the chorus and continues to lead them whilst playing a crucial role in the choral and vocal strategy at Sage Gateshead. The chorus has worked with many guest conductors and with every Music Director since Rudolph Schwartz, the orchestra’ s second Music Director, including for the last 12 seasons Thomas Zehetmair.
From 2004 to 2012 renowned choral conductor Simon Halsey led the chorus as Principal Conductor Choral Programme. In this 40th season Northern Sinfonia Chorus once again feature in a full range of programmes
with Thomas Zehetmair and Alan Fearon and in a final flourish give their first ever performance of Beethoven’ s stunning‘ Missa Solemnis’.
As we say farewell to Thomas as Music Director one thing remains certain, that Northern Sinfonia Chorus will continue to play a major role in the classical programme and we look forward to embarking on their next musical adventures. www. sagegateshead. com 09