The Choir: Past and Present

Celebrating 25 years of Manchester Community Choir

The beginning

Manchester Community Choir has been active for over 25 years (Above: MCC in 2008 at Victoria Baths). Throughout that time there have been changes of singers, changes of rehearsal venue and changes of musical director but the choir, as an entity, has remained a constant. Finding the joy in singing and in sharing that singing with audiences throughout the city, the North West and the country. This page tells the story of those 25 years

The idea for forming a community choir for Manchester arose from a singing class sponsored by the Workers Educational Association (WEA) in the late 1990s, held at the Greenheys Adult Education centre in Rusholme with Faith Watson as course leader.

This group was about meeting to sing together – as with MCC there were no auditions and no need to read music but unlike MCC there wasn’t even an audience! Just singing for the pleasure of it, with no performance singing in public

Some members of the group wanted a chance to perform in public for an audience and it was proposed that a new group would be formed for people who wanted a ’performance’ choir. The group would meet to rehearse once a month and aim for about 4 performances a year.

On 5^th November 1998 a letter was sent off to The Coop Bank, signed by the newly elected treasurer, with a cheque for £50 to open the new group’s bank account. 26 years later we still bank with the Coop, but very few cheques are seen now!

In 1999 rehearsals began at the Union Chapel in Fallowfield (our home for the next 15 years) with Faith Watson and Jules Gibb sharing the Musical Director role.

Our Musical Directors

The choir has been fortunate in having some fabulous Musical Directors over the years. Each has helped shape the content and direction of the choir, always ensuring the highest standards but maintaining the joy of singing at the heart of what the choir does.

Jules Gibb 1999-2002 Faith Watson 1999-2002

Watch the choir performing with Jules and Faith at the Holocaust Memorial concert at the Bridgewater Hall in early 2002 HERE

Carol Donaldson 2002-2008

Watch the choir performing with Carol at the launch of the Unite Against Racism campaign at Manchester Town Hall in 2004 HERE

Liz Powers 2008-2019

Watch the choir performing with Liz at the choir's 20th Anniversary concert at Didsbury Baptist Church 2019 HERE

Rose Hodgson 2019-Present

Watch the choir performing with Rose at the Manchester Craft and Design Centre in the Northern Quarter in December 2019 HERE

Street Choirs Festivals

From the beginning, the annual Street Choirs Festival has played an important, much loved, and anticipated part in the life of the choir. Over 20 years ago he newly formed choir hosted the National Street Music Festival (as it was then called) in 2000. The theme was 'Joined up Singing' and you can listen to one of the choir's performance songs being rehearsed HERE.



In 2007 Manchester hosted the National Street Choir again, while Carol was choir leader

In 2019 MCC played host once again, to the Street Choirs Festival, it was the biggest ever SCF with over 1400 singers attending from over 44 choirs. Members of the choir worked incredibly hard to plan, organise and execute the festival to much acclaim. The massed sing event was introduced by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and led by both Liz Powers and Rose Hodgson - our outgoing and incoming MDs.

You can watch the recording of our performance as the last choir of the evening at the Royal Northern College of Music in July 2019 HERE

10 years of street choir festivals 2013-2023

Click on the text to see our photos for each festival

Bury 2012

Aberystwyth 2013

Hebden Bridge 2014

Whitby 2015

Leicester 2016

Kendal 2017

Brighton 2018

Manchester 2019

Whitby 2022

Kendal 2023

The LLangollen international music Eisteddfod 2016-2023

The choir has be delighted to perform, on a non-competitive basis, at the Llangollen Eisteddfod since 2016. Click on the years below to see each gallery

2016 2017 2018 2022 2023

10 Years of Chorlton Arts Festival 2013-2023

Performing at Chorlton Arts Festival has been a highlight of the choir calendar for quites a few years . Click on the links below to see some archive photos of perforformances at a variety of Chorlton venues.

2013 St Ninians 2014 St Werburghs 2015 St Werburghs 2016 St Werburghs 2017 The Irish Club

2023 St Ninians

More performances

As well as regularly participating in exciting festivals with enthusiastic fellow singers from other national and international choirs, the choir is also pleased to respond to many requests to sing to raise funds and raise awareness, to celebrate and commemorate local events, to join in with community events across Greater Manchester as well as organising our own concerts.

The following photo albums from Manchester Community Choir archives give a flavour of some of our past events and will bring back many memories to those current and former members who have been part of MCC life over the years.