The Church of Our Lady, Bruges 

Philomusica, with a mixed chorus of over 90 voices and its own soloists, remains true to its original aim of taking live music to a wide range of venues throughout the Three Counties.  Through this process Philomusica continues to raise substantial sums of money for various charities.  Philomusica has an extensive repertoire ranging from major oratorios to folksongs and has premiered a number of works including a work commissioned specifically for the society.

The Society has two rehearsal groups; Gloucester and Worcester and performs regularly in such venues as Cheltenham Town Hall , Gloucester Cathedral, Worcester Cathedral, Pershore Abbey and Tewkesbury Abbey.

Philomusica was formed in 1966 based on the enthusiasm of James Walkley, who became a Principal Soloist with the Society and James Cowley, who, until his untimely death in 1998 was its Musical Director.  Since its inception Philomusica has performed over 800 concerts in varied venues from small parish churches such as Compton Abdale to the three Cathedrals.

Highlights of the Society’s history include performances on two occasions attended by members of the Royal Family; one by the Prince and Princess of Wales and one by Princess Michael of Kent . In 1990 Philomusica visited Holland and took part in a Mozart Festival and in 1996 visited Metz in Northern France where they joined with a local choir to perform in Metz Cathedral and gave a concert on their own in the town’s premier concert hall, L’Arsenal. In 2000 the choir visited New England where they performed both in Gloucester and Worcester , Massachusetts .

In Spring 2006 the Choir visited Belgium and gave highly successful concerts of English music in Bruges and Aalst . Our varied selection of English music went down extremely well with the Belgian audiences, who gave us standing ovations at the end of each concert.

In season 2006/7 Philomusica is celebrating its fortieth anniversary – the choir was founded in autumn 1966 and gave its first concert in February 1967. To open the season we gave a gala performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius to a packed and very appreciative audience in Tewkesbury Abbey in November 2006. The concert was our tribute to our President, the distinguished tenor, John Mitchinson , who was our guest soloist, singing the title role. We were joined by the orchestra of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where Mitch was Head of Vocal Studies for many years, and by the Chamber Choir of Dean Close School, Cheltenham , where Mitch has been teaching singing more recently.

A very notable milestone happily coincided with our fortieth year. On April 28^th 2007 Philomusica gave its 900^th concert. Once again we were privileged to perform in Tewkesbury Abbey where Linda Parsons conducted a programme of music by two great composers who were born in the area from which we draw our membership and where we give most of our concerts. Sir Edward Elgar, who was born in Worcestershire, was represented by his ‘Enigma’ Variations and we also performed the mighty Sea Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was born in Gloucestershire. Their music has featured strongly in our programmes over the years so it was fitting that we included important and much-loved works by both of them on this significant occasion in our history.