We held a highly successful hymnathon on Saturday March 29th in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Fair Havens Hospice. Our thanks to Highlands Methodist Church for kindly allowing us the use of the church, to the ladies who provided us with much needed and most welcome refreshments and to our accompanist Michael Crabb and the two 'relief accompanists', Rosemary Pennington and Rex Berrecloth. Also, a special thank you to everyone that sponsored our choir members, who valiantly sang through 94 hymns and some choruses from 'Messiah'. The event took place from 10am to 4pm. The amount raised is estimated to be £7000. The final total will be posted on this site.

Southend Festival Chorus is looking for a new Musical Director. To apply, email a CV to the Secretary.

The performance on 17th May 2008 will be Michael Crabb's last as Musical Director of the Southend Festival Chorus.

Some members of the Chorus sang Carols at Southend Hospital just before Christmas. Pictures

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 26th September 2007.

The collection for the Mayor's charity after the Carol concert on December 3rd 2006 amounted to £767.

Sadly, one of our Altos, Helen Byrne, died suddenly on December 12th 2006. Helen was an extremely loyal and supportive member of the Southend Festival Chorus. We will miss her greatly. We send our deepest sympathy to her family.

At the recent Annual General Meeting, Chairman Nancy Roberts retired, having been in office since 1990. She was presented with a silver pendant depicting the choir logo, and a basket of flowers, and was thanked for all her hard work during her years as Chairman.
Nigel Warwick-Brown was elected as Chairman.

It is with sadness that we report the recent death of one of our founder members and a past chairman Arthur Humphrey. Several members of Southend Festival Chorus joined together with Holy Trinity Church choir and Southend Choral Society to bid a fond and musical farewell to Arthur. His funeral service took place at St Mary's Church Prittlewell on Monday March 6th. Arthur's son Roger conducted the choir. We sang the Hallelujah Chorus, Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, as well as hymns and a psalm setting. Emily Griffiths sang Geoffrey Burgon's Nunc Dimittis. The service was a moving and fitting tribute to Arthur. Our sympathy is extended to his widow Frances and his family.