Southampton University Philharmonic Choir

The SUPhil consists of about 25 singers who rehearse and perform with the SPC - Southampton Philharmonic Choir - (a very large choir of over 150 people) who rehearse on a Monday evening 7:30-9:30pm in the Turner Sims Concert Hall on the Highfield campus.

The two groups sing as one and are conducted by a professional conductor - David Gibson - in three concerts per year. The choir is accompanied at its concerts by the New London Sinfonia and professional soloists.

The mix of the two choirs gives us a unique blend of youthful voices with those of more experienced singers, as well as offering a once in a lifetime opportunity to perform musical works on a massive scale in an ensemble of over 160 voices.

Recent concerts:

November 2010 – Grieg's Peer Gynt & Delius' Songs of Farewell, with Sam West (narrator)

This concert was very successful and attended by the President and Vice-President of the Grieg Society and the Chairman of the Delius Society, as well as the Norwegian Minister-Counsellor for Culture. As with the majority of our winter concerts it was performed in Southampton Guildhall, and this venue was popular, filling up from the front surprisingly quickly.

March 2011 - Mozart's Mass in C Minor and Solemn Vespers

This was another successful concert for the choir, performed at Winchester Cathedral – a favourite alternative venue for the choir and its regular audience.

Our next concert is a programme of English music at Southampton Guildhall on June 25th.

We also have other opportunities to sing, outside of rehearsals and concerts, in the form of choral workshops which are organised by the SPC each year. This year (2011) we looked at various aspects of vocal agility in our workshop using passages from Mozart's C Minor Mass as a basis. The workshop was led by guest Jacquelyn Fugelle, one of the most versatile sopranos of her generation who performs in opera, oratorio and recital, as well as by the choir's conductor, David Gibson.

For more information about the society, please contact the SuPhil Rep, Katharine Ferreira Naysmith, at or the SuPhil Assistant Rep, Christopher Gould, at .