The Ceramic City Choir

The Ceramic City Choir, North Staffordshire's largest choral society, was founded in 1942, largely as a result of encouragement from the distinguished conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent. 

The Choir has specialised in singing the major works of the choral repertoire from Monteverdi to modern composers.  It has sung with several distinguished orchestras including several years with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Sir Charles Groves.  Other notable conductors have included Owain Arwel Hughes, Christopher Robinson, Dr Donald Hunt, Ian Tracey and Sir David Willcocks.  More recently, we have sometimes been accompanied by the Manchester Camerata. 

We sing a wide range of choral music, from the works of long-established composers like Mozart, Handel, and Brahms, to more modern works by people like Shearing, Esenvalds, Whitacre and Lauridsen. 

Several classical pieces have been given their first performance in Stoke-on -Trent.  These include Te Deum by Berlioz, Alexander Nevsky by Prokofiev, King Olaf by Elgar and Joseph Jongen's Mass. 

King Olaf was performed in November 1996 on the 100th anniversary of this work's first performance in the Victoria Hall under the composer's baton.  The 1996 performance was conducted by Donald Hunt with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and was broadcast on Radio 3. In November 1998 the Choir joined forces with the City of London Symphonia in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No 9 to mark the reopening of the refurbished Victoria Hall. 

Ceramic City Choir has joined forces with other local choirs to sing notably, Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man, and Verdi's Requiem. Over the years the choir has sung several special and unusual concerts.  Two concerts marked the International Voices for Hospices movement with Aled Jones and Emma Johnson as guest soloists.  We also sang in two concerts with the Russian Army Band.  

A concert in memory of Lidice was sung in 2012.  Miners in Stoke on Trent helped to rebuild the town of Lidice in Czechoslovakia after the inhabitants were slaughtered by the Nazis in 1942.  Here the Choir sang the Lord's Prayer in Czech.  

In 2013 the choir performed Bob Chilcott's Furusato which was sung in Japanese - we are nothing if not adventurous.  On other occasions we have sung in Russian, German, French, and of course, Latin. In the same year that Anthony was appointed Conductor and Director of Music, Angela Tams took on the role of President of the Choir and Geoff Hall became Chairman.  Under their leadership, as we enter our ninth decade, we look forward to singing again, and ensuring that live choral music can be enjoyed by the people of Stoke on Trent.