Centenary
Celebrating 100 Years of The York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir
For a century, the York Phil has enriched lives with music, passion, and a sense of community. As we mark this milestone with a 2025 concert programme that takes us across North Yorkshire, plus a Gala night celebration in York we celebrate not just our musical achievements, but also the enduring friendships and collaborative spirit that have enriched our journey.
Our Story: From a humble beginning to international success
A handful of men in the front room of a small terraced house wanted to be better singers. From that ambition has grown one of the best choirs in the country. Early days spent rehearsing to an out of tune piano with missing keys did not hold back the climb to international competition success and TV fame by 1975, followed by another 50 years of top level success.
More than just a choir 'The Phil' has always been a community of singers and supporters which has always reached out to work with other choral societies. In the early years it had close friendships with York Old Priory, and Monkgate Methodist choirs and was influenced by the older established York Male Voice Choir.
Those early collaborations have been replaced by a long-lasting friendship with the male choirs in both Münster in Germany and Lochem in the Netherlands, as well as with two locally based ladies' choirs - Harmonia and Jubilate.
Sound Fellows
To celebrate 100 years of song, our own life member Colin Hockridge has written a book that we are very proud to share with you.
In 300 pages, including more than 100 photographs, Sound Fellows describes a choir journey which is as fresh and ambitious now as it was in 1925.
Modern technology allows the story to be enhanced by 20 audio /visual clips dating back to 1958 all accessible by QR codes.
Sound Fellows also seeks to illustrate choral life in the region between 1900-1955 by including extensive tributes to York Old Priory, Monkgate Methodist and York Male Voice Choirs all fine choirs now disbanded, and also a Miscellany chapter of news cuttings.
Priced at £25 plus p&p copies are available at concerts and via choir members. For anyone further away we will endeavour to get a copy to you wherever you live. For all enquires please get in touch with our team.
Colin Hockridge
Here are some comments made in the first week of publication
Centenary Souvenir Programme
A 16 page Centenary Souvenir Programme will be published in May. This will include a snapshot history of the Phil enhanced by audio clips linked by QR codes. It will also give details of the Charity Gala Night to be held in York's Barbican Centre on Sunday 21st September 2025. We will be joined that night by two ladies' choirs, a small female and a male ensembles and a section of the Golden Rail Brass Band.
It also describes of the three local charities benefiting from the concert. Menfulness; North Yorkshire Music Therapy Centre; and Shine 21.
Priced at £2 it will be on sale at concerts through the year.
We can also post you a copy (plus p&p) so for more information please get in touch with the team today.
Centenary Events Review
Saturday the 8th March was the first time that the Phil was introduced on stage as being ‘in their centenary year’. We opened the last evening of the 7 day York Community Choir Festival with a set of 5 numbers. This was the 10th anniversary of this non-competitive festival, which this year attracted 38 choirs with some 1250 performers. Choirs came from as far as Harrogate, Malton, Selby, and Easingwold – a testament both to the event and to the popularity of choral singing. It was a good start to our year of celebrations.
Monday March 17th saw a normal rehearsal night replaced by a musical social. With an audience of family and friends we enjoyed a mix of solos, duets, quartets with the addition of guitars, percussion, Northumbrian pipes and a penny whistle. A slideshow of earlier socials ran during the interval ( thanks to the team for some excellent catering) and the evening ended with the full choir coming together. It was certainly a change from a normal rehearsal as seen in this image of 5 baritones ( including the guitarist) showing their potential.
Saturday 12th April - back at Whitby for the Eskdale Festival. It was a warm sunny day with many family groups on the beach and a few brave youngsters testing the winter temperature of the North Sea. It was an enjoyable day but it was disappointing to have only 8 choirs competing. There had been 13 in 2024 which had given encouragement that the post covid recovery was working well. We came away with a first prize and two seconds.
Saturday 10th May - Selby Abbey: We performed our first full concert of the year in the medieval splendour of Selby Abbey. We had last sung there in 2022 and once again had an enthusiastic and appreciative audience. This was the first concert in which our deputy music director Emilie Bels ( appointed in November 2024) conducted some of the pieces including two which gave Berry Lewis the chance to follow another of her passions and accompany the choir on the Abbey organ.
Despite 100 years of experience we still didn't manage to get all our arrangements correct. These days we do occasionally add a Cajon ( wooden box drum on which the player sits and beats with hands) to rhythmic pieces. This is played by young tenor Ollie Innes. For 'Hakuna Mungu' ( a song of praise from Africa) Ollie positioned himself alongside the grand piano. However the stone floor of the Abbey is so smooth and slippery that as he played his beating pushed him further and further back until he momentarily lost the beat as he almost disappeared under the piano.
The other detail we missed was lighting. The concert started with the Abbey bathed in evening sunlight but ended in gloom with only minor adjustments to internal lighting. This led to the discreet ( not visible to the audience) recruitment of a regular choir supporter to stand and illuminate the piano key board using the torch on a mobile phone.
The evening had begun with a tribute paid to one of our most respected long serving members Steve Boothman, who had lost his long, courageous and dignified fight with cancer the day before, and ended with a standing ovation and a piano lit by torchlight -and this ancient church embraced it all.
Hopefully we will back again in a couple of years time.
Friday 23rd May - Impossible Restaurant - an unusual event for the Phil in recent years - singing for diners and visitors to York at a time other than Christmas. A reduced sized choir performed in a room used to such events as an older generation of York residents still think of it as Terry's Ballroom. It was an interesting night with, as expected, an international audience, but one a little smaller than both the restaurant and choir would have liked.
Saturday 7th June Church of Christ the Consoler, Skelton on Ure: Our concert at Skelton was held on a Saturday evening fraught with the possibility of torrential rain and thunder, but the dire predictions of the forecasters went mercifully unrealised. Our venue was the superb high Victorian Gothic church in the grounds of Newby Hall built by Lady Mary Vyner in memory of her son who was murdered by Greek brigands We were fortunate that in addition to the absence of rain we were relatively undisturbed both by the nearby tractor festival and a busy caravan site.
This concert was also the first to be conducted by our relatively new deputy musical director Emilie Bels, whose evident delight and enthusiasm transmitted itself both to the audience and to the chaps in the choir. if there were any nerves, they certainly didn't show, whilst Helen's sterling piano accompaniment kept everything on track. An opening set of three tried and trusted pieces ("Jolly Roger", "Little Innocent Lamb" and "Gwahoddiad") was followed by James Elliot's solo of Flanders and Swann's "Gnu" song. Then the choir gave us Elgar's mystical "Feasting I Watch", the perennial crowd pleaser "Hakunu Mungu", and for the classical cognoscenti Mozart's "Oh Isis and Osiris".
Larry Gibson gave a moving and powerful rendition of John Legend's ballad "All of Me", then the floor was given back to the full choir and a rip roaring "What shall we do with a Drunken Sailor" and "Down by the Riverside" concluding the first half.
One suitable refreshment and comfort interval later, the second part opened with the old favourite "Alexander's Ragtime Band", then "Portrait of my Love" and "Tydi a Roddaist" with its thunderous "Amen" coda raising the roof. The next solo item was Rob Smith singing "What a wonderful world", gamely stepping in for Graham Hudson who was unfortunately unwell that evening. Then it was back to the full choir for "The Parting Glass" which as I try to keep telling everyone, despite what it says on the printed music is not Irish - its Scottish! From the land of my ancestors! Grrr! The German folk song "The Two Roses" was followed by the well received Snow Patrol song "Run", concluding the penultimate set.
By way of contrast, David Pike provided a comic star turn in the form of Stanley Holloway's "My word you do look Queer."( "you look like a corpse with an overcoat on" - priceless). The final songs were "He ain't Heavy, He's my Brother" and the rousing "American Trilogy". We were , of course, obliged by the standing ovation given to us by the greatly appreciative audience to give an encore, appropriately "I'm gonna Walk". So a successful and pleasant evening was had by all. James Elliot
( Editor's note: I was on holiday so James offered to write this review. I expect you are hoping the editor might go away again)
Concert – Church of Christ the Consoler, Skelton-on-Ure, June 7th. Our concert at Skelton was held on a Saturday evening fraught with the possibility of torrential rain and thunder, b We were of course obliged by the standing ovation given to us by the greatly appreciative audience to give an encore, appropriately “I’m Gonna Walk”. So a successful and pleasant evening was had by all. James Elliot
Saturday 21st June Gunnerside: Some years ago a retired chorister, Ken Horwell, who had joined the choir in 1946, recalled that his favourite memories were of performing in village chapels; when the choir would travel by York Pullman bus and enjoy a tea provided by the villagers . Ken used to marvel at the miraculous way in which these village ladies could create such a spread during times of post-war rationing. On the 21st June 2025 the Phil boarded a York Pullman coach and travelled to the Upper Swaledale village of Gunnerside to be greeted by this spread,
which was followed by an entertaining, energetic, and hot concert in the Methodist Chapel.
The Phil has made this journey every other year since 1992, at the request and with the
support of tenor Graham Edwards. Graham's father had been the the Methodist minister
here before the war and Graham first arrived in the village in 1940 as a baby travelling in a
laundry basket as his mother sought to protect her children from the expected bombing of
Rotherham. Since that day the village and its people have played a key role in Graham's life
as can be imagined by this photograph of a seven-year-old Graham leading one of
Jack Rutter's beasts though the village. It was lovely to have Graham in the audience for
this Midsummer concert.
We performed a full programme, including many of the items described by James Elliot in
the article above, to an enthusiastic audience of both Dales-folk and holiday makers.
The solo spots were both from musical theatre with Larry Gibson giving an excellent rendition of
'Bring him Home' from Les Miserables in the first half. During the second half the forecasted
thunder storm arrived so Rob Smith's rendition of 'Oh what a lovely Morning' from Oklahoma
had some very impressive additional heavenly bass accompaniment.
It is always a relaxed and friendly atmosphere in the chapel even though the choir has to be
shoehorned into the space available, and Berry was one more to add the chapel organ to our
rendition of 'American Trilogy', as she had at Selby Abbey, with Graham Kay directing the choir on
this occasion.
The concert was followed by a welcome drink in the village pub and then the long drive back.
Over the last 33 years the Phil has enjoyed every one of its Gunnerside trips and at the same time
has raised many thousands or pounds which has helped sustain this most attractive chapel and social centre. It felt good to be able to include this visit during our celebratory year.
Saturday 5th July Wilberfoss: On a fine summer evening we made a another visit to Wilberfoss Church. This is a popular venue with choir as the audiences are always welcoming and appreciative and the choir always seems to relaxed and so performs well. With Emi Bels sharing the conducting there was another opportunity for Berry to play the organ during three pieces. This did seem to be a shock to this small, rather tired but still working instrument. It probably gets little used these days given that the church has a fine Yamaha piano. It was a good concert to sing in and I am sure we will accept an invitation to return one more.
Sunday 27th July York Proms: We presented a 30 minute set on the Community stage as the last performance before the main event. With an audience of at least 2000 spread out across the Museum gardens our performance was well received. We had been asked to stay on stage at the end of our performance in order to lead the audience in the singing of the national anthem. However this was delayed by some minutes as the penalty shoot out in the Womens' Euro finals was underway. We then had the bizarre sight of the Master of ceremonies wearing his Georgian styled Town Crier's costume holding a mobile phone whilst updating the crowd. You can imagine the reaction when the match was won and indeed there are a number of videos on line which can be viewed. From a choir perspective this becomes yet another first ( and probably last) time we ill be in such a unique and enjoyable situation> The national anthem did get sung and we did get offstage.
Saturday 9th August Centenary Summer Concert: Held in the De Grey Ballroom to an almost full house we sang a programmes of songs which covers all the ten decades of the choir's life. It was a very entertaining mix which was well received. It had required the choir to learn some pieces likely to be sung only on this one night so there hard work was much appreciated.