History of Ramsey Choral SocietyHistory of Ramsey Choral Society
Ramsey Choral Society originated as an ad hoc group of singers who performed in 1989 as the Ramsey Festival Choir at the Ramsey Arts Festival under the direction of Normal Beedie.
In 1991 more singers were invited to augment this group and performed Faure's Requiem interspersed in a performance of Murder at the Cathedral by T S Eliot in St Thomas a Becket Church, Ramsey.
Following the success of this performance, it was recognised that there was potential for a more permanent choir to be formed so in that year the Ramsey Choral Society was born. Normal Beedie continued to be Director of Music until 2005 when he relocated back to his native Scotland. During his time as Director of Music, the choir performed many major works including Bach's Mass in B Minor, Haydn's Creation and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The choir performed with other musical groups – such as the City of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra and Oundle Choral Society as well as local schools.
From 2005 – 2007 the choir was led by Paul Parsons and in 2007 they took part in an exchange with Ensemble Tirade, a choir from Pornichet in France.
In May 2008, William Missin became Director of Music. During his time, the choir celebrated its twentieth Anniversary by performing Handle's Messiah. An Augmented choir of almost fifty singers was accompanied by a Baroque orchestra which was a great success.
Following William's sudden illness, Angus Davidson took over as our present Musical Director in 2012. Under Angus's direction until spring 2018, the choir continued to perform a range of works from Vivaldi to arrangements of songs from the shows and folk songs. Angus and family have now moved to USA.
Angus was followed by Tansy Castledine, Director of Music at peterborough Cathedral. Tansy's dynamic personality led the choir from strength to strength singing a variety of music from Purcell to Elton John. She admirably led the choir through lockdown with Zoom rehearslas which she managed to keep lively and entertaining. The choir were saddened to learn of her decision to resign so that she could focus on building her work at the Cathedral back to more normal times.
We were delighted to welcome Simon Berridge, a former member of The Sixteen to become our conductor in February 2022. He makes our rehearsals enjoyable and fun whilst aimimg for high standards.
