Singers invited to take their place in prestigious arts festival line-up

THE Lichfield Festival Chorus, a group of amateur singers established for the first time last year, is seeking new members.

Singers of all ages have the chance to sing at a prestige concert on Tuesday, July 14, as part of the 2009 Lichfield Festival.

The chorus will be singing Proverbs And Songs, an oratorio for choir, solo saxophone and pipe organ, composed by the saxophonist John Surman.

This work was first performed in Salisbury Cathedral in 1996, but Surman is revising it for Lichfield to incorporate children's voices (minimum eight years old) in keeping with the choir's multi-generational nature.

For the 2008 Lichfield Festival the specially-formed chorus sang The Traveller, a new work by Alec Roth and Vikram Seth, and their performance received a four-star review from the Guardian newspaper.

Conductor of the Lichfield Festival Chorus this year will be Ben Lamb, a former Salisbury Cathedral chorister and organ scholar at Truro Cathedral.

He is the founder and director of the Salisbury-based semi-professional choir Sarum Voices.

Rehearsals are likely to be held on alternate Tuesday evenings from mid-May.

Anyone interested in being considered for the chorus is asked to contact the Lichfield Festival office by email at info@lichfieldfestival.org with their name, age, singing experience, contact details (including telephone number), and whether they are soprano, alto, tenor or baritone. Please put 'Festival Chorus' in the subject line of the email.

Alternatively they can telephone 01543 306270 – Monday to Thursday, 9.30am-5.30pm – with the same information.

The full programme for the ten-day multi-arts festival, centred around Lichfield's impressive medieval cathedral and the Lichfield Garrick theatre, is announced in April.

But it is set to feature a wide range of classical, jazz, folk and world music.

Public booking opens April 17. The 2009 Lichfield Festival is supported by principal partner BMW Plant Hams Hall, Lichfield District Council and Arts Council England West Midlands.