Worcester Festival Choral Society relaunch Messiah concerts as fundraisers

Michelle Whitefoot, Marketing Officer for Worcester Festival Choral Society, tells us about the choir’s upcoming season – which includes an exciting new scheme supporting local youngsters.

Worcester Festival Choral Society (WFCS) is one of the long-established, Victorian choral societies. It was founded in 1861 to help supply skilled singers to the renowned Three Choirs Festival Chorus, which we still do today. We also had close links with Sir Edward Elgar in the 1890s – he played violin in the WFCS ‘band’, conducted several concerts and chose WFCS to premiere two of his choral works.

Today we have around 140 auditioned members, with Worcester Cathedral’s brilliant Director of Music Samuel Hudson training us. We present three, large-scale classical concerts in Worcester Cathedral each year, usually attracting a packed house… no mean feat given that our city has such a busy classical scene, and there is so much competition these days from national 'candlelit concert' promoters! As all choirs know, it’s a continual challenge, but we’re lucky that all our members play their part. It's also a financial and creative conundrum of course. How do you plan a fresh programme every season that both pleases our singers and attracts big audiences, that is also affordable to stage? 

Our current season is a good case in point. We open on 22 November with a wonderful, varied offering of the Duruflé Requiem, short choral pieces by Haydn and Boulanger, plus orchestrally, Elgar’s Enigma Variations! A mix like that really does have something for everyone. Handel’s Messiah swiftly follows on 6 December – the perennial favourite – then Mendelssohn’s mighty Elijah in March.

This season, we’ve been especially excited to initiate a major new fund-raising project around Messiah – something we’d love to build into an annual tradition of giving in Worcester, and perhaps even a blueprint for other societies. Not many people know that Handel made sure all his performances of Messiah, from its 1742 premiere onwards, were charitable. The philanthropic giving they inspired led to the building of the world’s first purpose-built maternity hospital – still in operation today – and the completion of the Foundling Hospital in London, where Handel oversaw the musical education of the children in its care. It’s an amazing story of social change, medical care and innovation. 

Our Development Officer Anne Renshaw saw an opportunity for WFCS to take a leaf out of Handel’s book, by relaunching our own Messiah performances as fundraising benefit concerts. We’ve therefore partnered with local grant-making charity, the Worcestershire Community Foundation, to invite donations around our Messiah concert that will help support the education, health and well-being of children and young people in Worcestershire.

So far we’ve reached out to businesses and music lovers across the county, telling them about Handel’s philanthropic legacy and inviting them to donate when buying tickets or as 'Gold Patrons'. We’ve done local PR, including a fun photoshoot with 'Handel himself'. There’s an event launch coming up featuring a pop-up Hallelujah chorus. We’re also working on a supporters web page, social posts and a special souvenir printed programme. 

Hopefully it will be just the start of making a difference to our community through the power of music! 

To learn more about Worcester Festival Choral Society, visit their website and follow them on Facebook / Instagram / X

To support their Messiah fundraiser, visit their JustGiving campaign