“Thank you very much for contacting us here in Cape Town!
The Philharmonia Choir is an Oratorio Choir which has been in existence in its present form for the past 53 years and consists, at the moment of around 140 members. We do not restrict ourselves to only Oratorio works but have been involved in Opera, accompanying visiting international stars such as Renee Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti in concert and a few others. We also sing at functions, Christmas Carols at shopping centres during Advent every year and have a repertoire of lighter music that can be used for less serious performances such as the traditional Last Night of the Proms and Songs of Praise concerts. We consider ourselves to be versatile in the choice of music but the true love of most of the members is the large Oratorio accompanied by an orchestra!
This is truly a trying time for anyone involved in the performing arts! We locked down the Choir about a week before the government announced a complete lockdown of the country as we felt that we could not take the risk of exposing our members or members of the public to the risks of the Covid-19 virus.
Unfortunately, this happened just before our annual performances of Handel’s Messiah which the Philharmonia Choir had an unbroken record of singing at the Cape Town City Hall on Good Friday and Easter Sunday for the past 52 years!
We have also obviously not recommenced with any rehearsals for a concert that was due to be performed on 6th June and have also cancelled our performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in October which was planned to celebrate 250 years since the birth of this great composer.