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Welcome to the Romsey Youth Choir (RYC) website.
RYC consists of three choir groups
Romsey Youth Choir – for young people aged 11 to 21
Romsey Youth Choir Chamber Choir – for older or more experienced members.
Romsey Youth Children’s Choir – for children in school years 3-6
All are non-audition choirs – if you are interested in joining please contact Marion to see what places are available.
RYC has a membership of around 135 singers
Recent concert and activity highlights can be found in the posts on this website or on our facebook page.
To see our concert schedules please look on our forthcoming events page on our “Choir News” tab.
We especially enjoy our annual tours – you can read about our previous tours in the tour reports or blogs.
This summer we are heading to Germany and Belgium. We will be based in Rottweil and touring around the Black forest and having a great day at Europa Park. We will stop at Ypres to take part in the last post ceremony under the Menin Gate on our way home. We last did this in 2018 and it was an unforgettably moving experience.
In 2023 we toured Northern Italy performing in Brescia, our twin town of Treviglio and in St Mark’s Duomo in Venice. We also visited Verona (with a trip to the opera), Sirmione and Bressanone where we enjoyed a cable car ride into the Dolomites.
In 2022 we toured Norfolk – staying in Sheringham and performing with the Sheringham Shantymen. We visited Norwich to sing in the cathedral and St Stephen’s church with the Norwich Gospel Choir. On our return journey we sang in All Saints Church, Ardleigh Green where Marion and Chris were married.
In 2019 we went to Transylvania and the highlight for many was being invited to sing in the Coronation Church in Alba Iulia.
Previous tours have been to the Netherlands/Belgium, Catalonia, France, Italy, Austria and Ireland.
Each year the choirs perform in around 15 concerts or festivals. We’ve taken part in the Mid-Somerset Festival in Bath, Southampton Festival of Music and Drama as well as concerts and performances in Lymington, King Somborne and Winchester Cathedral. However, the home venue for the choir is Romsey Abbey where we have our Christmas and summer concerts as well as taking part in other local joint concerts for the community.
Many of these concerts were fund-raising events for a variety of the charities (Jane Scarth House, Naomi House Hospice, Oxfam, Cancer Research and the other local charities). Our own Christmas and summer concerts in the Abbey are hugely enjoyable and provide the main funding source for the running of the choirs.
Since 2013 the RYC has gone on a summer tour and has performed in great venues such as the cathedrals in Barcelona (Sagrada Familia), Enniskillen, Cortona and Bayeux as well as open air concerts at the North American cemetery in Normandy, the sculpture park amphitheatre in Siena and the lakeside pavilion in Zell am See. The reports on previous tours can be found in the Tour Page. In 2018 we went to The Netherlands and Belgium, staying outside Amsterdam and will be visiting Amersfoort, Amsterdam and Efterling before staying in Bruges and the singing at the Menin Gate, Ypres. In 2019 we went on our tour of Transylvania visiting Sibiu, Turda, Sighisoara and Brasov.
Romsey Youth Choir was formed in October 2010 and since then we have produced cup winning performances at Bath, Southampton, Portsmouth and Bournemouth Music festivals. We have performed with the South Wales Male Voice choir “Cor Meibion de Cymru”, Romsey Male Voice Choir, Romsey Concert Band as well as local solo performers. In 2018 we took part in Hampshire Music Service events in the Royal Albert Hall and the Anvil, Basingstoke – see our posts for more details.
We also have a thriving social agenda which includes theatre trips, ice skating, quiz evenings and an end of year BBQ.
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