There has been a choral society in Watford for well over a hundred years, known first as the Oratorio Society and subsequently as the Choral Union. To celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary, Leslie Regan (then Principal of the Watford School of Music) brought together the Choral Union and several other local choirs to form The Watford Jubilee Choir with a combined force of around 200 voices and a largely amateur orchestra to accompany them. Together they presented a concert in the Plaza Cinema on 12th May 1935, conducted by the great Sir Henry Wood whose services had been enlisted by his close friend, Leslie Regan.
The programme consisted of works by three of the finest 20th Century English composers – Elgar, Holst and Delius – all of whom had died during the previous year. Sir Henry’s association with the event guaranteed its success and so inspired the participants that they decided to create a new and permanent society of singers and instrumentalists, with Sir Henry as its first President. In 1940, performing as the Watford & District Philharmonic Society, they topped the bill in the inaugural concert of the new and acoustically-acclaimed Watford Town Hall– more familiar to us now as The Colosseum.In 1943, the Society sponsored the first Watford Music Festival to which Sir Henry Wood was once again invited as conductor. Eventually the name was abbreviated to Watford Philharmonic Society, with Leslie Regan continuing as conductor until 1967. Since then, the Society has been fortunate to work with several distinguished conductors, each of whom established their own particular style and musical preferences. Chief amongst them have been Graham Garton (1967-1989), Gordon Fairbairn (1990-1993), James Kelleher (1993-1997), Stuart Dunlop (1997-2006), Terry Edwards (2006-2014) followed by our current conductor, Michael Cayton.
Over the years, the Society’s considerable strength has been its ability to mount most of the great choral masterpieces, Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Verdi’s Requiem, Brahms’ German Requiem, Bach’s St John Passion and Beethoven’s Ninth (Choral) Symphony, interspersed with great but less frequently performed works such as Vaughan-Williams’ Sea Symphony, Tippett’s Child Of Our Time, and Edward Elgar’s rarely performed The Dream of Gerontius. More recently, the Society has performed dramatic pieces such as Carl Orff’s spectacular Carmina Burana and William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and tackled new works such as Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man. Programmes of popular items from stage and screen musicals have been introduced, including celebrations of the works of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein. The choir has mounted a full concert version of Bizet’s Carmen and learned some Russian for excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Hebrew for Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. And of course, our annual Christmas concert always includes a selection of familiar and less well-known carols and seasonal music.
A List of Watford Philharmonic Society Concerts (1935-2019)
A full chronological list of all WPS concerts can be found HERE
WPS Programme Archive
A selection of past progammes can be browsed HERE. The programmes are arranged for viewing in date order with the most recent at the top.
1935 – 2010 : a Jubilee Celebration
In 2010 the Society celebrated its Diamond Jubilee. Using material from our own archives, a small exhibition was assembled and displayed first in the foyer of the Colosseum and subsequently in Watford Central Library. Featuring copies of some interesting concert programmes, it included that of the very first concert in 1935 as well as photographs with biographies of all our conductors, together with those of famous artists of the day who had been engaged to perform with the Society. Ten years on, we have reproduced the exhibition panels which can be viewed HERE as an interesting perspective of our history.