Since its début in 1974, the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus (CBSC)—a body of ‘unpaid professionals’—has become one of the finest of its kind, performing frequently with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) and in regular demand from other world-class orchestras.

Conducted by Chorus Director Simon Halsey, the CBSC is one of five choruses within the CBSO family, along with two symphony youth choruses, a community-based choir for young people and a boys’ choir for changing voices; this extensive choral set-up is unique in Great Britain.

The CBSC performs regularly at Symphony Hall, Birmingham and undertakes a huge range of challenging repertoire with the CBSO and its Music Director Andris Nelsons. The Chorus is also an extremely important cultural ambassador, both for the CBSO and for Birmingham, and its résumé of engagements with other orchestras rivals any other symphony chorus in the world. Among a wealth of prestigious engagements in the past few years are a performance at the opening of the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival in 2000, a live recording for EMI with the Vienna Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in 2002 and the second-ever performance in Finland of The Dream of Gerontius with Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki in 2004. In 2006 the CBSC performed twice at the Hong Kong Festival with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra; toured to Lyon and Grenoble over New Year 2007 to perform with the Orchestre National de Lyon and, in spring 2008, travelled to Kuala Lumpur for two performances of Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. The CBSC also has over 40 recordings to its credit.