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"Stuff and Nonsense!"

Our Spring concert will be on Saturday May 10th 2025 at the Silvester Horne Institute. We will be building on the success of last year’s Captain Noah and performing a programme of jovial music, including many settings of nonsense poetry by Lewis Caroll and Edward Lear. The fun-but-satisfying music includes a piece by Bob Chilcott but is mainly by composers with a Birmingham connection, including our own Music Director, Michael Turner, who says:

"There’s a tendency to see so-called classical music as stuffy, or an acquired taste.  I’m keen to let people hear that it is as approachable as any other musical genres and this programme will appeal to a wide range of folk, whether singers themselves or audience members.”

Rehearsals are on Thursdays at 7.30 pm in the United Reformed Church, Church Stretton, starting on January 16.

New members, of all voices, are always very welcome to join us - see the Membership / Joining page.  We like to think we aim to sing the best we can, but are proud of the fact that we are open to all, with no auditions.

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Who we are

Stretton Choral Society, in its present format, was founded in 1977 and currently meets once a week in the newly refurbished United Reformed Church, Church Stretton, between September and May to rehearse for at least two public concerts each year.

A concert in December usually consists mainly of music related to the Christmas season and includes some Christmas carols for the audience to join in.  A spring concert in early May allows for more substantial works in the classical and modern repertoires.

We welcome members both from the Strettons and from the surrounding area.  

Our musical team

Musical Director: Michael Turner

At the same time as all meetings were cancelled in March 2020, the Society had to say goodbye at very short notice to our musical director, Paul Kelly, who has relocated to the Orkneys.  We warmly welcome our new leader - Michael Turner - who joined us on Thursday 2nd September 2021.

From Birmingham, Michael Turner studied violin and viola, before settling on percussion as his main instrumental study.  As a singer, he has been a member of the CBSO Chorus, along with a number of other choirs across the Midlands.

Michael has attended conducting courses with John Carewe and George Hurst and studied under Hilary Davan Wetton, with whom he settled on adopting the conducting technique favoured by Sir Adrian Boult.

A music graduate of Leicester University, Michael has conducted several amateur and professional ensembles and choirs including the Birmingham Singers, Proteus Chamber Orchestra, the More Singers, the Telford Orchestra, the Marches Choir and the Phoenix Singers.  He made his professional debut with the Milton Keynes City Orchestra and has also worked with the Manchester Camerata.  Michael has been Music Director of the Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra since 1996, was Music Director of the Oswestry Sinfonia from 2014 - 2020 and became Musical Director of the Stretton Choral Society in September 2021.  He has been an ensemble conductor for Shropshire Music Service since 2016.

Michael has composed extensively, with works including a Horn Concerto, several orchestral and choral works, instrumental music and pieces for percussion and wind ensemble.

Michael lives in South Shropshire with his wife.  They have three sons. Between them, the Turners play bassoon, guitar, horn, oboe, piano, recorders (of various sizes), viola and violin, with one boy currently a Cathedral chorister.

Accompanist: Gill Styles

Our previous Accompanist Sally Oak sadly had to leave us in October 2024 when a more local choir she is involved with needed her services on the same day.  But we were delighted to welcome a new Accompanist, Gill Styles.

Gill was born in West Yorkshire. She studied music at Goldsmiths’ College, London where she focused on piano and voice.

For over thirty years Gill has been a junior school class teacher with responsibility for music.  Throughout her career she has enjoyed accompanying singers and instrumentalists, as well as playing chamber music, performing as a vocal soloist and singing in local choirs.