Meet the men of York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir

“I don’t ask for easy living, Gold and pearls are not for me, But I crave a heart of goodness….” The basses and baritones kick in, creating harmonies that vibrate deep in the chest and seem about to lift the roof off: “…which will lead to Thee”.

It is a Welsh hymn they are singing – Calon Lan, or ‘Heart So Pure’, one of those tunes that lifts the hairs on the back of your neck.

The harmonies swell again, rising to a crescendo: “Only hearts like this keep singing, Through life’s darker, sadder hours.”

I can feel my jaw dropping, my skin prickling from the beauty of it, the tears coming to my eyes. There’s a warmth, a completeness to the sound, especially up close like this, that is almost overwhelming. The tenors soar again, the bass notes rumbling beneath, the massed voices lifting and rising, swelling and interlacing. And then – “ – No!!” calls out conductor and musical director Berenice Lewis, clapping imperiously to bring that glorious sound to a juddering halt. She gives the men standing in ranks before her a withering glance.

“Just a little bit slack in terms of pitch,” she tells them. “Please don’t be complacent about this.”

She gives them an impromptu demonstration of what she wants, of how to open their throats to get the right sound.

“It’s not like talking,” she says. “Relax the throat, open up the back of the mouth as though you’re yawning….” – she gives a wide yawn herself to demonstrate – “keep the space big, the roof of the mouth high, the tongue down, so you get that lovely, resonant space.”

They start again, the sound if anything even more stirring than before, rounded and warm and thrilling. But Berenice isn’t satisfied with the pacing.

“No,” she calls, clapping again. “Good heavens, will you stop moving so quickly.”

Welcome to the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir’s Monday night rehearsal. Berenice, who has been the choir’s conductor and musical director since 2000, is clearly a hard taskmaster. But equally clearly, the men don’t mind. They follow her every movement as she leads them through the music, her expansive arm gestures and facial expressions drawing light and shade, texture and pace out of their singing.

It is because they all know she is very good, says George Tingle, an 80-year-old former miner with silvery white hair who has been a member of the choir for 38 years. They trust what she is telling them.

In fact, adds Roger Samwell, the choir’s 67-year-old secretary who has been a member for 20 years, the choir is so impressed with their conductor that they have devised their own way of singing so they can follow her.

“We’re one of the few choirs that sing from memory,” he says. “You cannot sing from music and be looking at the conductor at the same time.”

Berenice’s methods have certainly been bringing success – not least at the Eskdale Festival in Whitby where, in each of the past two years, the choir has won no fewer than four first places. But then, this is a choir which is used to success.

Formed in 1925, it has a long and distinguished history. In 1970, for example, it won a BBC Radio 3 ‘Let The People Sing’ competition, subsequently going on to represent Great Britain internationally.

Members of the choir have sung at some of Europe’s great cathedrals – in Rheims, Rouen, Dijon and Strasbourg. They also sang several times, in the 1980s and 1990s, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. They were part of a 1,000-or-so strong Yorkshire male voice contingent singing to raise money for cancer research, says George. His face lights up at the memory. “It was fabulous.”

At the last Royal Albert Hall concert, however, they were asked to sing with a contingent of women. That spoiled things, says Roger: not because he’s got anything against women – he’d better not have, he jokes, with a wife, daughters and a granddaughter to keep him in check – but because women’s choirs and mixed choirs produce a totally different sound.

“It changes the whole dynamic,” he says. “There’s more variation to be had in a male voice choir. You’ve got the bass, the baritone, second tenor, top tenor.” There is less variation in a women’s choir, he says – and when you put the two together, they don’t necessarily complement each other. “It’s a completely different sound. I’ve never heard it said that a mixed choir makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.”

That said, they have put on joint concerts with women’s choirs quite regularly – including the Rodillian Singers from Wakefield and the Caerphilly Ladies Choir. “But we tend to sing as separate choirs,” Roger says.

Back at rehearsals in the Central Methodist Church, the choir is rehearsing for a concert tomorrow at the Unitarian Chapel in St Saviourgate. This is, above all, a concert choir, not a competition choir, with regular performances held throughout the year, Roger stresses.

That said, in April they will be hoping to repeat their successes of the last two years at the Eskdale competition in Whitby. And in July, they will be competing with top choirs from all around the world – including the US and Japan – at the Llangollen Eisteddfodd in north Wales. That will be a true test of just how good they are, Roger admits.

There are 60-odd members of the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir. They count among their number ex-miners, joiners, engineers, health service bosses and company managers. That’s a lot of testosterone.

Berenice Lewis, a mum of two young children who teaches music privately, admits she’s often asked how she manages to cope with them all. It’s just not an issue, she says. “These guys are here for the love of music, and because singing in a choir like this feels good.”

At a break in rehearsals, that quickly becomes clear.

Jim Waggott, 75, a former bank manager, has been a choir member for 41 years. He’s a baritone, and his son Simon, 45, is a top tenor.

When Jim joined, this was the best choir in the UK, he says, having just won the BBC competition. And he has never tired of being a member.

“There is this wonderful sense of fellowship,” he says. “You’re part of something absolutely fabulous. We all have different voices individually, but combined we make a unique sound. It’s just fantastic.”

“There’s nothing like it,” adds joiner and fellow baritone Tony Sawyer, 67, who has been a choir member for 21 years. “The camaraderie and such… it’s all there.”

Many, like Jim and Tony, have been members for years. But not all. Tony Buy joined just three weeks ago. The 60-year-old had been a member of a church choir as a boy.

“And I just wanted to sing,” he says. He had a few singing lessons before joining, but admits it was still a little daunting. “But I’ve been made very welcome,” he says. “Everybody is very glad to have me here.”

George Tingle has never regretted a single day of his 38 years with the choir. “It’s the best thing I ever did,” says the former Grimethorpe miner, who went to work for Rowntrees after moving to York in 1961.

“I enjoy everything about the choir. I’ve got some marvellous friends, it is just like a family when we get together. And I enjoy seeing the audience, seeing their faces as we sing, knowing that they are enjoying it. It is a marvellous feeling.”

Choir fact file

The York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir performs regularly at concerts throughout the region.

One of its biggest dates is the Carols in Kirkgate – this year will mark the choir’s 50th anniversary of singing them, says Roger Samwell.

The choir also sings at York’s Remembrance Service every other year, and at a host of other local events and occasions.

This year alone, its dates include concerts in March at St John’s Methodist Church in Market Weighton and at Poppleton Methodist Church; the Eskdale Festival in Whitby in April; a concert in aid of Leonard Cheshire Homes at Alne Parish Church in May; and a joint concert with a visiting French choir at St Peter’s School in York in June.

The choir’s annual summer concert will be in York’s Guildhall on June 2, then it is the Llangollen Eisteddfodd, followed by a series of other local concerts, culminating in the Lord Mayor’s Christmas Cheer concert, again in the York Guildhall, on October 15, and Carols in Kirkgate in December.

To find out more about the choir, visit its website: yorkphilchoir.org.uk

• The York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir sing in concert with viola soloist Tanisha Brown and pianist Robert Hodge at the Unitarian Chapel in York’s St Saviourgate tomorrow at 7.30pm. Tickets £7, available on the door.