FCMG London Children’s Choir -
History

FCMG was founded in 1958 to give the first amateur performance of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, and for most of its life has been the most celebrated children’s choir of its kind in the UK.  Since its formation it has pursued an ongoing commitment to the commissioning of new music for children’s voices.  Composers who have written for the group include Brian Chapple, Malcolm Williamson, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Alex Roth, Piers Halliwell and Christopher Gunning.

FCMG is regularly invited to supply the children’s chorus for major choral works, performing frequently with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Crouch End Festival Chorus, under conductors including Kurt Masur, Matthias Bamert, André Previn, Vladimir Ashkenazy and our president Sir Colin Davis.

Recent FCMG appearances at the BBC Promenade Concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, London include Weill’s Propheten (1998); Nielsen’s Springtime in Fünen (1999); Alex Roth’s Earth and Sky (2000) with Joanna McGregor, Britten’s War Requiem (2004), Beethoven's 9th Symphony (2005), and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ A Little Birthday Music for the Queen’s 80th Birthday in 2006.

Other highlights have included Orlando Gough's 2001 project for Artangel, Because I Sing; Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges and Britten’s Spring Symphony both under André Previn; and High Mass at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on All Saints’ Day 2003, performing Britten’s Missa Brevis.

Many FCMG children have had the opportunity to sing with the English National Opera, the Royal Opera, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and English National Ballet (for whom FCMG provided the “Snowflake Chorus” for the annual Nutcracker for many years), as well as at opera houses abroad.

FCMG has made recordings for television, radio, film and disc - most recently for a TV musical of A Christmas Carol for NBC starring Kelsey Grammer of Frasier - and has led the singing in prestigious events such as the VE and VJ Day memorial celebrations before Her Majesty the Queen.

Their 30th anniversary production of  Noye’s Fludde was the first fully staged Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and in their 40th anniversary year they took part in the world premiere of the children’s opera Alexander the Great by David Blake, on the island of Lesbos in Greece.

FCMG has recorded a substantial amount of American Jewish music for the Milken Archive in Santa Monica, California.   A CD from that project was published in 2005 on Naxos 8.559436

The FCMG Christmas 2004 CD, Bethlehem Down was released on Naxos 8.557581, in aid of Hope. Our previous Christmas collection Little Donkey (1997), under the direction of Murray Stewart, was sold in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.