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Brighton Festival Chorus

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Brighton Festival Chorus

Brighton Festival Chorus (abbreviated to BFC) is a large choir of over 150 amateur singers based in Brighton, UK. One of the country's leading symphony choruses.., and considered "one of the jewels in the city's musical crown", BFC performs in major concert halls throughout Britain and Europe, particularly in Brighton and London.

BFC performs regularly with all the major British orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBCSO), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), The Hallé Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. BFC also has a long-standing relationship with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO).

BFC has also made 10 appearances at the BBC Proms since its first Proms performance in 1986 and two of its many recordings of classical works have been nominated for a Grammy Award.

As of October 2021, the chorus has performed 656 works in 530 concerts and 93 recording sessions at 103 different venues. It has worked with 109 orchestras, 160 conductors, 743 soloists and 114 other choirs.

BFC was formed by the Hungarian-born conductor László Heltay for the 1968 Brighton Festival specifically for a performance of Sir William Walton's large-scale cantata Belshazzar's Feast, conducted by the composer with the RPO at the Brighton Dome. The performance was a huge success and launched Brighton Festival Chorus as an important part of the music scene in Britain and, under László Heltay's directorship, one of the most successful choirs in the country, as well as becoming a "symbol of the festival". In the same year the chorus performed Mozart's Kyrie in D Minor (conducted by Sir Colin Davis with the BBCSO) and Kodály's Budavari Te Deum (conducted by László Heltay with the BPO).

Building on this success, BFC performed three more concerts in Brighton in 1969, and in 1970 made its first recording: Kodály's Psalmus Hungaricus with the LSO conducted by István Kertész.

In 1972, BFC performed its first concerts outside Brighton, when it took part (as the English Bach Festival Chorus) in a series of concerts for the English Bach Festival (EBF). The first of these concerts, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms with the LSO conducted by Leonard Bernstein, marked BFC's first performance at the Royal Albert Hall. This work was recorded, with the same forces, 2 days later at Abbey Road Studios. Three more concerts were performed by BFC for the EBF that year in Oxford and London.

The following year saw a marked upturn in the number of BFC's engagements to perform, with 4 concerts in Brighton and Hove, 2 concerts in London, a recording of Janáček's Glagolitic Mass and the chorus's first concert abroad: Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Coliseu dos Recreios in Lisbon, Portugal.

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