The first of three special concerts of the Chipperfield Choral Society Diamond Jubilee Season filled St Paul’s Church early in December. A Christmas Celebration featured traditional Christmas music and carols and the choir were conducted as usual by Delia Meehan. At just 13 years of age, Hugh Beardsall, a chorister at St Albans Cathedral, was the soloist and his voice was a joy to hear. A highlight of the evening was  A Birthday Carol which was sung beautifully by the choir. This carol had been specially written by Alan Taylor in celebration of the choir’s Diamond Jubilee.
The choir’s first Conductor was Joyce Herman Allen, who was born in 1902 and studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music. Eventually she became a music journalist in New York and London before her marriage to Dr Allen. It was during the second World War, while her husband was serving in the Navy, that Joyce joined the music staff of a school in Newquay. After the war the family moved into Tenements Farm in Chipperfield and she soon joined the staff of the Watford School of Music. It was not long before Chipperfield Choral Society was born* and Joyce became its first Conductor. She went on to conduct the annual concerts of the choir from the late 1940′s right up to the 1970′s and then became President of the Society until her death in 1986. Anthony Metcalf took up the baton from 1979-86 and he was succeeded by Adrian Davis. In 1991, Delia Meehan was invited to become the Society’s Musical Director and Conductor. Having studied at the Royal Academy of  Music she began to teach the oboe and then taught at Reading University and the Royal Holloway College and still teaches full-time at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Boys. She has an extremely busy life, travelling the world where she adjudicates at music festivals and is on the panel of examiners for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. For the last 16 years, Delia has found time to help Chipperfield Choral Society to become one of the finest in the land and to grow to a choir of around 100 voices.
The Christmas Concert has been a feature of the choir’s programme throughout its 60 years existence and in the early years the performances were held in the Church Institute (Village Hall). Spring concerts have been held in St Paul’s Church, the New School (Rudolf Steiner) at Kings Langley, the Town Hall (Coliseum) at Watford, the Barberolli Hall at St Clement Danes School, St Peter’s Church in Berkhamsted, and St John’s Church in Boxmoor, where last year the choir did such a magnificent performance of Handel’s Messiah. Over the years, most of the major choral works by Haydn, Mozart, Bach and Mendelssohn have been performed.
The choir is now preparing for their Spring Concert which will be at St John’s Church, Boxmoor, on 10 March. The special Diamond Jubilee Concert will be at St John’s Church on 30 June when the choir will be joined by their patron, Emma Bell, who is a soprano of growing international repute. Emma will join the choir in a programme of music by Parry, Handel and Mozart. Tickets for the March concert will be available from choir members or the Box Office (01923 267515). Terry Simmonds                             *Editor’s note: Recent research has revealed that the  first Chipperfield Choral Society was founded in November 1917 when an augmented choir at St Paul’s Church sang a sacred  canticle entitled “Harvest Praise”. The church magazine reported that it was “glad to record the starting of a Choral Society under the skilled guidance of Mr T.G. White” (who was then the organist and choirmaster at Bovingdon). “The Society meet at 9 o’clock every Monday in the school”. On Wednesday 3 April 1918 the society gave its first concert in the Church Institute (now the Village Hall). As yet we have no further information about the original choir. Did it fade away or cling on in some form until it was revitalised by Joyce Herman Allen in 1947?