Just a bit about us....

Based near Southend on Sea in Essex, the Leigh Orpheus is a friendly choir, aiming to bring the joy of singing as a performer to men in the area and to bring the joy of listening to as many people as possible.

Through the encouragement and skill of Janet Walker, our Musical Director, and with Kay Duell as Accompanist, we enjoy rehearsing together regularly on Friday evenings, learning new pieces and singing to a high standard. Most weeks there are at least 40 of us at rehearsal. The choir has a wide-ranging repertoire from 16th century madrigals, through traditional male voice choir pieces, to songs from the shows and modern classics.

The choir was founded in 1968 as an offshoot of the S.E. Essex Welsh Society and became a registered charity in 1999. We celebrated our 50th Anniversary in 2018.

We are an amateur choir aiming for high stangards, funded by members’ subscriptions, concert receipts, Sponsors and Patrons contributions and fund-raising activities.

As a charity a significant number of our performances are fund-raisers for other organisations. Each year, like many male voice choirs, we undertake concerts and other fund-raising initiatives which raise thousands of pounds for a range of mainly local charities. If you represent a charity and are interested in us performing for your charity, contact our Concert Manager, Neil, on 07432 456281 or complete the form on the Hire Us page.

As well as up to ten concerts per year at local venues we like to be involved in other events. We formed part of the 2000-strong choir which greeted the Olympic Torch when it came to Southend on Sea, regularly singinging in The Royals Shopping Centre at Christmas.  We have taken part in the Cornwall Male Voice Choral Festival, the Bournemouth International Male Voice Choir Competition, and sung with Braintree, Chapel en le Frith, Eastwood, Felling, Pontnewydd, St Edmundsbury, Thanet and Thurrock Male Voice Choirs, the Orpheus Singers, the Sonara Singers and Stevenage Ladies’ Choir. In concerts at The Cliffs Pavilion, Southend, we have performed alongside Aled Jones. Alfie Boe, Lee Mead and The Kings Singers.

Our LOMVC tours are popular and well-attended and each year we travel to venues both in the UK and abroad. Over the past few years our UK tours have been to Cornwall, the Peak District, Lincolnshire and the Fens, the south Wales Valleys, Constable Country and the East Midlands and Lincoln, along with a recent, September 2022 MiniTour in Hertfordshire where we performed at three different locations over two days.

Travelling further afield we have toured in Italy, Spain, Germany and Belgium where we sang at The Last Post Ceremony at The Menin Gate in Ypres.

The Leigh Orpheus reached its 50th Birthday in 2018 and ensured that, as well as the usual concerts and performances, the year contained a number of special events. A major 50th Anniversary Concert ‘1968 And All That’ at the Plaza Centre in Southend where we were joined by former choir members, by our MD’s school choir and by Natalie Paris, a professional singer on the West End stage and grandaughter of our founder Musical Director. We also used the event to present the prestigious Leigh Orpheus Young Person’s  50th Anniversary Award of £1000 to guitarist Harrison Dolphin.

In June of our 50th year we headed off to Speaker’s House in the Palace of Westminster to honour our then President, Sir David Amess’s, 35 years as an MP and were pleased to sing at this prestigious event, among a range of VIPs, and be complimented by. Mr Speaker himself, John Bercow.

In October our formal 50th Anniversary Dinner at Saxon Hall with guests the late Sir David Amess and the Rev Canon David Tudor. Then in November the 50th Anniversary Year Tour – four performances over 5 days in very different venues in the East Midlands; a country church, a community centre, a modern church (on the inside) and Lincoln Cathedral.

In April 2019 we went off to Poole for the International Male Voice Choir Competition and Gala Concert (fourth-equal place in the Competition)

Then 2020 looked like it was going to be another busy year for us and we performed a 'standing room only' Lunchtime Recital at Chelmsford Cathedral in January and a joint Concert with Sweyne Park School Choir at the end of February. Then Covid hit!

But neither our MD, nor members of the Leigh Orpheus, were going to be stopped from singing by Covid-19. During the rest of 2020, and 2021, we’ continued our regular Friday rehearsals, but online. Every week a large proportion of our members enjoyed singing virtually. In order to be concert-ready members learned new pieces. And in order to keep supporting charities we produced a recording of ‘You Raise Me Up’ comprising individual recordings members recorded individually in their own homes, and which were melded together to create a combined single choir performance. Donations in appreciation of our efforts have enabled us to donate £2,000 to Haven’s Hospices.

It was a great relief to return to being able to sing together, in person, and, as reviews of our more recent concerts will show, we haven't let the grass grow under our feet. 

A huge blow to the choir, and to many of us personally, was the murder of our President Sir David Amess. The Leigh Orpheus had the great honour of singing at Sir David's funeral at Westminster Cathedral in November 2021. A sad, but highly prestigeous occasion attended by the good and the great.

In 2022 the Leigh Orpheus joined other organisations to perform at the 'He Built This City' concert at The Cliffs in February. We then staged an impromtu concert which raised funds to support those affected by the war in Ukraine, and another concert raised funds for the locally-based charity PROST8.

November 2022 saw us returning to St Augustine's, Thorpe Bay for a very successful Autumn Concert. A great audience who were generous with their applause and enthusisatic in their participation.

For further details of all of our performances check out our Reviews page.

Follow the Leigh Orpheus on Facebook: @LeighOrpheusMaleVoiceChoir