London Boy Singers

The London Boy Singers was an English boys' choir which formed in 1961.[1] It initially drew its members from the Finchley Children's Music Group. The choir was started at the suggestion of Benjamin Britten, who was its first president.[2]

In the beginning the choir was run by a group of three adults: John Andrewes, who also led the Finchley Children's Music Group, Rosamund Strode, a musician, singer and later assistant to Britten, and Jonathan Steele,[3] deputy to George Malcolm at Westminster Cathedral. Jonathan Steele soon became the conductor and leader of the London Boy Singers.

The choir sang at the Aldeburgh Festival on a number of occasions. It sang in Westminster Abbey in the first London performance of Britten's War Requiem in 1962. The group performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1964 and 1974.[4][5]

Many of its singers took part in other events, including working with the Royal Opera House including a tour of manchester and to Lisbon in Portugal (including Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'[6]' and the premiere of Aston's ballet 'The Dream',[7] both in 1964), Covent Garden, the English Opera Group (including a tour of the USSR in 1964) and many individual operas and other engagements. The choir also sang at the Aldburgh festival, gave a concert to the choristers at Kings College Cambridge and broadcast 'A Ceremony of Carols' on BBC television (1965).

The choir sang on a record of Christmas Music ('Christmas Music for Boys Voices')for HMV and recorded in the Abbey Road Studios, released in 1965.[8] It also recorded an EP of songs with the London Jazz Quartet which featured on Juke Box Jury.

Britten wrote 12 Apostles: Choral Octavo and [9] The Bitter Withy for the choir[10] and his arrangement of King Herod and the Cock was dedicated to it.[11] In 1966, Britten severed his relationship with the group. Jonathan Steele remained its director into the 1970s. The choir no longer exists.