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www.haydockmvc.com                              01744 734176                          secretary@haydockmvc.com

Home Home Registered Charity: 104170 Home. About Us. Repertoire. Events 2012. Music Team. Members. Gallery. Recordings. Join Us. Contact Us. Links.

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Our Thanks

We are able to fund most of our activities from our own resources, but we have been supported by local organisations who have gifted us funds. We wish to acknowledge the generous support over many years  given by organisations such as the Coalfield Re-Generation Fund; the National Lottery; Rainford Trust; Merseyside Community Foundation; Harry & Mavis Pilkington Trust as well as St Helens Council.


About Us
Our Constitution declares that the “aim of Haydock MVC is to promote, improve, develop and maintain public education in the appreciation of the art and science of music and in particular choral music by the presentation of public concerts”. Despite the somewhat lofty words, we have a lot of fun pursuing our hobby.
Concerts
 We perform up to two concerts a month in venues ranging from Churches to Concert Halls to marquees. Our concert programmes normally consist of 17-18 pieces by the choir, interspersed with solo spots provided by our own soloists, including our pianists and our own barbershop quartet. The choir members sing from memory. Have a look at our Repertoire page to get an idea of the sort of songs we sing. Also have a look at our YouTube pages to see & hear us.
Haydock Male Voice Choir is one of the oldest choirs in North West England having been formed in 1923 in the former coal mining village of Haydock, known locally as “Yickerland”. This extended village is located roughly equidistant between St Helens, Wigan and Warrington. The choir now draws its membership from a wide area, with many members making a round trip of 50 miles to attend rehearsals and concerts.
Celebrating after winning IoM Music Competition


Recordings

We have recorded 10 albums since 1974. In early days, the choir travelled “en masse” to recording studios to make vinyl LP records (or cassettes). Although we have sold all our original LPs, but we have managed to recover digitally some of those recordings and to transfer them into CDs. Since 2001, the recording studios come to us in the form of computers, sophisticated and expensive microphones together with skilled technicians. We normally record up to 15 items in two sessions - Friday evening and most of Saturday by which time we and, especially our Conductor are quite tired! There’s so much time waiting around for checks and re-recordings. After considerable input from our Conductor, several weeks later, the pristine new stock of CDs is delivered.


Competitions and Festivals

Although choral competitions are very stressful and the results somewhat unpredictable, they are useful in allowing us to compare our standards with other choirs. We have over the years enjoyed a tremendous run of success in competitions taking first place several times in both the Northern and later, the National Male Voice championships. During this Millennium we have competed in the famous Elgar Festival held at Worcester Cathedral, winning the Male Voice section; the Llangollen International Eisteddfod on two occasions, achieving a creditable fourth place and twice at the International Male Voice Competition in Cornwall - again gaining 4th place! We did however gain first place at the Isle of Man Festival in 2007. the award. The following year we gained (yet another) 4th place in the Golden Nightingale Competition, Bournemouth.

Links

We do not exist in a vacuum and recognise the part played by other organisations with whom we have developed a relationship over the years. For more see our Links page