Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

Members of our choir will join singers from seven other local choirs for a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand in Coventry Cathedral on May 16th 2026.

Rehearsals begin early in the New Year for this exciting event, with choirs rehearsing separately to start with before coming together in the weeks leading up to the performance. The orchestra will be the Leamington Sinfonia, and the conductor Joe Davies.

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler, composed in 1906, is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. As it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is normally presented with far fewer than a thousand performers, and Mahler himself disapproved of the name.

The Eighth Symphony's two parts combine the sacred text of the 9th-century Latin hymn Veni creator spiritus with the secular text from the closing passages from Goethe's 19th-century dramatic poem Faust. Despite the evident disparities within this juxtaposition, the work as a whole expresses a single idea, that of redemption through the power of love.

There are eight vocal soloists, who in the second half of the work are assigned to dramatic roles represented in Goethe's text. The singers are divided into two separate four part choirs, plus a children's choir. These forces, alongside an augmented orchestra, will guarantee an impressive sound in the splendid acoustic of Coventry Cathedral.

We are tremendously excited to have been invited to take part in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we very much hope you will join us in Coventry Cathedral on May 16th.