The only full-time professional British choir,[1] the BBC Singers feature in live concerts, radio transmissions, recordings and education workshops.

Former members of the group include Sir Peter Pears, Sarah Connolly,[2] Judith Bingham and Harry Christophers.

Guest conductors of both groups during these early years included Sir Edward Elgar, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and John Barbirolli.

In 1931, the Wireless Chorus was invited to perform at the Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music, the first time this event had been held in Britain.

[3] During the Second World War, the choir was forced to relocate several times from its base in Maida Vale, briefly taking up residence in Bristol, Bangor and Bedford.

In 1945, the choir gave the premiere of Francis Poulenc's wartime cantata Figure humaine from the Concert Hall of Broadcasting House.

[4] After the war, from the late 1940s onwards, the BBC Singers began to tour across Europe, under the direction of conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter.

In England, the choir it worked with George Enescu, Sir Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky.

He re-organised the professional contingent, scrapping the A–B division in favour of a single force of 28 voices, which was renamed the BBC Chorus.

The BBC Singers now work regularly with early music specialists, including Peter Phillips (Tallis Scholars) and Robert Hollingworth (I Fagiolini).