An anniversary concert took place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 25 June 2017 with the National Festival Orchestra and soloists Kristina James, Joanna Gamble, Paul Dutton and Quentin Brown.
At this event will be presented the first performance of a new work from composer Philip Moore commissioned for the Singers' 40th anniversary – the motet Tu es Petrus – along with music by E W Naylor, Arvo Part, Sir Hubert Parry, Judith Bingham and Maurice Durufle.
It forms a key component of the choral foundation of Leeds Minster, Saint Peter-at-Leeds, achieving recognition as one of the North of England's finest chamber choirs.
St Peter's Singers is distinctive in that most of the principal vocal soloists are drawn from present or former members or members of the Minster's Choral Foundation – these have included Kristina James, Sarah Potter, Claire Strafford, Anita Wiencelewski, Helen Strange, Lucy Appleyard, Claire White-McKay, Joanna Gamble, Paul Dutton, Stephen Newlove, Christopher Trenholme, Toby Ward, Peter Condry, David Brown and Quentin Brown.
In November 2007, by special request, SPS gave its first overseas concert tour in Romania, with recitals in Sibiu (the joint 2007 European Capital of Culture) and Bucharest.
The Good Friday Concert in 2011 at the Minster comprised music by Dvořák – the Stabat Mater and Parry Blest pair of sirens and, in 2012, a special performance of Messiah in commemoration of the late Watkins Shaw, whose edition of Handel's masterpiece was published in 1958.
For the 2016 Fulneck Baroque event, we gave more Handel: Nisi Dominus, O praise the Lord with one consent, I will magnify Thee, O God, my King and the Anthem on the Peace.
In November 2016, our seasonal concert concluded with Part One and the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah and included in the first half of the evening Bach's Sleepers wake and the Gloria and Magnificat by Vivaldi.
Fulneck Baroque on Bank Holiday Monday 28 August 2017, featured two Bach Cantatas 78 and 147 Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and the Foundling Hospital Anthem by Handel.
The choir visited Birmingham Town Hall in March 2010 to perform a programme of 'Sacred Choral Classics' as guests of city organist Thomas Trotter in his Monday Lunchtime Concert Series.
On Bank Holiday 2011, the Singers presented Mass in B minor by J S Bach with soloists including Kristina James, Lucy Appleyard, Toby Ward and Quentin Brown.
On Monday 17 February 2014, the recital at the Town Hall by the Singers "We will remember them" featuring famous classics from the English Edwardian period up to and including the Second World War received acclaim in an extended Church Times review.
Leeds Town Hall concerts in the season 2014/15 included unaccompanied polyphony on Monday 27 October 2014 featuring the Missa Bel Amfitrit Altera by Lassus, Motets by William Byrd and a movement from the Requiem for six voices by Tomas Luis de Victoria followed by Sacred Choral Classics, a programme sub-titled "Jesu, Joy" and all that Jazz" on Monday 16 February 2015 and the equivalent Concert in February 2016 featured Bach Cantatas Nos 118, 159, 68 – with My heart, ever faithful and 4.
The Singers' fortieth anniversary year included another Town Hall visit, on Monday 13 February 2017, with a well-received programme featuring Favourite Choral Classics along with English and Belgian Organ Music played by David Houlder; the programme featured the Benedicite in G by Dr Francis Jackson CBE, Organist Emeritus of York Minster in his 100th year and other works by William Mathias, Antonio Lotti, Claudio Montervedi, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felice Anerio, Serge Rachmaninov and Orlando Gibbons.
The Singers regularly invite the National Festival Orchestra, led by Sally Robinson to join them for concerts and performances of The Dream of Gerontius, Dvořák's Stabat Mater and Blest Pair of Sirens, John Milton's Ode at a Solemn Musick by Parry as well as Bach's Mass in B minor.
More recent events have included concerts with the Chapter House Choir of York conducted by Stephen Williams in 2006 in honour of its 40th anniversary, and collaborations with the Elgar Chorale of Worcester under its conductor Donald Hunt.
Also participating was the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus under the direction of Leeds Phil Music Director Dr David Hill.