After Amy Pratt (see History Page), in 1979, two younger men took the MD helm for shorter periods. Paul Ferguson had been an organ scholar at New College Oxford and when appointed, was doing further musical research. After only three years he responded to a call to the Church of England ministry… and became Precentor at Westminster Abbey [and later at] York Minster and [subsequently became] Archdeacon of Middlesborough.
He was followed by Gordon Pullin, a nationally recognised tenor soloist, who had performed with us on a number of occasions …. Gordon .. made recordings of the English Tenor repertoire which … runs to 8 volumes …. Sadly for us another career move, in the teaching profession, took him south and we sought another leader.
Another distinguished organist was Simon Russell who, having been the Society’s rehearsal accompanist, became Musical Director in 1981, a post which he filled for some 16 years. During his time the society continued to present performances of the standard choral repertoire but also took steps into the “unknown” (the twentieth century no less!) including works by Duruflé, Vaughan Williams and John Rutter.
When Simon’s full-time job caused him to leave the district in 2000, the Society was fortunate enough to obtain the services of yet another organist, Jim Wrightson (who had accompanied one of the Society’s concerts when Simon was in charge). During the period he [was] with us the Society ..[grew] considerably … Jim ‘retired’ from his Music Director role at the end of the 2014 season after a long and fruitful time at the society.
In September 2014 we welcomed David Bebbington. Though the works David directed for HCS consisted mainly of classical choral music he included a number of more modern pieces, for example the programme for February 2019. Concerts were accompanied by either piano, organ, or small chamber groups for whom he would arrange the scores. He brought youth and vigour to his always carefully prepared rehearsals, encouraging us also to do our homework in between. He enabled us to rebound from the Covid interruption and our last performance with him in 2022 was one of our best. Thereafter David’s associations with the Universities of Chester and Cardiff, and his increased involvement with the latter made it impossible for him to continue with HCS after May 2022.
We were able during 2023 to give two well-received concerts thanks to rehearsals with Russell Medley, and in 2024 we were very glad to have Ken Fayle as Guest Conductor, while we sought a new permanent Musical Director.
We were finally happily successful in finding Finlay Gordon (see Musical Director page) who was appointed in September 2024. Having had one successful concert under his direction in November 2024 we are now awaiting (at the time of writing) our second on June 7th. 2025.