About us
In 1988, James Wild, head of music at Bretton Hall College in Yorkshire, set out on a mission to create a group of singers that could reach a high standard with just three or four rehearsals each year and who would love touring. The result was Sine Nomine; the name incidentally, or so folklore has it, came about because no-one could decide what to call the choir!
The choir only meets four times a year with members coming from all over the UK. The choir members spend a weekend rehearsing and enjoying each other’s company; the weekend culminates in a concert on the Saturday evening or Sunday lunchtime.
Sine Nomine is perhaps unique in that it includes many singers who are themselves conductors, of adult and/or children's choirs. Some have made a name for themselves in their own right, with two former winners of the BFYC "Conductor of the Year" award and others with award-winning choirs. Sine Nomine has recorded three CD’s in its own right (now regrettably out of stock). Some samples can be heard on the Listen page.
The choir sings a wide and varied repertoire with music to suit all tastes, from sixteenth century motets and madrigals from different countries, through 19th and 20th century part songs, to spirituals and popular close harmony items. Sine Nomine has had the great privilege of participating in workshops with Jonathan Rathbone and Bob Chilcott (both of The Kings Singers fame) and was proud to be asked to record a CD of compositions by Alan Bullard for Oxford University Press.
Sine Nomine has undertaken many foreign tours, including Belgium, Norway, Canada, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Italy. Whilst in Vaison-la-Romaine in the South of France, the choir performed in an ancient amphitheatre to an audience of over 5000!
In 2008 we visited Leipzig and Dresden. Whilst in Leipzig, we were allowed to sing a piece in the J S Bach’s church, the Thomaskirche, and were then privileged to be invited back so that we could have an open rehearsal session. In 2010 we travelled to Krakow in Poland, in 2016 a wonderful tour to Portugal with concerts in various locations, including the fabulous Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Lisbon. And in 2022 there was a very successful cultural exchange tour to Lȕneburg, Lower Saxony, which include a private concert for the lady mayor and her guests.
Sine Nomine has enjoyed performing at a wide variety of venues throughout the UK, including Dunblane Cathedral, the chapel of Stirling Castle, The Sage Gateshead, the Worcester Three Choirs Festival and the Edinburgh Festival in 2011. The choir is also honoured to have been guest choir at The Presteigne Festival on four occasions performing works as varied as Duruflé’s Requiem and Tarik O’Regan’s A Letter of Rights, plus various festival commissions by Cecilia McDowell and David Matthews amongst others.
Following the retirement of Sue Hollingworth BEM after some 25 wonderful years with the choir, 2025 saw a major change in the choir with the appointment of a new music director, Benjamin Kirk; the choir are looking forward to a new journey under his musical leadership.
Sine Nomine posing for a quick photo after the recital in the church of St Mary Belfry, Pembridge as part of the Presteigne Festival of 2017. It was a pleasure to welcome Cecilia McDowall into our midst (in the blue dress, centre front).
“Another Presteigne hallmark is its policy of championing returning composers. One such is Cecilia McDowall, whose Love incorruptible was premiered by the remarkable Sine Nomine International Touring Choir under the equally remarkable Susan Hollingworth in Pembridge's beautiful, acoustically brilliant St Mary's Church on Monday.
The choir brought all its gifts of pizzicato-clear diction, a unanimity secured by exemplary attention to the conductor, confident sonority and well-shaped attack to this deeply-felt piece. Cascading textures suspending trenchant harmonies and angular melodic lines inform McDowall's sincere response to the soul-warming text before the music floats away into the ether on the word "Awake!"
John Joubert, also a Presteigne regular, was represented by his Three Carols and There is no Rose, timeless, simple and directly communicative. At the other end of the sonic scale were Brahms Fest- und Gedenkspruche, and Nielsen's Three Motets - and in a category of its own was the gloriously earthy Benedictio by the Estonian Urmas Sisask.”
Christopher Morley
Birmingham Post 31 August, 2017