The current College Choral Society comprises all singers in the college choir (currently about 40) augmented by other College pupils and staff. The choir for the annual choral concert (which usually numbers about 140) is made up of the College Choral Society and the ESO Symphony Chorus (which comprises current and former College parents and other College and ESO friends). This group has been joined at various times by choirs from St Andrew’s Eastbourne prep school, Cavendish School Eastbourne, Prebendal School Chichester, Chichester University Choir and  singers from Junior King’s School Canterbury.

The early years of music at the College were interlinked with that at St Saviour’s Church. It was in 1871 (four years after the College was founded) that the College singing class performed at prize day and, by 1876, the tradition of an annual concert with choral items was established. In 1877, this April concert attracted a large audience comprising many distinguished local figures and the choir ‘acquitted themselves capitally’ (Eastbournian). In 1882, the school orchestra, comprising 12 players (boys and adults) accompanied the choral work Christ and His Soldiers by John Farmer. In December 1885 the Choral Society, called such for the first time, performed Richard Coeur de Lion by Franz Abt and the Eastbournian states: ‘So far this is the greatest effort of the [College] Choral Society and we must congratulate them on their success’.

In 1889 the annual College choral concert (now in December) moved to the Town Hall and became the main annual music event. By 1895 the College Choral Society numbered 68 and was accompanied by the 12-strong orchestra and conducted by music master Frank Gillett. The Devonshire Park Theatre was the venue for the December 1898 concert and by 1899, back in the Town Hall, there were over 80 singers and 20 orchestra players. These December concerts, attended by all the school and local dignitaries, continued and were usually reviewed by the local paper. From about 1912 (when the singers numbered about 40) they appear to have taken place in Big School. The choral repertoire for these annual events included Stanford’s Revenge and The Last Post, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast and Hiawatha’s Departure, Romberg’s cantata The Lay of the Bell, and Frank Bridge’s The Inchcape Rock. By 1914 College violin teacher William Read was leader of the municipal orchestra which was called the Duke of Devonshire’s Orchestra, a forerunner of the Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra. Though there were College concerts (Stainer’s Crucifixion), the Choral Society had to be resurrected in 1919 and the following years saw renditions of glees and a repeat of Stainer’s Crucifixion.

Gordon Carey (who had been a boy chorister at King’s College, Cambridge) arrived as Headmaster in 1929 and by 1931 had again resurrected the College Choral Society (of about 70, with the aim of having 150). Speech Day in April 1932 saw the Choral Society performing in the dell. One of the congregational practices had the school singing a congregational part of the Hallelujah Chorus in combination with the Choral Society which was a rehearsal for what was to be performed as the culmination of the December concert in Big School, the first part of which saw the orchestra and Choral Society combining to sing Part One of Handel’s Messiah. In 1936 Director of Music Christopher Barlow was involved in conducting the municipal orchestra. In 1939 the College Choral Society of 50 boys (some trebles but mainly tenors and basses) was joined by about 50 singers from local girls school Moira House and accompanied by a string ensemble of about 20 players, a mixture of College and local musicians.

During the College’s evacuation to Radley (1940-1945) a small choral society existed which sang especially composed pieces, this was conducted by Dr John Alden, Eastbourne’s Director of Music. By 1948 and back in Eastbourne the Choral Society numbered 100 boys and performed Dyson’s In Honour of the City. Jack Phillipson (Director of Music 1948-1965) was in charge of the Eastbourne Operatic Society. In Big School, the Eastbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, under its conductor Ronald Harding, accompanied the College Choral Society consisting of 90 boys (a third of the school) along with girls from Moira House; the programme included Act 2 of Gluck’s Orpheus and Brahms’s Song of Destiny. The Chapel Choir numbered 60 boys who were also in the Choral Society. In 1950 the College Choral Society, accompanied by several local string players, and joined by Ravenscroft School, performed Messiah Part Two. This year also saw a number of performances by the college choral society of Gilbert and Sullivan, accompanied by the Eastbourne Orchestral Society.

March 1955 saw a performance (described as possibly the biggest musical event since the war) of Mozart’s Requiem in All Saints’ Church with four professional soloists, the College Choral Society and Eastbourne’s Bach Choir, accompanied by a string orchestra and the organ played by Dr Henry Coleman. The year 1956 was the turn of Bach’s B minor mass and the Eastbournian states: ‘I hope that Mr Phillipson will strengthen this union of town and gown with performances of other works.’ Michael Birley arrived as Headmaster in September 1956 and both he and his wife sang in the December concert (Messiah) as members of the Choral Society. December 1957 had 150 voices (Eastbourne’s Bach Choir, Moira House and the College Choral Society) singing Haydn’s Creation in All Saints’ Church; this combination of singers became a pattern. The year 1960 had a performance, now with singers from Roedean, of Fauré’s Requiem. St Saviour’s Church re-enters the records as a venue for a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the College Choral Society and Moira House.

John Walker was appointed Director of Music in September 1965 and, perhaps establishing a new pattern, March 1966 saw the College Choral Society with the Eastbourne Tudor Singers (formed in 1964 by Assistant Director of Music Michael Foad) and 20 boys from St Mary’s School, accompanied by an adult orchestra assembled for the day, singing Orff’s Carmina Burana with professional soloists; this seems to have been the first College production in the Congress Theatre. In May 1969, the Congress Theatre was the venue for the Dream of Gerontius with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the first time a fully professional national orchestra had been used. The choral societies of the College, Ascham and Moira House augmented by the Tudor Singers made up the chorus, and the soloists were Kenneth Bowen (tenor), Pamela Bowden (mezzo) and Roger Stalman (bass) and in the audience was Philip Ledger, later Director of Music at King’s College Cambridge. May 1970, again with the CBSO, conducted by John Walker, saw a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in the Congress Theatre and composer and sometime parent Ronald Binge wrote a review for the Eastbournian. Subsequent choral concerts where the singers were composed from similar groups and under John Walker’s baton were: 1971 St John Passion with the Jacques Orchestra, soloists Martyn Hill and Michael Rippon; 1973 Carmina Burana with the English National Orchestra (St Bede’s prep school were now included along with the College Choral Society, Moira House and Ascham); 1974 Messiah with the English National Orchestra; 1975 Belshazzar’s Feast with the ENO with Beresford House included; 1976 a fund-raiser come-sing-and-play-Messiah in the Winter Garden; 1977 Verdi’s Requiem with the ENO and which now included singers from St Andrew’s prep school; 1978 Brahms’s Requiem with the Guildford Philharmonic; 1980 The Dream of Gerontius with Richard Lewis singing Gerontius and with the Guildford Philharmonic; 1982 Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 with the Guildford Philharmonic.

Graham Jones had arrived as Assistant Director of Music in 1976 and was appointed Director of Music in 1991 on the retirement of John Walker. The Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra had been founded (as the Eastbourne Sinfonia) in 1979 by, among others, the College’s then Deputy Head John Evans (Concert Manager, to be replaced in 1982 by John Thornley), Alan Gardner (housemaster of Wargrave), and Graham Jones (its Musical Director and principal conductor) and continued the tradition, set by College music master Frank Gillett in the early 1900s, of the College playing a part in the musical life of the town. June 1983 saw the first choral concert with the ESO and local (non College) singers (including the Tudor Singers and the Southbourne Singers) and this was the annual pattern until the College Choral Society (comprising the College Choir and other College singers) was re-established and joined the other singers for a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in the Congress Theatre (which was to be the venue for the next few years) on 17 May 1987 accompanied, as was usual, by the ESO under the baton of Graham Jones. June 1988 saw Orff’s Carmina Burana and June 1989 was the turn for Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony. The end of the Lent term (March) 1990 to 1998 had performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, Haydn’s Creation, Brahms’s Requiem, Verdi’s Requiem, Elgar’s Gerontius, Mozart’s Requiem (conductor David Force, Assistant Director of Music), Duruflé’s Requiem, Mozart’s Coronation Mass (conductor David Force), and Haydn’s Creation. Thus the choral concert had become an annual event with the College Choral Society joining other local singers (including current and former parents and other friends of the College) as well as other schools (for example St Andrew’s prep school and The Cavendish School), accompanied by the Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra. Professional soloists have included Neil Jenkins as well as former college pupils Mark Le Brocq and Andrew Wicks.

It is worth considering at this point how much change there has been in how the chorus is made up. Over the years, higher and higher standards have been sought and diverse works (often not so frequently performed on the local circuit), sometimes of a more complex nature, sometimes more contemporary (for example Belshazzar’s Feast 1975, Gerontius 1969, 1980, 1994, 1999, Berlioz’s Te Deum 2005, Rutter’s Mass of the Children 2006, Ledger’s A Thanksgiving for Life 2008) have been programmed. These considerations, along with the need to justify the greater financial support required and ensure that books balance, have led to a recognition among those who sing that solid musical ability is a sine qua non. Link this, from the senior school perspective, to a slow-down in the tradition of choral singing pre age 13 (from which some cathedrals now suffer), to the lack of treble voices at age 13 and to the subsequent dearth of school tenors and basses, and it is clear why there are fewer singers, usually male, of school age than there used to be. The chorus for the annual choral concert is still made up of large numbers of dedicated and talented singers from across the generations, though the balance has shifted.

Times change and expectations are greater and so it was that in 1999 the choral concert moved to the Saturday of the first bank holiday weekend in May and from the Congress Theatre to Chichester Cathedral, thus extending the College’s and the town’s musical presence into the further reaches of the diocese. This move enabled two further and important developments in the choral concert story: the use of a more suitable building for the works being performed (sometime requiring organ) and a more organised way of accommodating some 150 singers and 70 players.

Conducted by Graham Jones, Chichester concerts from 1999 to the present day have been Elgar’s Gerontius, Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Duruflé’s Requiem, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Rutter’s Magnificat, Berlioz’s Te Deum, Rutter’s Mass of the Children, Dvorak’s Mass in D and, in 2008, Poulenc’s Gloria and Ledger’s Requiem (Thanksgiving for Life).