About Us
City of Glasgow Chorus
The City of Glasgow Chorus is one of Glasgow’s leading choirs. Our members are dedicated and talented singers and perform with professional musicians to a very high standard. Most of all, we have fun!
The City of Glasgow Chorus was founded in 1983 by Graham Taylor MBE, and is now under the baton of Musical Director Paul Keohone. The Chorus is now one of the biggest independent choral groups in the West of Scotland and is a significant player in Scotland’s arts environment. We’ve grown into an organisation that has around 70 members singing a wide range of musical genres, committed to performing less familiar pieces as well as the popular and well-loved choral works.
Meet our Musical Director and Accompanist
Paul Keohone, Musical Director
From Kilmarnock, Scotland, Paul is a conductor, singer and vocal coach living in Glasgow. He was appointed Musical Director of the City of Glasgow Chorus In November 2021 and made his orchestral conducting debut with the CGC and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera at Glasgow City Halls in November 2022, conducting Mozart’s Requiem and Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass.
Paul studied singing at the Royal College of Music, London and has worked with Scottish Opera, English National Opera, The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala Milan, Opera West (Norway), Opera de Nancy, Théâtre du Châtelet and Les Arts Florissants (Paris), and at countless Festivals from Edinburgh to Bermuda. He has worked with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Peking Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Northern Sinfonia, and recorded with EMI, Naxos, Chandos and Deutsche Grammophon record labels. He sang the British Premier of composer Mark-Anthony Turnage’s When I Woke, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and was nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for his performance of Peter Maxwell Davies’ 8 Songs for a Mad King.
Paul teaches singing at The High School of Glasgow, and works as a vocal coach with the National Youth Choir of Scotland, The National Boys Choir and at the world famous Eton Choral Course (now known as The Rodolphus Foundation Choral Course). He conducts choral and performance workshops with many other choirs including The Glasgow Youth Choir and The Peninsula Choir. He has worked with the Clowndoctors at Hearts and Minds, a Scottish charity that use skills in clowning to help children in hospital and people living with dementia. As well as this, he has led workshops with NHS Scotland and Edinburgh University in a joint project with Glasgow’s Roma Communities in using singing to build bridges with the Roma people. He has also worked as vocal coach with The National Theatre of Scotland, most recently on the play Midsummer which was performed at The Edinburgh International Festival. In 2004 Paul was made an honorary member of The Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society for his contribution to the artistic life of The Mackintosh Church, Queens Cross.
For further information about Paul please visit www.paulkeohone.com.
Colin Taylor
Colin Taylor was born in Belfast, and began playing the piano at the age of six. He studied at the City of Belfast School of Music with Thomas Davidson, receiving the Bertram Jones Award in 1984. He performed in several recitals in Belfast and won numerous prizes at various music festivals.
In 1992, Colin graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where he studied with Gusztav Fenyo and Jean Hutchison, performing in several public recitals and competitions, with awards gained including The Lawrence Glover Memorial Prize.
Colin has participated in masterclasses with John Lill, Pascal Roge, Peter Donohoe, Ekaterina Murina, Vladimir Shakin, James Gibb and Roger Vignoles.
In 1994, he was a prize-winner at the ISM Piano Competition in Sheffield and was a piano finalist at the Ulster Bank Music Foundation in Dublin.
As well as performing solo recitals, Colin has worked as an accompanist for several opera societies and choirs in Glasgow, including The Savoy Club and Glasgow Grand Opera Society, and the vocal group Brats & Callets.
He has been accompanist for the City of Glasgow Chorus since 1998.
Graham Taylor, Musical Director 1983 - 2021
Graham Taylor founded the City of Glasgow Chorus in 1983 and was the Musical Director until 2021.
In his 38 years as Musical Director he led the Chorus through the full spectrum of choral music conducting works such as Faure’s Requiem, Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Mahler’s 8th Symphony – the Symphony of a Thousand which he conducted for its first performance for over 16 years in Glasgow as part of the European City of Culture in 1990.
In 2006, he conducted the world premiere recording of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s cantata, the Return of Odysseus with the City of Glasgow Chorus and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. The recording was released on the Divine Art label to critical acclaim.
Graham Taylor was presented with a Glasgow Lord Provost's Award in 2007 and made an MBE by HM The Queen in 2010 for services to music in Glasgow.
Musical Variety
We perform a wide variety of music:
- Beautiful choral works by composers such as: Verdi, Mozart and Fauré and some of the most challenging works in the repertoire such as Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis
- Seldom-performed works by mainstream composers, like Mendelssohn’s Die Erste
Walpurgisnacht, Holst’s Choral Symphony and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony; and - Traditional and modern carols, film music and songs from West End musicals at our very popular Christmas Cracker in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
You can find out details of our current
concert season here.
We’re versatile and our services are regularly “bought in” by other concert promoters so we often sing music from the shows and film scores and support big name acts. We have also worked with other choirs and in 2019, we performed with the Leeds Festival Chorus.
International Tours
We have toured abroad several times: to the Czech Republic, where we performed the Prague première of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast; to Notre Dame Cathedral in Chartres, France; to Krakow and Opole in Poland, which included a performance of Verdi’s Requiem with the Opole Philharmonic Orchestra which was received with great acclaim; and, a particular highlight, to China where we performed Vaughan Williams’ ‘A Sea Symphony’ and Brahms’ ‘German Requiem’ in spectacular concert halls in Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai.
Our performance partners
We have sung with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and the Paragon Ensemble.
We have a policy of performing with soloists who are students from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In addition to providing us with first class performers, this policy gives young singers valuable experience on the concert platform. Over the years we have also shared the stage with international stars such as José Carreras, Lesley Garrett, Lisa Milne, Sir Willard White, Maria Ewing, Anthony Michaels-Moore, Sarah Brightman and Russell Watson.