SUCCESS FOR SURREY HARMONY IN THE FIRST ROUND OF SAINSBURY'S CHOIR OF THE YEAR 2000

Surrey Harmony have sung their way to success in the first round of the Sainsbury's Choir of the Year 2000, the UK's premier competition for amateur choirs. In the Southern regional auditions held in Basingstoke on Sunday 26 March 2000, Surrey Harmony took the title of Sainsbury's Single Voice Choir of the Day. They will now go forward to the National selection stage in June where eight of the sixteen audition finalists will be chosen to compete in the BBC televised Semi Finals in Buxton, Derbyshire in November. Two choirs will then be chosen to compete with finalists from the Mixed Voice Choir, Children's Choir and Youth Choirs for the overall Sainsbury's Choir of the Year 2000.

Commenting on Surrey Harmony's performance, adjudicators Susan Digby and Jeremy Patterson said they were impressed with the "imaginative and well-controlled performance, combining a very high standard of singing with some splendid choreography!"

Chorus Director Jenny Lawson proudly displays the Certificate awarded by Sainsbury's for being the

Single Voice Choir of the Day

Visit the Sainsbury's Choir Of the Year website at

www.sainsburyschoiroftheyear.co.uk

SURREY HARMONY have twice appeared at the Barbican Centre and many other prestigious venues throughout London and the south of England, including a variety of private functions and charity events. They have also performed in New Orleans, Memphis and Nashville in America. In their ten-year existence they have also raised a substantial amount of money for many charitable causes.

SURREY HARMONY, formed in 1990 under the leadership of their Chorus Director Jenny Lawson, have won silver and gold medals and have been featured in many radio and television programmes. They have performed on Radio 2's "Friday Night is Music Night" broadcast live from Fairfield in Croydon, Surrey, on television in the Sainsbury's Choir of the Year competition and most recently at the BBC's Proms in the Park Concert in Hyde Park where they sang before an audience of 40,000.

In May 1997 they won the UK Sweet Adeline's Women's Barbershop Championship in Derby for the second time and earned the right to represent the United Kingdom in the International Barbershop Championship held in Nashville, Tennessee in November 1998, achieving the highest position of any previous UK Chorus in the event's history. In May 2000 they won Gold for the third time in their 10 year history and represented the UK in Portland, Oregan in October 2001.

They have competed in the Sainsbury's Choir of the Year 2000 where they won the Single Voice Choir of the Day award and were chosen to go through to the Semi-finals to be held in Buxton, Derbyshire in November.

Click on the Forthcoming Events button below to find out where you can next see the Chorus.