Our History
United Christian Singers was formed in November 1989 in response to an invitation from Roger Jones to host his first performance in the northwest of his new musical ‘Mary Magdalene’.
About 250 singers came together from Christian churches in Greater Manchester, Cheshire, and Lancashire. They included Methodists, URC, Baptists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and independent fellowships. We booked the Free Trade Hall for this momentous event – and filled it! Thrilled at our success and believing that we had found work to do for the Lord, we decided to stay together. Over the years some have of course left but others have joined, and these days we number around 70 men and women in our group.
We have premiered most every new musical from Roger Jones, performed and recorded Brian Hoare’s ‘New Creation’ and have sung 'Anno Domini' (Raymond Smith),‘The Witness’ (Carol and Jimmy Owens), ‘Sing Good News’ (various composers), ‘Night of Miracles’ (John Peterson) and several smaller works besides.
We have sung in the Victoria Hall, Bolton, Weaverham Parish Church, the Champness Hall, Rochdale, Marple, Wilmslow, Bramhall Methodist Churches, the Royal Northern College of Music, and other venues too numerous to mention here.
We also went by invitation into Styal and Risley prisons, but regulations restricted us there to small numbers.
We were honoured to have been invited to sing in Blackpool during The Methodist Conference week. We have also presented ‘Make Way for Christmas’ ‘The Gift’ by Graham Kendrick, and Two Sisters and a Funeral by Roger Jones.
A new composition 'Emmanuel', composed in 2012 by one of our choir members, Margaret Heylings-Jones, featured in our own compilation of songs, sketches, and narration, which we called 'To Advent and Beyond' which we performed at The Avenue Methodist Church in Sale, and at Bamford Chapel URC. In 2015. we performed New Creation by Brian Hoare at Southport, Alderley Edge, Moston, Rawtenstall and Bury.
The last major production was a full costume presentation of Pharisee, again by Roger Jones. We played this at the end of 2015, to packed churches at Whalley Range Methodist Church and St John, Horwich, and then again in early 2016 at Bolton Road Methodist Church, Bury, and Trinity Church, Audenshaw.
In 2016, we said a sad farewell to our Musical Director, Walter Brisk, who stepped down after 27 years of dedicated and unstinting service to the choir, to hand over the baton to Anne Wilde, whom we now welcome into our fellowship to allow us all to continue our witness and the spreading of the gospel through our music.
Come and join us
If you live anywhere in the Greater Manchester area and would like to join us, please get in touch with us by emailing:
info@unitedchristiansingers.org.uk
If you would like to invite us to sing for you, the same contact applies.
We offer our services for free, bringing the performance and technical support with us.