I first worked with the Hampton Singers on a concert performance of Iolanthe in the spring of 2002, and was appointed as their conductor in January 2003.

Since then we have performed a varied programme of music, including Haydn's St. Nicholas Mass, Handel's Coronation Anthems, An Oxford Elegy by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the Choral Dances from "Gloriana" by Benjamin Britten and another Gilbert & Sullivan concert performance, this time we chose Ruddigore.

In July of 2004 we hosted our first, very successful, "Singalong" of the Coronation Anthems at which we were joined by 30 or so guest singers.  This was followed in 2005 with a Singalong of Haydn's Nelson Mass and in 2006 with the Vivaldi Gloria.  It has been most gratifying to see the numbers of guests increasing year by year, with some people coming back every year!

In March 2005 we performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Solihull Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martin Leigh.  This was an exciting and challenging project, and we acquitted ourselves with some distinction!

The rest of the year - incidentally our Silver Jubilee season - was taken up with Haydn's Nelson Mass in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.  We hosted another Singalong in July, and performed the Mass in concert in October.  The concert included works to celebrate the quin-centenaries of Thomas Tallis and Christopher Tye, both born in 1505, and the orchestra - the Arden Sinfonia - performed Arvo Pärt's Fratres and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten to celebrate his 70th birthday.

2006 was an exciting season.  We performed the Vivaldi Gloria in October, along with a new piece entitled Peace Triptych written specially for us by Jerry Wigens as part of the "Adopt a Composer" scheme run by Making Music and the SPNM.

At the end of 2006 we had to bid farewell to our rehearsal room at Hampton Manor, and we took up residence at the Arden Room in the Fentham Hall in Hampton.

For 2007 we created a "new" G & S opera entitled The Pirates of Hampton or Ruddigood (actually, it's everyone's favourite bits and pieces of G & S!).  At the end of the year we will presented Handel's Messiah, which was also  the work for this year's Singalong.

In 2008 our spring concert was an Edwardian evening, called The Fentham Follies and featuring several of the members as soloists.  The autumn concert Was Fauré's Requiem, along with the Cantique de Jean Racine and the choral version of the Pavane.  We also gave a second performance of Jerry Wigens' Peace Triptych, which had been a great success at its premiere in 2006.

This year we will be giving a selection of favourite choral classics with the soprano Helen Winter, and, in the Autumn, Mozart's Requiem.