CELEBRATING 90 YEARS IN 2022

Goldsmiths Choral Union has brought the finest classical music to appreciative London audiences since 1932

GCU Tenor Choral Scholarships

We’re a friendly choir with up to 120 members based in South Kensington. We enjoy singing and really love performing in great venues. We work hard to continue to promote concerts in London’s major venues singing with professional soloists and orchestras.

Patrons: Simon Halsey (CBE), Neil Jenkins, The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths
Music Director: Jack Apperley
Accompanist and Assistant Conductor: Stephen Jones

GCU’s performances of works from the traditional choral repertoire, ranging from Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation and Bach’s B Minor Mass to Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, have been praised for their freshness, clarity and emotional commitment. Equally, GCU has performed less familiar works, such as Franz Liszt’s oratorio Christus and Sir Michael Tippett’s The Mask of Time.

British premières given over the years include Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied, and the first UK broadcast of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

GCU was founded in 1932 in South London by Frederick Haggis at Goldsmiths College, University of London. At the outbreak of World War II the college was evacuated, but while other choirs disbanded, GCU continued to rehearse and perform in central London.

Since then, GCU has built up an enviable reputation, first under the baton of Mr Haggis and later under Brian Wright. Jack Apperley was appointed as Music Director from September 2022.

Music Staff

Image: Pablo Strong

Jack Apperley - Music Director

Originally from Stourbridge, Jack grew up playing the piano, the viola and singing.

After studying at the University of Birmingham under Simon Halsey CBE, he then completed his Masters at the Royal Academy of Music with Professor Patrick Russill, graduating with distinction, winning the Sir Thomas Armstrong Leadership prize.

As the Associate Chorus Director of the London Symphony Chorus, Musical Director of Goldsmiths Choral Union and Concordia Voices, and Conductor of Epsom Chamber Choir, Jack has established a reputation for thorough rehearsals filled with energy, humour and precision, as well as compelling concerts, championing new works alongside classical mainstays.

He is increasingly in demand as a choral director both in the UK and abroad. Recently, Jack has worked with the London Symphony Chorus, the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Chorus, Brighton Festival Chorus, University of Birmingham Voices and Royal College of Music Chorus. He has been engaged by some of the best choirs in Europe including le Choeur de Radio France, Gothenburg Symphony Chorus and Vocal Ensemble, and the Hungarian National Choir.

Jack is a prize-winner in several choral conducting competitions in Hong Kong, Latvia, Slovenia, and London. He has also participated in several masterclasses with the BBC Singers, Berliner Rundfunkchor, Stuttgart Kammerchor, Hungarian National Choir and St Jacob’s Kammerchor.

In addition to his regular musical commitments, Jack is frequently engaged to lead choral workshops with choirs including Goldsmiths Choral Union and Sevenoaks Philharmonic Society and promotors such as the Buxton International Festival.

Recent London concerts include Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Buxtehude’s Ad Manus, Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands, Haydn’s The Creation, Bach’s Magnificat, Alec Roth’s A Time to Dance, Cecilia McDowall’s Da Vinci Requiem, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, all performances at Cadogan Hall, and the Fauré and Duruflé Requiems at Smith Square Hall. Other recent highlights include Steinberg’s Passion Week with Epsom Chamber Choir, Palmeri’s Misa Tango with Concordia Voices and Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles with the Hungarian National Choir.

See Jack’s website for more information about him: https://jackapperley.com/biography

Stephen Jones - Accompanist and Assistant Conductor

Stephen Jones studied piano at London’s Trinity College of Music with John Bingham and singing with John Huw Davies.

Over the years he has sung with the London Sinfonietta, St Paul’s Cathedral choir, Collegium Musicum of London, and the choir of St Peter’s Eaton Square, as well as an Evangelist and oratorio soloist.

He is Founder Director of the award-winning City Chamber Choir and Hertfordshire based Aeolian Singers, and is widely experienced as conductor, repetiteur, continuo player, singing teacher and composer.

For more information, see www.citychamberchoir.org.uk.

Meet GCU’s new Patron - Simon Halsey, CBE

  • Artistic Advisor and Choral Director, Oslo Philharmonic

  • Principal Guest Conductor and Choral Ambassador, Orfeó Català Choirs, Barcelona

  • Conductor Laureate, Rundfunkchor Berlin

  • Chorus Director, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Choruses

  • Choral Director Emeritus, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

  • Principal Guest Conductor, WDR Rundfunkchor

  • Professor and Director of Choral Activities, University of Birmingham

  • Professor, Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía

  • Simon has worked with orchestras and choirs all over the world and has been involved with numerous recordings. He has won several awards, including three GRAMMY’s for Best Choral Performance - one in 2008 for a recording of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem. 

In 2010 Simon worked on a collaboration with Sir Simon Rattle and the American Director Peter Sellars on the ground-breaking ‘ritualization’ of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, performed and semi-staged with the Berlin Philharmonic in the beautiful space of the Grand Hall of the Philharmonie in Berlin. Simon rehearsed his Rudfunkchoir who sang off copy.

Simon has since gone on to have huge success with the Human Requiem, a project which stems from Brahms’s German Requiem and was first performed in Berlin with the Rundfunkchor.  He will conduct Human Requiem again in June 2026 with the choirs of Orféo Català, with whom he is principal guest conductor and choral ambassador.

To understand Simon’s unique qualities as a chorus master and to appreciate the ability he has to interpret the instructions of conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle set against the theatrical wishes of a director like Peter Sellars, there is an enlightening conversation between Simon Halsey and Peter Sellars to be found on YouTube. These excerpts are Peter speaking about Simon:

‘You always have this brilliant way of giving the chorus a super-practical thing that creates an utterly mysterious, haunting, profound reality’ and 

‘Your astounding radar, when you know when to move in on some pin point, and it shifts the entire meaning just because you gave this tiny little note, and the whole piece suddenly opens.’

GCU is honoured and delighted Simon has agreed to become the choir’s Patron.

(More information from ‘Intermusica - Simon Halsey’)

 Listen to our music

Turn the pages of our recent concert programmes

Fanfares & Flourishes. Smith Square Hall, 14 November 2025

The Passing of The Year. Holy Trinity Church, 20 June 2025

Hymns of Paradise. Smith Square Hall, 28 March 2025

Baroque Inspirations. Cadogan Hall, 7 November 2024

Gift of Life. Holy Trinity Church, 21 June 2024

Parisian Spring. St John’s Smith Square, 22 March 2024

Austrian Exuberance. Cadogan Hall, 7 November 2023

Bach: Magnificat and Roth: A time to Dance. Cadogan Hall, 28 March 2023

Haydn: The Creation. Cadogan Hall, 8 November 2022

McDowall: Da Vinci Requiem, Warlock: Capriol Suite, Haydn: Mass in Time of War. Cadogan Hall, 25 March 2022

 The History of the GCU Leo

 It isn’t easy to miss the golden ‘Leo’ worn by the women of GCU at our concerts. But how did the tradition begin?

The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (more usually known as the Goldsmiths’ Company) is one of the twelve Livery Companies of the City of London, with a history going back more than 800 years.  In 1300, King Edward I passed a statute requiring gold and silver to be of a defined standard, and requiring ‘les Gardiens du Mester’ (the Guardians of the Craft) to test the gold and silver, and mark it with a leopard’s head.  This leopard’s head was taken from the royal arms, and later became known as the King’s Mark.  This is the first legal recognition of the Goldsmiths’ Company (and also the beginning of hallmarking in Britain).

In 1891 the Goldsmiths’ Company founded The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute, in New Cross, London.  It was renamed Goldsmiths' College after being acquired by the University of London in 1904. Goldsmiths Choral Union came into being in 1932 as an evening class at Goldsmiths' College, under the direction of Frederick Haggis, Professor of Music at the college.  During the Second World War the college was evacuated to Nottingham (a wise decision as it turned out, since the main building was struck by an incendiary bomb and gutted in 1940), and the choir became independent of the College, although retaining the Goldsmiths name.

For the choir’s 40th anniversary in 1972 its chief patron, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, commissioned the design of ‘a new badge to be worn by members of the choir’.  This ‘badge’ – which became the choir’s logo – was in the shape of the leopard’s head taken from the Company’s arms, and quickly became affectionately known as ‘Leo’, and the women of the choir have warmly and proudly worn their Leo for all GCU performances ever since.