How it all began - by Chrina Jarvis

I blame my mother. Knowing that I had in the past enjoyed singing madrigals and belonged to various groups at various times, she presented me, at Christmas 1991, with The Penguin Book of English Madrigals for Four Voices, hoping, and expecting, me to put it to good use. A kind thought but not easy to sing all four parts by yourself! At another choir's rehearsal, and ignoring the fact that I was supposed to be concentrating on learning the Mozart Requiem, I suggested, sotto voce of course, to my fellow alto and good friend, Maggie Snook, that perhaps a few of us could get together and sing some madrigals for fun on an ad hoc basis, utilising my new book. The response was more than enthusiastic! Let's form a choir, she said - and without further ado we planned and plotted, that evening, the beginnings of Felicitas!

We gave our inaugural concert in August 1992 in Chingford, London, E4. Since then, Felicitas has performed many times in North and East London, Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk. Originally formed to sing a cappella music from the 16th and 17th centuries, both sacred and secular, the choir has extended its repertoire to include a wide range of works, accompanied and unaccompanied, from the late mediaeval period to the 20th century.

Seventeen years on, we are a very well established group of 21 singers with three CDs, numerous TV appearances and performances at Notre-Dame, Sacre-Coeur in Paris and Chartres Cathedral to our name, as well as having given concerts in Florence, Pistoia and Montecatini in Tuscany during October 2001, well received concerts in Budapest in June 2004 and in Barcelona on October 2007.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2002 with a number of special concerts - and our 15th anniversary with a concert given in the Grade 1 listed Old Royal Naval College Chapel at Greenwich. We look forward to many more years of equally enjoyable music-making.

Further details about the choir, and its Mailing List and Friends Scheme, can be obtained from: