Solent City Chorus celebrates its 50 th anniversary in style!
2025 is proving to be a great year for Solent City Chorus! Not only is Portsmouth’s men’s barbershop choir celebrating its 50 th anniversary, but they’ve just achieved their best result for many years in the UK’s national barbershop competition.
The club’s history began in 1975, when a group of pals who loved singing met up in the Ship and Bell pub in Horndean, just north of Portsmouth. It was a time when barbershop – a style of four-part harmony singing – was just taking off in the UK. The hobby has continued to grow ever since and there are now well over 100 barbershop clubs nationwide and close to 5,000 singers.
In the early days, the club retained a Ship and Bell as part of its club logo as a reminder of its origin. The club now rehearses in Portchester and a few years back adopted its current four-colour wave logo, symbolising the maritime connection as well as its focus on four-part harmony.
Competing with other clubs is part of the barbershop tradition and Solent City has competed at both a local and national level almost since its inception. In recent years, the club has walked off with many trophies at local music festivals, including those in Fareham, the Isle of Wight and Chichester.
But this year Solent City also did well at the UK national championships in Bournemouth, held over the May bank holiday weekend. Competing in the Division 3 league, Solent achieved its best score since 1998, and only missed winning the league by a whisker.
A quartet comprising two guys from Solent – Steve Morris and Bob Knowles – plus John Ward and John Kerr from the Wight Harmony club in the IOW – also had a terrific weekend. “The Blue-Eyed Boys”, as the quartet are known, produced a great performance to win the bronze medal in the UK Seniors competition.
Plans to celebrate the club’s 50 th anniversary are well in hand. June will see a special concert featuring Solent City plus near-neighbours Spinnaker Chorus, one of the country’s top female barbershop choruses, as well as a visiting (and very funny) Australian men’s chorus. The show is open to the public and full details can found on Solent’s website: www.solentcitychorus.com. The guys in Solent City also have plans to go back to where it all began, to the Ship and Bell pub….for a pint, a meal, some reminiscing about old pals from the last 50 years, and of course, a bit of a sing.