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Our next concert

Infinite Variety - celebrating our twentieth anniversary

Recent concerts

Midsummer Mardles - our first performance in Norfolk...

Here Be Dragons - a concert as part of a celebration of St Margaret's Day, with dangerous journeys and fearsome beasties

Chimes Musical Theatre was created by Cassie Tillett in 1987.  November 2007 will see the twentieth anniversary of their original concert, which was called Just a song at teatime - an afternoon of parlour-song entertainment.  It was presented as part of a day of music at Bourne Hall in Ewell in aid of the British Epilepsy Association, and was in memory of a friend of Cassie’s who had died as a result of her epilepsy.

The group were asked to provide a concert about a year later as a fund-raising event for Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Church in Tolworth; and the rest, as they say, is history.  Cassie continued to arrange musical entertainments for charitable causes, and an increasing number of her theatrical and musical colleagues were recruited to take part.  The spectrum of musical styles increased with the various performers, and now ranges from opera to operetta, from music hall to musical comedy, from parlour-song to pantomime; casts have ranged from three performers to twelve, and audiences from the Sutton Deanery Clergy Wives to the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society – including transatlantic visitors! 

The singers have generally been colleagues from choirs and operatic societies, many of whom are professional musicians; but whether they earn their living from music or not, they have freely given their time and considerable talents – generally for no more than expenses and the occasional glass of something red… We’ve been proud to work with performers who have otherwise graced the stages of Glyndebourne, the English National Opera and the Royal Albert Hall (to name but a few), but who have been happy to work in churches, halls and stately homes, raising funds for charities ranging from the Cot Death Foundation to Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, from St Peter & St James Hospice to the Vauxhall Four Peaks Challenge, from stately home restoration to an assortment of church building funds.  

The performers travel from a wide range of places, from Brighton to Finchley and from Walthamstow to Windsor.  We will generally agree to perform where a suitable venue can be provided, and the venue takes care of finding the audience for us; and where funds will be raised as a result for a charitable cause, as chosen either by the performers or by the venue.

The name Chimes had no particular significance when it was chosen, except that it was reminiscent of pleasant-sounding music.  Audience reactions over the years have confirmed that this was the right name to choose!