Gold and Silver at Blackpool

A Gold Diploma in Pop, Jazz and Gospel and a Silver Diploma in Mixed Choirs at the International Choir Competition Blackpool 2026.

Barnsley Singers, dressed in black with red accents, perform on a raised stage in the gilded Empress Ballroom at the Winter Gardens Blackpool. A conductor leads from the front, a band and piano sit to the left, and an audience watches from red seats beneath the chandeliers.

Barnsley Singers came home from the International Choir Competition Blackpool 2026 with a Gold Diploma and a Silver Diploma, after a weekend of competing, workshops and concerts at the Winter Gardens and around the town.

Our results

  • Pop, Jazz and Gospel: Gold Diploma, Level II, with a score of 21.64
  • Mixed Choirs: Silver Diploma, Level X, with a score of 20.35

On the Friday evening we sang in the Pop, Jazz and Gospel category alongside choirs from Finland, Ireland and Yorkshire. On Saturday afternoon, 12 September, we competed in the Mixed Choirs category.

What we sang

  • Something Inside So Strong (Labi Siffre, arranged by Luke Mather), with solos from Gemma Casterton and John Hutchinson, conducted by Luke Mather
  • Somewhere Only We Know (Keane, arranged by Mat Wright), with a solo from Claire Gilmore, conducted by Luke Mather
  • Farewell to the Wheatsheaf (words by Roy Hardacre, traditional tune, arranged by Luke Mather)
  • Christmas Eve (The Barnsley Carol), in the Mixed Choirs category
  • Fix You (Coldplay, arranged by Helen Garnett), conducted by Natalie Davies, at the Friendship Concert once the competitions were done

Farewell to the Wheatsheaf is about the pub that stood at the bottom of Racecommon Road, demolished in the early 1990s to make way for wider roads and the Townend roundabout. We performed it with piano, acoustic guitar, folk drum and traditional longswords to give the feeling of being inside the pub, a way of keeping Barnsley’s folk history alive.

Our band for the weekend was Rob Cooper, Jeff Swift, Paul Chamberlain and Keith Ramskill.

A weekend that changed the choir

Between the competition rounds we sang in workshops and concerts and made friends with choirs from the UK and abroad. Our friends from Barnsley Youth Choir joined us for the final day.

We came to Blackpool to make friends, to have fun and spread joy, giving everything in our performances. We left with so much more than we thought possible.

Barnsley Singers, writing on Facebook after the competition

Thank you

Thank you to INTERKULTUR, Artistic Director Mat Wright and the whole team for such a memorable event. Thank you too to everyone who came to our Blackpool Experience Concert in August to send us off, and to all our members and supporters who cheered us on from home.

Hearing about our competitions and fancy singing with us? Barnsley Singers rehearses on Tuesday evenings at Barnsley Sixth Form College. There’s no audition, and you don’t need to read music. Find out about joining.