HUDDERSFIELD Choral Society’s golden period seems set to continue with another exciting season of concerts and outside engagements to come.

The choir has had an extraordinary 18 months in which it has sung for the Queen and travelled overseas, including a trip to Japan, while producing some top-quality concerts.

The singers begin their new season on September 27 with a visit to Liverpool as part of the city’s European Capital of Culture celebrations.

The Choral has been invited to sing in Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral under the baton of the charismatic young conductor Vasily Petrenko (pictured), who conducted the choir’s opening concert last autumn in Huddersfield Town Hall.

The Choral will join the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and the Leeds Philharmonic Society for a performance of the Verdi Requiem.

For its first concert of the new season on home ground the Choral will sing Bach’s great B Minor Mass.

That concert, with the Northern Sinfonia, will be conducted by Stephen Layton and will be in Huddersfield Town Hall on October 31.

The same orchestra returns in December to join the Choral for its two performances of Messiah, with conductor Jane Glover.

The first of the two performances will be for subscribers on December 16, with the public performance on the following day.

On Friday, December 12, the Choral, conducted by Huddersfield favourite Brian Kay, will be joined by Brighouse and Rastrick Band in a festive concert.

The final subscribers’ concert is on March 27, 2009. It will include three contrasting pieces.

One is Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, while Leonard Bernstein’s lively Chichester Psalms has the chorus singing in Hebrew.

Fauré’s Requiem rarely gets heard at a subscribers’ concert, so it’s a good opportunity to hear this gentle and contemplative piece, with the famous Pie Jesu.