Chorus manager, BBC Symphony Orchestra

Closing date for applications: 22 October 2025

Salary: £30,000 - £35,000 (plus London Weighting of £5,441) depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Location: Maida Vale Studios, London W9. This role is primarily on-site /on location due to a schedule that’s dictated by the chorus activity. However, occasional days working from home can be accommodated.

Contract type: Permanent, full-time

Department: BBC Symphony Orchestra

Job band: C

Interviews: Interviews will be held in person at Maida Vale Studios, London, W9, on Wednesday 5th November 2025

Help shape the future of one of the UK's leading choirs at the BBC. From managing rehearsals and performances to championing artistic growth, this is your chance to support the chorus through an exciting new chapter.

Founded in 1928, the BBC Symphony Chorus is one of the UK’s leading choirs. It is unique in the range and quality of its performances, performing a distinctive variety of large-scale music including commissions and premieres, and reaching huge numbers through regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and on BBC TV. Under the leadership of chorus director Neil Ferris, the chorus has reached new artistic heights and continues to perform regularly at the BBC Proms (including the First and Last Nights), at the Barbican, and at BBC Maida Vale Studios, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and other leading orchestras. The chorus is formed of nearly 200 volunteer singers who sing at the highest level on the concert platform and in the recording studio. In recent years the chorus’s recordings have received plaudits at the Gramophone Awards and BBC Music Magazine Awards. It has performed a huge range of music, from cornerstones of the repertoire by Beethoven, Mahler and Elgar to large-scale works by Dame Ethel Smyth and José Maurício Nunes Garcia. Regular world and UK premieres include works by composers such as Detlev Glanert, James MacMillan, Judith Weir and Ben Nobuto, as well as collaborations with artists from the pop music world including Father John Misty and Jon Hopkins. Performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in the 2025/26 season range from Mozart’s Requiem and Stravinsky’s Perséphone under chief conductor Sakari Oramo to the premiere of Brent Michael Davids’s Requiem for America: Singing for the Invisible People as part of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Making America series of concerts in spring 2026.

We are looking for an exceptional candidate to administer the requirements and represent the interests of the chorus. The successful candidate will be a motivated, enthusiastic and well-organised individual who can not only deliver for the BBC and its audiences but also help shape the evolution of the chorus as we move to our new studio base in East London. The successful candidate will play a key role in positioning the BBC at the heart of choral singing in the UK, seeking opportunities to further the art of choral singing. This opening comes at a particularly exciting time in the BBC Symphony Chorus’s history, as we look forward to our move to the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus’s purpose-built studios on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London, and the opportunities that are afforded by being placed at the heart of a new community. The chorus also celebrates its centenary year in 2028.


Responsibilities

• This role reports to the head of artistic planning, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, and works closely with the chorus director and wider BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus team
• You will be responsible for the management of the BBC Symphony Chorus, implementing systems to meet the needs of the chorus, and liaising with and managing a small number of volunteers from within the chorus (Chorus Chair and 8 voice part reps)
• You will oversee the smooth running of chorus rehearsals, auditions and performances, planning rehearsal schedules in discussion with the chorus director, ordering and managing sheet music, booking rehearsal space, creating seating plans, and engaging freelancers as directed by the chorus director
• You will be the central contact for current and prospective chorus members, managing attendance, distributing all information about forthcoming projects in a timely manner and responding promptly to audition enquiries
• You will need to be able to work evenings and weekends regularly to attend and manage the rehearsal, recording and performance schedule of the chorus

Knowledge, skills & experience

Essential

• You will need to have a thorough and detailed knowledge of choral music, with an excellent knowledge of the classical music industry
• You will ideally have a proven track record in producing and organising choral events within a performing arts organisation or relevant equivalent background
• You will need to have the ability to cope under pressure, work flexibly, meet deadlines and be happy to work on a wide variety of tasks
• You will have the ability to manage the pastoral needs of the large numbers of volunteer singers who are members of the BBC Symphony Chorus
• You will also be able to communicate effectively and persuasively with a wide range of people, inside and outside the BBC and make the most efficient use of resources and to operate within financial and other constraints

Desirable

• Knowledge of health and safety regulations and considerations
• Experience of evaluating and reviewing projects
• Experience of working on community and/or education projects

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply.


We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to join us. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity. We welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief.

Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.