Formerly known as Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Orchestra and Cantata Choir, and run by the Metropolitan Cathedral Concerts Society, Hope Metropolitan Orchestra and Choir are similarly run by a common committee. The Society and both its performing groups have a long and proud history in the city having been in existence for almost fifty years. Founded by Philip Duffy, who at that time was Master of the Music at the Cathedral, the society has an outstanding record of commissioning and performing new and unusual work. This has included works by such significant C20th composers as Lutoslawski, Pierre Boulez, Sir Michael Tippett, Leonard Bernstein and Michael Torke amongst many. In 2008, to celebrate Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, the Society commissioned Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to write a new work, the premiere of which was attended by the composer. The society has also provided a platform for works by locally-based composers, including those at an early stage of their careers. The opening of what was then the new steps to the Cathedral was celebrated by a concert in which the orchestra, cantata choir and Liverpool Hope University choir came together to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 2003.
Following the establishment of a partnership with Liverpool Hope in 2022, the orchestra and choir adopted their new names, and became based at Liverpool Hope’s Creative Campus. The partnership is appropriate, given that a number of established members of the orchestra and choir have links with Hope, and several current or recent students of the University have also joined.
Since 1983, Stephen Pratt has conducted orchestral and choral concerts, and around thirty years ago became principal conductor of both the choir and orchestra. He has recently been joined by an associate conductor, Helen Thomas. Richard Lea is the current director of the choir, a position he has held for many years.
