Under One Roof: Big Voices at The Wilfrid Noyce
- Caroline
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
For the second instalment in our Stage Spotlight Series, we’re stepping inside one of ChoirBLAST’s true heavyweights: The Wilfrid Noyce Centre.
One of only two indoor venues built to accommodate our larger choirs, this is where big voices get the platform they deserve. With full sound management, professional mics and staging designed to create clear levels and balance, it is a space where harmonies ring out with clarity and confidence. Tiered seating alongside fixed floor seating allows for substantial audiences while maintaining that all important connection between performers and listeners. We are ever grateful that Rock Choir is the sponsor for this stage – as they were last year, and we love having them on the ChoirBLAST journey with us.
The hall is named after Cuthbert Wilfrid Francis Noyce, scholar, teacher at Charterhouse School, mountaineer and passionate advocate for young people. A member of the 1953 British Everest expedition, he combined intellectual rigour with remarkable courage and curiosity. Closer to home, he led the campaign in the early 1960s to establish a youth centre in Godalming, believing deeply that young people deserved space to gather, grow and create. After his tragic death in a mountaineering accident in 1962, the centre was renamed in his honour. In recent years, the building has been extensively rebuilt and modernised through local authority investment and community support, transforming it into the vibrant performance and teaching venue it is today.
From choirs and music groups to dance schools and theatre companies, it remains a creative engine room for the town. On ChoirBLAST day, the lobby hums too, with craft stalls to browse, Daisy’s catering to refuel hungry singers, and accessible facilities throughout. It offers a calm retreat from the festival buzz and also stands ready as part of our poor weather contingency plan, which we confidently expect not to require. Sunshine has been firmly scheduled!
Just a stone’s throw from the Burys Field and moments from The Court stage by the High Street, the hall sits at the heart of ChoirBLAST, central, welcoming and ready to come alive with song.
