Frederick Haggis

Who was Frederick Haggis?

Frederick Charles Haggis was a British conductor and the founder conductor of the Goldsmiths Choral Union.

He founded the Streatham School of Music in 1919 and conducted the Streatham Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, producing and conducting the first performances of the Nativity play Bethlehem by Rutland Boughton in London in 1924.

He founded the Goldsmiths Choral Union in 1932 and the Goldsmiths Symphony Orchestra in the following year. Over the next two decades under Haggis, the GCU moved to the forefront of the classical music scene in London, performing with major symphony orchestras and broadcasting frequently for the BBC. After the war, he was presented with an inscribed silver bowl by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths "In recognition of his outstanding contribution to choral singing in London during the war".

He retired from conducting in 1971 at the age of 85 with a celebratory concert at the Royal Albert Hall. In 1973 he retired as Music Director.

Clarinettist Jack Brymer pays tribute to Haggis' training in his book From Where I Sit.