It was with great sadness that we heard of the passing of ex-member Alvin Chua on 3rd April as a result of coronavirus. Alvin sang tenor with Diversity Choir for six years from 2006-2012 and is remembered as a friendly, welcoming colleague and a confident, enthusiastic singer who fully involved himself in all aspects of choir life: who could forget the marvellous food, especially curries, that he conjured up for the choir at Diversity weekends at Kench Hill?
He was impressively intelligent (with a Ph D from Imperial College) but also impressively modest and loved the madcap nature of some of our warm-ups, chasing each other round the rehearsal room, singing out our different lines from Elizabethan madrigals: he also loved a post-rehearsal pint and chinwag afterwards. I have a very cherished memory of singing with him at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden in 2009 in a duet ‘Sure the dull God of Marriage does not hear: let us rouse him with a Charm’ from Purcell’s ‘The Fairy Queen’. He was a gifted, humorous and lovely man- our sympathies to Alvin’s partner Joe, his mother Molly and the rest of his family.
James Murphy – Tenor