Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company

Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company, based in Derby, England, produces the works of Gilbert & Sullivan. The company have won the amateur competition at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival an unprecedented six times and have been called "one of the most highly acclaimed nonprofessional theatre companies in the UK". Members of the company have earned many individual awards from that festival, and the company have won awards from the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera. Derby G&S Company have also performed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Seattle, Washington in the U.S., in Lanzarote, Spain and in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

The company usually mounts one or two productions each year, with orchestra, performing for a week in Derby, and one performance at the G&S Festival in Buxton, England along with various concert performances.

The roots of Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company reach back to the 1940s when in Spondon, a parish village on the outskirts of Derby, a choral group was started by the local school headmaster – Spondon Choral Union. This choir sang both secular and religious music and performed in local and national music festivals. After the headmaster retired, the choir continued under the leadership of several conductors and subsequently was renamed as Spondon Musical Society.

The choir's musical style changed in 1966 when a concert version of "Trial by Jury" proved so popular that the decision was taken to try out a full production of "H.M.S. Pinafore" in the school hall in 1967. The success of this production initiated a series of yearly Gilbert and Sullivan productions in Spondon, which continued for the next dozen years until the society outgrew the potential of the school hall. In 1980, the society moved to The Derby Playhouse, where its first production, "The Mikado", received such a favourable response that they changed their name to Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company to more clearly reflect the new city base and repertoire of the company.

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