MAS history
MAS history
MAS is a choir with solid traditions founded April 11th 1895 with rise in the city of Moss labor movement in the 1800s The choir has always made its mark on the city of Moss with performances and cheerful amateur singing.
From the beginning.
It all started when Møllearbeidernes fagforening (the Mill Workers union) took up the question of forming a choir within the union. The April 11th 1895 it was called for a general assembly and 20 people met at the meeting. Kristian Ursin, a local organist agreed to lead the choir for 3 kr (3 pence) for each choir practice. The first name was Møllearbeidernes Sangforening (Mill Workers Choir), but it soon turned out that other unions also wanted to be included in the choir, so therefore they had to change the name, and in 1896 it was changed to De Centraliserte Fagforeningers Sangforening ( The Centralized unions Choir). The first performance took place May the 17th in 1897 where among others Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (a famous Norwegian writer and poet) held a speech.
Moss Arbeidersang Forening (Moss Workers Choir)
Autumn 1899 it was decided that the choir should not be bounded to any particular union so therefore the name was changed again to Moss Arbeidersang Forening (Moss Workers Choir).
Further development
In 1909 it was decided to buy a banner with the choir’s logo on. The choir consisted the first 15 years of 20 to 30 singers, and the number rose to 93 active singers in 1921.This is the highest number of singers in the choirs history. Since then, the number of singers has varied from 25 up to 57. Today we are 32 active singers. In 1915 the choir was enrolled into Norsk Sangerforbund (Norwegian Singer Association), a union for choirs, and has since participated in all the union's songs competitions. The choir is also member of Østfold Sangerforbund (a union for local choirs)
2012, Change of name
The 22th of March 2012 the choir changed the name again, and is now called Mannskoret MAS (The Male Choir MAS)