Since its début in 1974, the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, a body of unpaid professionals, has become one of the finest of its kind, performing regularly with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. It has been heard in all the major British concert venues and has toured extensively across Europe, North America and Australia. The Chorus is one of the four choruses of the CBSO, along with two symphony youth choruses and a community-based choir for young people, an arrangement that is unique in Great Britain. As an important cultural ambassador, both for the CBSO and for Birmingham, the chorus has collaborated with other distinguished orchestras, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. With more than a score of recordings to its credit, the chorus has won a number of awards, notably for recordings of Mahler's Second Symphony and Szymanowski's King Roger under Simon Rattle, of the music of Lili Boulanger under Yan Pascal Tortelier, and of Tippett's A Child of Our Time under the composer.