City Chorus

CITY CHORUS 2012 CHRISTMAS TOUR

Tony and the Committee set up a new version of our Christmas Concert programme. The posters, flyers and other advertising promoted  it as

City Chorus, Letchworth Community Choir, 2012 Christmas Tour.

 Saturday December 8^th

We started with our Charity Gala Concert, (profits to Garden House Hospice) , returning to St Michael’s Church and it’s lovely acoustic.

A small working party had been busy during the previous weekends, building, adapting and painting staging boxes to house the chairs now needed for the 80 singers.

The programme included performances by the Broxbourne Handbell Ringers,and organ solos by Dr.Stephen Rose.

Janet and Phil shared the piano playing; this included a solo duet (Thunder and Lightning Polka) which started the second half, as well as a couple of duets when accompanying the choir and playing drums and tambourine at times.

David Adam, (someone connected to our alto leader,Claire???) set a new standard in compering.

Nat took on some of the conducting, especially the men’s  rendition of the Bing Crosby/David Bowie classic version of Little Drummer Boy, and Jingle Bells with some of the chorus vigorously shaking bells.

Wednesday December 12^th

The second concert of the Tour took place at St. Mary’s Church, Ashwell, a venue we have not performed in before.  We invited Pasque Harmony Ladies Choir, (the choir which exiled member Chris Fox belonged to) to join us for a Choral Christmas Concert to raise funds for our respective charities.  Pasque support Keech Hospice at Luton and City Chorus support Garden House Hospice, here in Letchworth Garden City.

It was a very cold night, the church is old with a very high roof and we seemed to find the worst draught!.   The audience came well wrapped up and settled down to enjoy the evening.  Tony and Nat were our conductors as usual, with Janet and Phil playing the piano. Margaret  Blenkin directs Pasque Harmony- we saw her singing during their pieces too.

We alternated performing during both halves of the concert and joined together for the final piece in each half.

Friday December 14^th

The third and final event in our Tour took place in the Letchworth Garden City Church in  Icknield Way.  Converted from one of the Irvin Parachute Factories, it presents a very different ambience from our previous two venues.

We had been invited to be on the bill of a concert headlined by the ‘London Community Gospel Choir’.  We were the opening ‘act’.

Tony chose four pieces to show the range of our repertoire.  They were:

In Dulce Jubilo;     Gaudete;    Breath of Heaven;   and Great, Great Joy.

We enjoyed performing them and received a very appreciative response from the large audience.

We then settled back, with the audience, to enjoy the Pixmore Junior School Choir which led up to the interval.   After this the Gospel Choir took the stage.  There were not very many of them- 10 singers and a very good small group of musicians (keyboard, guitar and drums).

Their performance of the various Gospel songs was very energetic, both for them and the enthusiastic audience who joined in the clapping etc  as well as with some of the singing.

We were chuffed to be asked to join them in the Finale, ‘ O Happy Day’ ;  which repeats and repeats for about 6 minutes.

We left with memories of exuberance and happiness from all concerned.

We finished our season on Wednesday December 19^th with an evening of feedback, mince pies, tea/coffee and a lot of singing.

LOVE LETCHWORTH had to delay the lighting of the Town’s Christmas

Decorations due to the filming of a feature film (World’s End) in the

town during October and November. The ceremony was delayed a week till the first Saturday in December (1^st).  This meant we had two bookings for this day.

The first was for the Garden Square management; we sang for 45 very cold minutes outside ‘Iceland’— probably as cold outside the shop as in their cabinets!   Nat conducted us, and Janet and Phil took it in turns to play the electric piano in their mittens.

We sang a mixture of carols and songs, the most popular item was definitely Jungle Bells, which we performed three times with the shoppers joining in.  Janet provided a collection of bells which some of use played(?) with gusto.

The second was for the Town Centre Management; we used the tented stage, slightly warmer, but we still hadn’t completely thawed out from the previous set.  Again a mixture of music with a bigger audience this time; we sang for around 25 minutes.

LIGHTS OF LIFE;  Garden House Hospice

December 2^nd

For the second year, we were asked for a few choristers to attend their ‘Lights of Life’ Remembrance service, to support the famllies and friends who had used or were using the fantastic services provided by the staff and volunteers at the Hospice and  by their home visiting programme.

Twelve choristers went along, and with the Letchworth Town Band playing, supported the hundreds who had braved the cold, but dry and sunny afternoon to remember their loved ones.

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY; NOVEMBER 11 2012

Around 50 choristers were involved in the events for this day.

In the sunny, though cold weather, we joined the Royal British  Legion’s  Act of Remembrance and Commitment Service at the Town’s War Memorial, standing in a large group to take part in the service and support Tony and Irene who laid our wreath .   The Salvation Army band led the singing of the hymns (O God our help in ages past, and Now thank we all our God) and the National Anthem.

After nipping down Leys Avenue, we took up our places in the Free Church for the service of the United Reformed Church attended by local councillors and other dignatories. 

While the congregation arrived and settled in their seats, we sang  Ave Verum,  Bridge over Troubled Water and God so Loved the World.

The service was conducted by the Rev John Hardaker, and included two hymns (All people that on earth do dwell, and Eternal Father strong to save) and another rendering of the National Anthem.

Now onto our new Christmas Repertoire!!!

October 20 2012

Our last concert concluding a short  Autumn season took place at St. Mary’s Church, Baldock. We joined with the Knights Templar School’s Senior Chamber Choir, with the Church’s organist, Paul Herring, to accompany us on the appropriate pieces.

Tony and Nat shared the conducting and Janet played the grand piano.  There were around 50 of us, and with the ‘black plus bling scarves’ for the women and the men in their red waistcoats and black shirts, we made an attractive picture.

Tony made the point in the programme that our repertoire now contains a wide range of music including popular and ‘pop’, classical, show tunes and religious/traditional and WE LOVE TO SING!

The KTS Chamber Choir (year 10s upwards) also has a wide range of pieces. They were conducted by Neil Bell, lead singing teacher for the Herts Music Service. This year they will be performing in the National Festival of Music for Youth.

Concert Programme;

Part 1           City Chorus;

E’vry time I feel the spirit;   Vivaldi Gloria (with the organ);   Hallelujah;

Don’t Stop Believin’;   God So Loved the World;   Cantilena;   Anthem from Chess.

KTS

Courage my soul;   Amazing Grace;    The Ribbon;   Shake the Bottle;

Part 2           KTS

Come live with me and be my love;   There was an old man in a tree;  I’ll stand by you;   Medley from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’

City Chorus

Bohemian Rhapsody;    Medley from ‘Lion King’;  Ave Verum Corpus;    Hail Holy Queen;   Bridge over Troubled Water;   Zadok the Priest (organ)

The choirs then joined together, (rather crowded platform) with Neil conducting and Paul playing the organ;

Hosanna to the Son of David;

Cwm Rhondda- (those in the audience who had a programme joined in this)

The work now starts seriously to learn the words and music for the Christmas Season.

As a result of a radio interview given by Tony on Three Counties Radio, City Chorus was invited to perform in a Variety Show billed as ‘a platform for local talent to show what they’re made of’. The fee we received will be donated to our charity, Garden House Hospice.

For most of the chorus it was the first experience of performing in this sort of space. The star was a singer, Ben Newbury, and the other acts were mainly local youngsters, singing, dancing, playing instruments etc. Unfortunately, as in most theatres, we didn’t see or hear any of the other acts.

When we took our places on the stage, the auditorium was blacked out and we had no idea how big, or small, the audience was!  (about 50 we discovered later).  Tony and Nat conducted and Janet accompanied us on a rather nice sounding grand piano!

We had two slots on the programme.     Our first set was the Lion King Medley, Halleluja,  Cantelina, and Anthem;    and the second was Hail Holy Queen (with hands and swaying!),  Don’t Stop Believin’,  Bohemian Rhapsody and Bridge Over Troubled Water.

We enjoyed the evening experience, lots of chat during the rather long gaps before and between our sets, pity we didn’t remember the tea! Most of us stayed for the late curtain call…………..but we still couldn’t see the audience!

Maybe we’ll return to this venue;  Time will tell.