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Choral Society

THE society’s Christmas Concert on Saturday, 16 December, saw all the hard work put in by choristers since rehearsals started back in mid-September paying off handsomely.

All came together at the Saturday afternoon rehearsal with the final practice for the choir of over 70 voices, four soloists and the Sinfonia Cambrensis orchestra, all under the baton of David Russell Hulme.

After the rehearsal, choristers made their way to the Great Hall in the evening for the performance itself.

The concert started with the choir singing Handel’s much loved Coronation Anthem, Zadok the Priest.

After this the Tenor Soloist Stephen Anthony Brown, sang the very well known Recitative and Air Comfort ye and Every Valley from Handel’s Messiah and the Soprano Zita Syme singing another well known air from the Messiah, I Know that my Redeemer Liveth.

The Metzo-Soprano Kathryn Turpin then sang The First Mercy by Peter Warlock before the choir and the Baritone soloist Charles Johnston, brought the first half to an end with a very memorable rendering of the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols.

The second half of the concert was taken up by the four soloists joining the choir to perform Mozart’s Requiem.

With choir, soloists, orchestra and conductor in tremendous form, the very good audience went home delighted with the concert.

After a short Christmas break, rehearsals start in mid-January for a performance of Dvorak’s Stabat Mater at the end of April.

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