Hellens -Thursday
9th July
A concert was held at Hellens Barn to raise funds for Water Aid. We sang groups of three songs, each interspersed by sets featuring Fran on fiddle accompanied by Kevin on piano, playing folk tunes gathered on their travels, Gillian on pipe and tabor, and Pat & Roy Palmer reciting and singing a collection of humorous odes to cider. During one of the sets Rosemary had the bright idea to issue the whole audience with spoons so that we could provide the percussion for Fran's fiddle playing. A lively noise was made by all! Once again we sang the Dymock Trilogy, which we all like so much, by Bob May - accompanied by Bob himself on the piano! The buffet provided by Helens House staff was extraordinary and I could have spent the evening doing it best justice! Once again, a really fun event organised by Joe and Rosemary!
Rob's Annual Walk - 28th June 2009
We did our
usual round trip walk in the Forest of Dean with the essential
mid-point at The Rising Sun for lunch and beer. As before a quorum of
twelve (including Rob and Gill) started at the Woodlands car-park almost opposite Speech House.
I seem to remember that the weather was kind to us this time. At the
Rising Sun we sat outside, and it didn't rain. A small young dog decided it liked being under our table - which was a bit of a shock because it crashed at high speed through legs - table legs, and ours to get there! It did a good job of hoovering the remains off my plate.
I was quite far away when I took several pictures of this hornet around the elderflowers. Never seen one before. It was big!
As
always, Rob's expert guiding and his knowledge about every aspect of the
forest made the walk interesting
and enjoyable. Wish I could remember any of it!
Duck pizza you don't want to eat!
The Cathedral in the Forest - 13th June
Fueled by a lovely pub lunch in the Ostrich opposite, we sang in Newland Church, commonly known as the Cathedral in the Forest. The church hosted a small craft fayre and we provided music to enhance the event (and provided customers).
Spring Concert - 4th April 2009
We were very pleased to have Bob May and his wife, Chris, and Amanda Ballard, as guests to hear their pieces being sung!
We started with Stanford's Songs of the Sea. Particularly 'Middle Watch' is gorgeous, and 'The Little Admiral' shows Stanford's, or maybe Newbolt's, wicked sense of humour! At times rollicking, at times sensitive, Robert Bateman was exactly in character singing the solo part. At the end, the luscious final chord buildup, reminiscent of Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony? Well, Vaughan Williams was one of Stanford's pupils! Every choir should have a go at this!
Continuing the nautical theme, Josephine Williamson sang Elgar's Sea pictures. She seemed to know it off by heart, at least she hardly looked at her music, and so, concentrated on the audience with vigour to make it a real full-on performance. Very impressive. Reminded me how good she was as Carmen last April. (See below).
At this point, from the sea we switched closer to home - Dymock to be precise!
Roy and Pat Palmer gave a spirited recital of Eleanor Farjeon's Glyn Iddens which was mostly about the Dymock poets eating too much and drinking too much cider, to put the audience in the mood for the Cider Supper at the interval. Then a poem, Cider Annie, by Jack Parry, a folksong which we all joined in, and some amusing little anecdotes to do with cider!
The Cider Supper!
Adorned with Chrissie's marvellous green 'Castle Fruit Farm' aprons, the men brought pre-ordered drinks (choice of ciders or apple juice) to the tables, followed swiftly by the ladies, laden with food. My table had only ordered one drink!
The choir then partook of a very nice fruitcake washed down with plenty of cider (to make us think we're singing better!)
The second half started with the choir singing 'A Dymock Trilogy'; poems by Robert Frost, Drinkwater, and Gibson, set to music by Bob May. These are lovely pieces which I hope will become more widely known!
These pieces were perfectly followed by 'Sound is a Memory', which is a poem about Dymock and the surrounding villages by Sean Street, set to music by Amanda Ballard. Again, a lovely song which I hope will become more widely known!
The choir very much enjoyed singing all of these and they were particularly commented on by the audience afterwards.
Review by Jill Clayton in the Citizen:
...Listening to Robert Bateman's glorious baritone rolling out in waves of sound, perfectly complemented by the chorus, I don't doubt he filled those splendid venues (Albert Hall, Covent Garden) as well as he did the hall.
The Choral Society provided A Touch and Taste of Old England, treating us to cheese, cider, sea songs and the Dymock poets. As well as Bateman's Songs of the Sea (Stanford) we had Elgar's Sea Pictures sung by dramatic mezzo-soprano Jo Williamson. One of my many favourite moments in the concert came with the poetry readings by Roy and Pat Palmer. In particular I loved Eleanor Farjon's Supper at Glen Iddens - an account of how she "drank all the poets in Gloucester under the table".
It was a rollicking, lively programme - but it still gave us plenty of choral singing with beautiful intermingling harmonies, closing with Elgar's lively Dance from the Bavarian Highlands. I was interested to see the choir is growing and now has a lot of younger members. ....
Special thanks to:
~ Bulmers for supplying the cider free of charge. Bulmers were pleased to support us because of the Cider Supper connection and because Castle Fruit Farm provides them with cider apples.
~ Chrissie and Michael of Castle Fruit Farm made this possible and did a lot of work behind the scenes, also providing lots of their excellent apple juice!
~ Shepherd's Delicatessen in Newent provided the May Hill Green and Single Gloucester cheeses at a reduced price.
~ Andy Creese Butchers in Newent provided the Gloucester Old Spot ham at a reduced price and lent us the cool boxes.
~ The Ladies of Newent Choral Society who baked cakes, prepared the food and waited at the tables.
In fact, just about all of the choir helped in one way or another and to highlight all the important contributors would fill a web page by itself! A complicated evening with lots of elements was planned and the choir, families and friends rose to the challenge. I'm sure all the contributors must be very pleased with the end result, which was to create a unique occasion for the choir, the soloists and the audience!
The choral learning files for Sprig of Thyme and Elgar's Bavarian Highlands can be found at John's downloadable Midi File Choral Music site! Some members have found that it is difficult to go back over bits they want to listen to several times. Looking at the main page with the table of movements and parts, it is possible to copy your part for each movement by - right mouse click and select 'save link as' (Mozilla Firefox) or 'save target as' (Internet Explorer). Windows Media Player will play these .mid files.
Christmas Concert - 30th November 2008
We had a varied programme, starting with Mozart's Requiem. After the interval, featuring wine and mince pies, we continued with songs from the soloists and a mixture of audience and choir Christmas carols. The evening ended with excerpts from Handel's Messiah. We are extremely grateful to Paul Hedley, who stood in for Philip Webb at the last minute. The reviews below attest to a successful and joyous event.
HARMONIOUS, melodious and glorious! Those are the words which floated into my mind during Newent Choral Society's concert last Saturday. The main item on the programme was Mozart's Requiem, which I love for all it's contrasts and balances of voice, mood and tempo. The choir really brought these out, mingling with the professional orchestra as with a fifth voice. I thought all this even before queuing with the rest of the big audience for my wine and mince pie! (These may have added fervour to the audience rendition of Good King Wenceslas!)
Citizen - Letter from Newent, Jill Clayton
The audience at Newent Choral Society’s concert on November 29th was well rewarded with a most successful evening in the beautiful setting of St Mary’s Church.
Under their conductor Ian Fox, the choir gave an entirely satisfying performance of Mozart’s Requiem, with soloists and orchestra contributing to this musical feast.
Some lovely moments were captured in the sustained phrases of the Kyrie and Sanctus, whilst changes in pace and controlled endings showed the skill of the conductor and his choir. Soloists - soprano Tina Power, contralto Debra Blake, tenor Patrick Briddon and bass Paul Hedley took their individual parts with aplomb. They achieved a good balance in the Benedictus, despite Paul’s twenty-four hour notice to sing in place of Philip Webb who was ill.
In the second half Tina accompanied by Giles Turner gave us two lovely solos whilst Patrick’s comic rendition of ‘the Carol Singers’ was thoroughly enjoyed. Following a beautiful ‘Sussex Carol’ from the chorus, we all aired our lungs in ‘Ding Dong Merrily’ and settled to hear excerpts from Handel’s Messiah with Debra and Paul taking the solos. After an atmospheric ‘There were Shepherds Abiding’ (Tina) the chorus brought the concert to an end with ‘Glory to God’. A fitting way to round off our pre-Christmas treat!
Enid Woodcock
Spring Concert - 12th April 2008
The choir - assembled in the school quad just before the concert. Jo Williamson (Carmen) is on the left. Next to her is Maria Masters (Micaela). On the right, in the white DJ is our Conductor, Ian Fox. Behind him at the end is Chris Monk (Escamillo). Third man from the left at the back is Pat Briddon (Don José).
Opera Choruses we sang (the Oxford book of Opera Choruses contains so many gems that we kept wanting to do more):
| Easter Hymn - Mascagni | From Cavalleria Rusticana
|
| The Anvil Chorus - Verdi |
From Il Trovatore (Some may think we're straying off the beaten track by using a piece of rail instead of an anvil.)
|
| The Humming Chorus - Verdi | From Nabucco
|
| Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves - Puccini | From Madame Butterfly
|
| Brindisi - Verdi | From La Traviata
|
Our new seating plan worked well, with seats arranged around tables, which each had a candle and a little floral display. The audience could sip their drinks while we were performing.
Jo was electric as Carmen, really looking, singing and acting the part! Chris and Pat also gave great performances. The part of Micaela is possibly a less convincing one, trying to maintain Don José's affections by delivering messages from his ailing mother! (When did that ever work?) But if that were possible, Maria would achieve it!
The highlight of the second half was Jo and Maria singing the Flower Duet from Lakme by Delibes (British Airways advert).
Chris did a great job of hitting the rail with a large hammer while we sang the Anvil Chorus. All in all, a great evening!
STOP PRESS! Jenny is famous!
It's true! She has appeared in
Gloucester Choral Society Newsletter 2007
"In January 2008 Adrian Partington takes over as Director of Music at the Cathedral. ..... ..... Some of you had an amazing preview when he ran a workshop in May (read more in Jenny Langridge's poem inside)."
(Quickly turn page!)
Taste of things to come?
The Workshop with Adrian Partington in May was a great success. We had nearly 80 singers from 27 different choirs. Jenny Langridge wrote this poem which sums it up very well!
A day of Fun - with Adrian
Away from the normal,
Style - informal,
Nothing too taxing,
Very relaxing,
No inhibitions, no constraints,
'Twinkle, twinkle', 'When the saints'!
A glowing, warming sunny day,
An extra special touch - for May!
Conductor - inspiring,
Our cylinders - firing,
Laughter - untiring,
The venue - conspiring,
The singers - desiring
To enjoy their display.
What a glorious, fabulous, wonderful day!
Footnote: Most of the ladies of Dymock Church choir came along and made up a good proportion of the soprano section! It was lovely to see them there. Dymock choir is a very friendly little choir, directed by Bob May, and we look forward to singing with them again.
You know that BLOG is short for Web Log. Well, this is a Site Log, now known as a SLOG!
17/07/09
Moved some of the older events from the home page into the Other Activities page. Added Rob's latest choir walk and the recent Hellens and Newland church events. First news of combined concert next year. Updated the Next Concert page!
29/04/09
Completed the write-up for our Spring 'A Touch and Taste of Old England' concert, including an excellent review and weblinks for the businesses that provided free and reduced cost food and drink. Added Autumn rehearsal start date.
18/01/09
Updated the Next Concert page with initial details of our Spring 'English Music' concert. We're still adding items to the programme. The Christmas Concerts have moved into the Recent Events section, along with a couple of excellent reviews of the Mozart Requiem concert.
25/10/08
Added notice of Kempley Christmas Concert and pic of Onion Fayre.
15/07/08
Added some photos to Rob's Annual Walk and Swanage articles.
08/07/08
Moved older events from the home page to their proper pages to make room for a number of recent events. Some of these are very much bookmarks and need to have more detail and photos added, hopefully shortly. Also a writeup and links have been added concerning our next production of Mozart's Requiem, which hope will enthuse choir members, potential choir members and potential audience.
11/04/08
Added a photo of the choir. Carmen was a great occasion to be remembered for all sorts of reasons. So another chunk of website has moved into the past tense. But always there are new performances and activities to look forward to.
22/03/08
Added Jenny's latest poster for Carmen. Again my hand drawn version from 10 years ago doesn't stand comparison. The plot, set in a cigar factory, is at odds with modern sensibilities and we may have to sing this outside! Also showcased is the concert coming up in Summer as part of the Medieval Fayre in Gloucester. The Dymock Verdi Requiem is now past and so I have had to adjust the notice into the past tense. I was looking for events over a year old which should go into the other activities section and was amazed at how many things we've taken part in over the last year. Musical activities in this choir certainly haven't been confined to two concerts a year!
09/02/08
Lots of things that were coming up are now happy memories - but there's a stream of new events to replace them. We are now hard at work on the Opera choruses (partly because there's a supply problem with the Carmen scores). Without all the various other activities we engage in, there would be very little to report on this website. As you will see, that is not the case! I'm looking forward to Jenny's new artwork. We did a similar programme quite a few years ago when I did the programme without the computer graphics we now take for granted. Jenny is a MUCH better artist than I am!
04/11/07
I have added the Christmas programme front page and poster - 'cos it's always nice to get more of Jenny's artwork on the site. There are a few events coming along - a concert at Kempley, the Christmas pub crawl, appearing on Songs of Praise! So I've done a little update!
27/8/07
Apologies for neglecting the website! There have been mutterings! Quite a few updates have now been done and there are more on their way. Most notably our Christmas Concert on the 1st December. Having listened to the excerpts I am now very keen to sing in the Solemn Vespers and the audience will be in for a treat!
1/2/07
Several engagements already for the choir which we hope you'll want to enjoy with us! Jenny's new poster for Trial by Jury is wonderful! What sort of a cad wouldn't be enthralled by the beautiful Angelina? Let us all be the judge of that!
30/12/06
One of the last things I have to do this year is to update the website. The News section on this page reviews the Christmas pub crawl. A happy and noteworthy New Year everyone!
17/12/06
Many of our Christmas events have been enjoyed and have passed into history. And so the News section on this page discusses how well they went.
19/11/06
The next concert page contains first details of our Spring 2007 concert. Date on this page for the start of our Spring term rehearsals (and what we'll be rehearsing).
29/10/06
Updated the next concert page. Added Jenny's writeup on the Onion Fayre which fortunately wasn't a washout this year!
Added some new Christmas events on this page.
20/05/06
Write up of our little post AGM musical soiree. Interesting how I seem to be using food analogies to describe music!
Added the poster for our little Medieval fayre concert in St Nicholas Church and in St Mary de Crypt. Thirty of these have been distributed in the immediate area around Gloucester.
New picture button links to our local Making Music websites. We are actually supported by the SouthWest region. See below.
29/04/06
The website has been updated with the latest Making Music logo. See below.
Unfortunately, if you don't tend your links they have a tendency to perish! I have done a bit of weeding and planting. The result is well worth exploring!
23/04/06
We spent months practising for the Elijah concerts and now they're behind us :( Eventually they will be moved to the Previous Concerts page. I need to update our Next Concert page. The Summer Season news has been added. Still need to confirm the start date for autumn rehearsals.
26/03/06
We spent months practising for the Elijah concert and now it's behind us :( But what a sing it was! I have created a Latest News section near the top which contains an informal little review 'from near the back of the choir' by me. Eventually it will be moved to the Previous Concerts page. I have updated our Next Concert page and this one to show that Elijah at Ledbury is next. Need to confirm the start date for autumn rehearsals.
04/12/05
Our Petite Messe Solennelle concert was very enjoyable. I have updated our Next Concert page and this one to show that Elijah is next on the horizon. Need to confirm the start date for rehearsals.
I have finally done the Bruges Trip, which you'll find in the Other Activities page.
06/10/05
I have added our proposed 2006 concerts to Forthcoming Events above, and writeups and pix (of course) of our Castle Fruit Farm BBQ to the Other Activities page. Bruges trip - Next update?
21/09/05
It's amazing how much we've done this year! How did we find time for our Spring concert?! I have added writeups and pix (of course) for the 60th Anniversary Dinner and the Medieval Fayre to the Other Activities page. I've put a stake in the page for the Bruges trip. I need some free time to tackle that story. Next update.
16/09/05
This is what happens when I don't record our activities as they happen! I forget when they happened! Like with our Forest of Dean walk! I have added 3 more activities to the Other Activities page. More to come ie, Bruges Trip, Medieval Fayre, The 60th dinner. (sigh!) I can't keep up with all the fun we're having!
15/09/05 Updated theAbout Us page to encompass all our various activities.
There's a full report on the wet Onion Fayre on the Other Activities page written by Jenny!
12/07/05
General overhaul to bring the site up to date again! There is a lot
still to do in Other Activities to report on our Bruges Trip, The
Dinner, The Medieval Fayre, Bollitree Castle etc..
07/05/05 I've added a link to Newent Orchestra. Note that their Spring Concert is on 21st May. See their website for more details.
So
much to do - I've also made Forthcoming Events relevant again and added
a link to The Onion Fayre (they just need to update their homepage).
09/03/05 I've created another follow-on website, just as a way of getting more pages. So far I've split up the Other Activities and Previous Concerts
pages because they were getting too long. The second (older) page in
each case is on the new site and you'll notice this because of the site
index on the right hand side. I've also updated the Next Concert page. I don't know yet what else Ledbury are singing. Must find out!
20/12/04
The last Christmas concert has now moved into Previous Concerts and
there is also a write up about our Charity Christmas carol pub-crawl: Other Activities
07/07/04
More events which we were looking forward to have become history!
Accordingly they've been moved into Other Activities. Next is the start
of the Autumn rehearsals and we don't even know what we're singing yet!
13/06/04 St Nicholas isn't deconsecrated! Added St Nicholas website link.
02/06/04 Singing in St Nicholas church as part of Gloucester Medieval Fair + Oxenhall on the 19th!
29/05/04 A Summer Serenade added above - looking forward to it!
15/05/04 The Ledbury concert has passed into Previous Concerts On this page you can see when our next season of rehearsals starts. And what we're hoping to sing!
If you are thinking of singing with us for the first time, look at Join us! and Where we meet
(Note new NFMS 'Making Music' logo - had our wrists slapped over that one!)
Just
noticed the nasty banner ads at the top of each page. They appear after
about 45 days (when a lot of work has already gone into the site!)
Apparently we have to pay to get rid of them! Sorry! At least they don't hover down the side like they do with other free ISPs.
07/04/04 I'm still obsessively humming snatches of Rossini & Elgar after our last concert! Now reviewed in Previous Concerts
13/03/04 The Fauré concert at Gloucester Cathedral was brilliant. Read about it!
03/03/04 Fauré's a jolly good fellow.... Forthcoming concert at Gloucester Cathedral.
17/02/04 More entries in Previous Concerts back to Christmas 2000
The Newent & District Choral
Society is affiliated to the National federation of Music Societies
which represents and supports amateur choirs, orchestras and music
promoters throughout the United Kingdom 
