It has been a year of wonderful highlights and some emotional times.
Our Christmas Concert was widely supported and the performances of our guests, the Willshire Piano Duo guaranteed success.
Another guest star who delighted was West End musical star Lucy May Barker, whose joie do vivre had the audience swaying in the aisles and a backing group of slightly abashed elderly gents singing ‘When I Grow Up’.
It also was our first attempt at ‘Linden Lea’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was born in Down Ampney just five miles away from Cirencester.
We welcomed the award-winning choir, The Wessex, and the remarkable Parti Llwchwr ladies choir from South Wales. Both choirs are incredibly talented (The Wessex do know how to enjoy an afterglow) and the purity of the voices of Parti Llwchwr is so engaging. Listen below as the join us for the final verse of ‘Flowers of the Field’ by John Du Prez and Deborah Cook.
We performed with the Cotswold MVC (after their TV cameo on Clarkson’s Farm) at the Fairford Choir Festival and at Care Homes and in Cirencester Park. Sadly, too, we sang at several funerals, and it is an honour to be present at such momentous times for the families who suffer loss.
And while there will be more concerts to come in 2024 (we have high hopes of a visit to South Wales to sing again with Parti LLwchwr) the focus will be on preparing for our entry into competition at The Cornwall International Male Choral Festival. It is the largest Male Choral Festival in the world and there will be 2000 voices from countries far and wide, as well as an appearance by the Shchedryk Childrens Choir from Ukraine for whom a crowd-funding page has been established.
Singing in Cornwall is fun!
