When the title ‘Winter’s Snow’ was chosen for our Carol concert, we could not have foreseen that deep snow would fall on the Midlands the week before! Fortunately, the roads were clear by the time of our Carol concert in Ladywood ARC on 16th December.
Our guests were welcomed by the lovely music of a recorder quartet, played by Margaret, Judy, Barry and Margund.
The choir, in their bright Christmas colours, started the concert with ‘See amid the winter’s snow‘ followed by some well loved traditional carols. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without some John Rutter favourites, and they contrasted with the more complex rhthyms of Sir Christemus (William Mathias) and Ceremonies (written by Patrick Larley for the ‘special birthday’ of one of our sopranos a few years ago). The hauntingly beautiful ‘O magnum mysterium’ by Morten Lauridsen was a highlight for many of the singers and audience.
The Christmas music was broken up by Liz’s dramatic reading of the humorous Twelve thank you notes of Christmas (John Julius Norwich), and John Betjeman’s poem Christmas, read by David.
Our guests from the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust told us of their valuable work, and we were very pleased to find out later that our concert had raised £960 for the Trust.
We were a little surprised to find that an organ solo – Bach’s Wachet auf – had been programmed near the end of the concert, and even more surprised when our Music Director, David Wynne, disappeared – but all was explained when he came back, wearing a very dazzling Christmas suit! The concert ended with many smiling faces in the choir, as ‘the suit’ conducted us in Rutter’s Twelve days of Christmas!
The evening ended with lots of happy chatter as we shared mulled wine and mince pies with our guests in the audience.
Happy Christmas everyone!
