So Happy Together
Is it just me, or has the summer flown by? I find it truly difficult to believe that we’re properly into autumn now, with October arriving at the weekend. That might explain why we haven’t written a blog post in 6 months! It genuinely feels like no time at all has gone by. And yet, we have accomplished a lot in that time! Let’s get up to speed.
As discussed in our last post, we finally had our first proper concert under Adam’s direction. I think it went very well, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb is a challenging piece and we pulled it off with panache.
Here we are in action:
We reconvened for summer with a social evening which culminated with a performance of Jerusalem in our favourite pub The Ship in honour of St George’s Day.
For the summer term, we rehearsed two masses for our Gloria concert: John Rutter’s Mass of the Children, and Charles Gounod’s Mass for Saint Cecilia.
At the Gloria concert, for the performance of the Mass of the Children we were joined by two children’s choirs, the Choristers of St John’s Beaumont School, Windsor, and the Choristers of St Mary’s, Wimbledon. They really took our performance to the next level, and we’re so glad they were able to sing with us. Thanks to the children, their parents, and Assistant Conductor Anna Lush.
This concert was also the first of three landmark concerts to honour the occasion of our 75th anniversary. To align with the theme, we served champagne and strawberries, plus diamond shaped biscuits for our diamond anniversary!
For the first time since 2019, we were able to have our away weekend at the seaside. This year’s destination was Whitstable, and I can’t imagine a better way to come back together after a summer break. We rehearsed and gave a short concert featuring Purcell, Tallis, Mozart, Elgar, and Vaughan Willliams on the Saturday, after which we shared a meal together. On Sunday morning, a solid contingent of us went on a 7k walk of the coastline, ending with a sunny seafood lunch and a pint at the Old Neptune on the beach. It was truly lovely, and I’m so glad we’ve got this annual tradition back on track.
And now the autumn term is underway! We are rehearsing Mozart’s Requiem for a come and sing event in November, plus Christmas repertoire for a Christmas concert on 3rd December. While we’ve now had a full year back post-Covid, this will be our first proper Christmas concert, and we can’t wait to show you the kind of festive evening we like to put on. It’s always kicks off the whole season for me. I hope you’ll join us.