A weekend of music

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 28 April 2008 21:01:36

Having sung in several choirs over many, many years, we have made good friends with other choristers across the region. It was therefore with great pleasure that we met up with several of them again at the regional RSCM 'Meet, Eat and Sing'. The host church put on a magnificent spread, sandwiched between a rehearsal and service led by Stephen Tanner, of Exeter Cathedral, who has a real gift of encouraging amateur singers.

A male quartet (of vicar and choir members), sounding eerily like the King's Singers, sang 'Happy Birthday' to our organist on Sunday morning. Of course, we had to sing the organist's own Mass setting and also the communion anthem, 'If ye love me keep my commandments' (Tallis) - source of a private joke between him and the vicar. The organist then played us out to 'Fanfare' by Whitlock and kept right on playing until we thought the coffee would run out. Well, if you can't do that on your birthday, when can you?

The vicar enjoyed himself during evensong by singing Alto, Tenor and Bass alternately, while one of the readers sang the Office. We had just enough sopranos to sing 'O for a closer walk with God' (Stanford)- as usual for our choir (but apparently unusual elsewhere) the bass section was enormous and had to pipe down a tad.