Choir Midlands tour - best ever?
The Croydon choir has returned from a three-day tour of the Midlands which some members are acclaiming as the best ever.
The choir sang in four venues that ranged, as one member put it, from the sublime to the near-ridiculous. The sublime was Coventry Cathedral where the choir held a lunch-time audience entranced with a performance of religious songs on Friday May 31. The songs ranged from Deus Salutis to Battle Hymn of the Republic, the final notes reverberating in the 100-ft high nave long after the choir finished singing.
The choir at Coventry Cathedral
Cathedral official David Williams praised the choir for the affecting quality of its singing, entirely appropriate to the majestic surroundings. Choir members inspected the shell of the ruined cathedral, destroyed by German bombs in 1940, and the moving testaments to reconciliation with the cities of Dresden and Hiroshima, both devastated by Allied bombing in 1945.
That evening’s location provided the contrast. The tiny church of St Peter in Wolfhamcote, dating from the 13th century and abandoned during the twentieth, is being restored by a group of local volunteers, funded by the Churches Conservation Trust.
Lana Bode at Wolfhamcote: Moonlight by candlelight
After walking through farmland to reach the church, the choir entertained a small but enthusiastic local audience with a full selection from its current repertoire. The church has no lighting and so the choir sang in an ethereal dusk light, amplified with candles that helped pianist Lana Bode to see her keyboard. Her Moonlight Sonata by Candlelight was a triumph. Conservation volunteer Diane Weaver thanked the choir for bringing both light and life to such a precious place.
On Saturday June 1 the choir sang at St Andrew’s in Rugby, a sturdy Victorian church close to Rugby school, with its memorial to William Webb Ellis. Although the story that Ellis invented the game of rugby is apocryphal (i.e. untrue), he did become rector of St Clement Danes, a venue now familiar to choir members.
After two nights at the Staverton Park Hotel, the 80-strong party headed for home on Sunday June 2. En route it stopped to sing in the St Mary’s Parish Church at Canons Ashby Priory, a National Trust property. This was another compact venue, with the singing enjoyed by a substantial and appreciative audience that included a number of National Trust visitors.
Choir members arrive at St Mary's, Canons Ashby
Choir musical director Richard Hoyle felt that the choir “produced some of the best performances on tour that I can remember” – adding that the new pieces introduced into the repertoire sounded “very established and secure”.
Choir chair Kimball Ormond judged it “possibly the best tour ever – one minute in Coventry cathedral, the next in a field at Wolfhamcote by candlelight. Fantastic!” Other choir members also praised the variety of venues, with the intimacy and warmth of Wolfhamcote a stand-out feature.
Members of the Rugby and Northampton MVCs were present at all our performances apart from Coventry. They exchanged fraternal greetings and conceded that we were "quite good". They also expressed the hope that we could perform together in the not too distant future.
Choir lines up at Canons Ashby. All photos JWT. For more photos, see News for Members