Greetings all!

I hope you have had a peaceful and joyous Christmas! We are keeping the Yuletide theme going for a few months more as we prepare for our next recording at the end of February..so let's keep the seasonal buzz alive for a little while longer! As we are in the countdown to the recordings, I appeal to you to get to as many rehearsals as possible.

I am also be introducing music that we are doing for the rest of this academic year, the beginnings of which appear below....

David Briggs - Festival Responses (written for the choir in 2013)

Parry - Never Weather beaten sail (No 3 of Songs of Farewell) 

....both of these are for evensong on Saturday, March 21st.

Carols for the CD - 

Ian Venables - A Christmas Lullaby (Sop solo, bars 1 - 7 Anne Renshaw)

Ian King - The Infant King 

Lucas - Coventry Carol 

Shellard - The Apple Tree 

Sopranos/altos - Elgar A Christmas Greeting 

On a separate issue: The Elgar Festival Chorus.

This year the chorus is learning the early Elgar cantata 'The Black Knight'. We are doing well for sops and altos but more applications would be VERY welcome to swell the ranks! However, and as ever, we have not had a huge response from tenors and basses and I would like to appeal to our own tenor/bass sections to consider joining us for this season.

The Black Knight is early Elgar which shows repeated hints of the big choral works that were to follow. It is a mini symphony for orchestra and chorus (no soloists) with plenty of challenges! The first rehearsal is on Saturday, January 17th in the Methodist church in Pump street from 10am to 1pm. The full list of rehearsals are on the Elgar festival website.

Many thanks and see you on Thursday. 

Stephen