Tag: choir

Christmas Spectacular with Northampton Concert Band

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Our final concert of the Christmas Season was on Saturday 7th December 2024 at Christchurch, Northampton with the Northampton Concert Band, conducted by Graham Tear.

The band started off the concert with “A Festival Fanfare” with lots of easily identifiable Christmas tunes to spot.

We had been invited to join the band for some Christmas carols and some of our own pieces, so we started at the end of the band’s piece called “A Winter’s Night”. This was a beautiful evocative wintery piece, which ended with a soft and peaceful verse of “Silent Night” which the choir sang.

Then we performed “Child in a Manger” by John Rutter. We were accompanied by the wonderful concert band. At first glance you may think that you don’t know this piece, but once the melody starts you realise very quickly that it is “Morning has Broken”!

We performed “Ubi Caritas” by Ola Gjeilo, which gives a nod to Gregorian Chant and church music of long ago as it is sung in Latin, but with a modern feel with piano improvisations performed brilliantly by our very own accompanist, Richard Holloway. This was very atmospheric in the beautiful acoustics of the church.

The band then played an excellent piece called “Minor Alterations” where lots of Christmas melodies were transformed by changing them into a minor key, rather than their usual major version. This gave some of the tunes a dark and sinister feel and was very entertaining.

Then back to another John Rutter piece “Christmas Night” accompanied by the gentle sound of the concert band clarinet section. This was guaranteed to ensure that any babies in the audience were sleeping soundly! The choir sang in melting 4-part harmonies and all was calm and bright.

The first half ended with the Concert Band’s performance of an arrangement of the film music for “ET the extra-terrestrial.” This had us all sitting on the edge of our seats absorbed in the music. A few tissues were needed for the ending!

After the interval the concert band started off with an arrangement of Jingle Bells, using the percussion section to great effect, followed by “Hark the Herald” with audience participation.

Next, the choir sang “The Shepherd’s Pipe Carol” with lovely bouncy rhythms and syncopated sections. Such a feel-good carol!

The Concert Band played 2 more pieces: “ Let the Bells Ring” and “New York” which showed the skill and dexterity of all the amazing players.

Then the gloves came off and we all played and sang “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. When we got to the section of “5 Gold Rings” the audience, band and choir nearly blew the church roof off!!

Finally, the band finished the concert with “A Christmas Overture” and “The Christmas Song”, all feel good pieces which left everyone with a big smile on their faces. It was very enjoyable and entertaining concert and a great start to the Christmas Season.

Written by Anne-Marie Blackadder, Alto

The members of Earls Barton Music who formed the choir for the Concert Band Christmas Spectacular.

A Choral Christmas Cracker!

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We recently performed our annual Christmas concert at St Barnabas Church in Wellingborough over two consecutive evenings, raising funds for The Lighthouse Centre. This year, our seasonal programme “A Choral Christmas” featured music from a range of genres and time periods, and we were accompanied by a wonderful orchestra.

As with any good Christmas concert, the evening began with obligatory audience participation in the singing of the traditional Christmas carol  “O, Little Town of Bethlehem”, before the choir performed the first of our Baroque pieces, Schütz’s cantata “The Christmas Story”. This was an extended piece made up of several short movements, and featured a number of solo and small group ensemble pieces, as well as three lively movements sung by the whole choir. The first half then ended with two modern carols; “Child in a Manger” and “Christmas Night” composed by the ever-popular John Rutter, and a performance of the well-loved carol “In the Bleak Midwinter”.

The choir began the second half of the concert with a performance of the hauntingly beautiful “Ubi Caritas”, an arrangement of a fourth century Latin chant composed in 2001 by Ola Gjeilo, which also featured a stunning version of Gjeilo’s original piano improvisation performed by our talented accompanist Richard Holloway. Next on the programme was the second of our Baroque pieces, Bach’s cantata “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” (“Heart and mouth and deed and life”) which we sang in German. In similar fashion to the Schütz performed earlier, this was a longer work composed of solo and whole choir elements, held together by recitatives (sung narratives) performed by Wyn Jones. The concert then closed with “O Come All Ye Faithful”, once again with the assistance of the audience.

As always, we could not have achieved such a successful sequence of concerts without the support and guidance of our musical director Jon Rees, and our co-director Helen Taylor, who kept us going with their encouragement and unfailing good humour (especially when  the Bach tied our tongues in knots on a regular basis!).

Helen Jones, Soprano

One Day More… x 3!

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Originally planned for 29th February, our concert, ONE DAY MORE! AN EVENING OF SONGS FROM THE MUSICALS turned into three nights of concerts, with each night a sellout.

Opening with our own very special version of One Day More, (‘one more day of long rehearsals…’), we segued into a Les Miserables medley with solos pieces from Janette, Esther, Hannah, Simon and John Johnathan and Rachel, followed by a very entertaining couple of numbers from Matilda, featuring Sarah, Holly and Zoe.

Next up was a medley of tunes from Miss Saigon, featuring a beautiful rendition of I’d Give my Life for You by Helen.

And then…pirates! A trio of Viv, Peter and Ian sang Paradox from Pirates of Penzance after which a 21st birthday balloon was presented to a member of the audience who, at the age of 84 was only just celebrating her 21st birthday – and what a great way to celebrate 🙂

The first half of the concert was drawn to a close with an Andrew Lloyd Webber Concert Celebration, featuring the amazing Sophie singing Memory.

The second half of our concert began with a lively selection of songs from The Lion King. Soloist Alaina wowed us with For Good from Wicked, and Helen led a semi chorus in a fun rendition of We Don’t Talk about Bruno from Encanto with the audience joining in.

Hakuna Matata and more from The Lion King

Soloist John raised the roof with If I were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof, and the full choir rounded off the evenings with Rogers and Hammerstein on Broadway. Songs from The Sound of Music featured, including a very authentic The Lonely Goatherd by Vicki, and Helen as a convincing Maria. The male contingent treated us with a rousing There Ain’t Nothing Like a Dame, and we sang our way into the final number…You’ll Never Walk Alone.

These concerts would not have been possible without the incredible direction and music arranging from Jon and Helen, and the fantastic band made up of Richard on piano, Steve on bass guitar, and Kev on Cajon. We are also grateful to our staging, sound, lighting teams and front of house teams (special mentions to Alistair, Steve, Adam, Dave, and Will), as well as Lorna and team from The Good Plate who treated our audiences and choir to refreshments on all three nights. We’re also grateful for the support of the Methodist Church for the use of the premises for all our rehearsals and concerts, and to Jeyes of Earls Barton who have been our Box Office.

The male voices of Earls Barton Music singing about a dame!

This series of concerts have been enjoyed by so many people – the choir of 100+, including several new faces and voices, and our audiences and supporters, without whom we wouldn’t be able to make music.

‘…one more song, one more day, ONE DAY MORE!’

Our next concerts will be in July – Barton Plays Pop, featuring songs from the 70s and 80s. Registration, concert and rehearsal dates are on the EBM calendar.