It is Football and It is Music that Brings them Pleasure

 

I always did think it would be fun to sing the Torreador chorus from Bizet’s Carmen. And so we did: at a workshop offered to us at one of our rehearsals, at a rehearsal for this event and at glorious Manchester Day, Saturday 26 July 2025.

We also had the opportunity to join in some football chants and a version of the Anvil Chorus. The football chants had been adapted to sound a little more musical and words to do with football had been added to the Torreador and Anvil choruses.

We were kitted out in plain colour T-shirts and a variety of not-quite football scarves.

‘What’s with the Leeds scarves?’  someone asked.

‘Not quite. Stripe’s wrong. It’s just football.’

There were other non-quite football scarves as well but we made a conscious decision to take matching ones even though we wore an array of different colour T-shirts.

Our first ‘performance’ was football chanting as Bury ladies took five penalties. They scored four and we were able to reward them each time with the football version of the Hallelujah Chorus. Later we would line the paths from the Football Museum to the stage set up for Manchester Day. Here we joined in the Torreador and Anvil choruses and were treated to two wonderful solos from English Nation Opera members.      

At the Friday night rehearsal I found myself standing next to some young people from the RNCM. They had fantastic voices. In the finale, I also stood next to one of them.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked. We introduced ourselves. I now know who he is and shall look out for him. What a fantastic baritone voice.

In between sessions we were able to enjoy a little of what Manchester Day offered, including a further performance by the Bridgewater HallSingers.    

This was a joint venture between English National Opera, PitchPerfect and Walk the Plank and it had some of its roots close to where I live.

Back on 29 March 2025 I remarked to my husband that the Bury FC’s fans seemed to be in very good voice. The nearest goal post is 180 metres from my study. The drummer after whose performance the ‘Na Na’ chant comes, is just 130 metres away.  It is, however, a half mile walk round to the ground.  I’m not a huge fan of football, but I do enjoy the sounds we get when Bury are playing at home. Especially when you hear some fine singing.     

We also had the privilege of singing with Bury Fire Choir, PopVox, Bridgewater Hall Singers and Wigan Choral Society.       

In the Well Again (Buxton Festival Fringe 2025)

A text arrives just as I finish my breakfast. There’s a tree on the line between Hazel Grove and Buxton. The trains should be running again at ‘approximately’ 8.45. I know that several people are travelling on the 8.51 – and that includes our front of house assistant. It’ll be fine. We’ll manage.

And we do. The 8.51 runs on time. The roads are clear. The weather is a little cooler than in previous days and wet but not too wet.

We more than manage.

The door to the United Reform Church is already open. Choir members begin to arrive, one of them with the bag of flowers. We do warm up exercises. We have a run through of a few songs – some of them all the way though others just the beginning.

The audience begin to arrive. I remind the two people on the door to look out for the reviewer. Later Elizabeth tells me she felt herself tense up when he announced who he was.

Note, though, at the Buxton Festival Fringe they ‘review’ not’ judge’ or ‘adjudicate’. Reviews are always detailed and encouraging.

And so our first concert begins. The hour passes quickly.

In no time we are setting off down the hill to sing in the Pump Room. 

“Come back at 2.30,” shout a group of people dressed as something that looks as if it will be very entertaining.

‘We can’t,’ one of us cries.  ‘We’ll be rehearsing for our second concert by then.  3pm at St Mary’s and there’s cake. Come along.’ Yes, that’s the Festival Fringe. The people who looked after us at the United Reform Church tell us that they have five more groups attending that day.

Last year I thought that singing in the Well was one of the most magical things I’d ever done, This year did not disappoint. And a strange headless nurse joined us.

The rain persists. None of the street-side tables at the cafes and pubs can be used. Somehow we all manage to find lunch, often accompanied by Morris dancing and other entertainment, and make our way to St Mary’s for 2 pm.

Here we are greeted like old friends. Well it’s been a few years.  Jill Hulme form St Mary’s and I count on our fingers. We started coming to Buxton in 2010. There were no performances in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid. So we’ve attended thirteen Festival Fringe events and an extra one just for St Mary’s.

This is a more relaxed affair here.  Is this our second home?

It’s a hard-working day. Our soloists, Victoria and Martin, do us proud in What I Did for Love and Why We Sing. Breathing correctly and energetically makes all the difference in Ave Verum and Grant Us Peace. Our new masterpiece is Time (Jennifer Lucy Cook) and for a few moments we become AI machines. And yes timing is really important here. Fix You and I Carry Your Heart are challenging but rewarding for tenor 1s.  Cool Moon is an old favourite but still needs some care. Make You Feel My Love, Why Walk When You Can Fly and Somewhere Only We Know are pleasing arrangements of popular songs.  Harbour is perhaps what we’re all about and our encore, Everything We Do, is one that always gives us a lot of joy.

The time really does fly by, even faster than in the song. Soon we’re eating cake, enjoying a cup of tea, and chatting to the audience. ‘Are the purple flowers significant?’ asks one lady. That’s the second time we’ve been asked that this year. Well, we like purple and we used to wear a ‘dash’ of purple but the purples were too diverse.    

The good people at St Mary’s are always so friendly and helpful.

The Buxton Fringe Festival is such a delightful affair and we’re so grateful for all the effort that the organisers make for us. We’ll see you next year.

And thank you for the thoughtful and encouraging review:   https://www.buxtonfringe.org.uk/reviews2025mus.html

It’s all over by 4.50.  A very gentle rain falls as we make our way home. We’re all tired but pleased with how the day went.   

 

A Day of Singing

 

My oh my. What a lot we did. Five new songs before lunch and another five after. Most of them we sang twice.

As ever there was a mixture of styles: choral pieces, arrangements of popular songs, some quirky fun ones, ones that got us all miming playing trumpets, another that made us behave like robots. Some were more intricate than others.  There were very close harmonies in some and in others more complex parts were slotted against each other.

This was the ideal opportunity to ty out what works for the choir and for other people to find out what our choir is about.

We had four people join us for the day – nicely balanced – as it was one tenor, two altos and one soprano.

It’s an important part of a choir’s business, to try out new materials and find out what works. We did that in spades.     

You don’t need to be able to read music to join our choir though we provide sheet music. There are also practice tracks to listen to.  However, even a complete novice at reading music would surely have picked up something after today?     

How can a Saturday go by so quickly? It certainly did.     

It was hard work but a lot of fun.            

Chorlton Arts Festival 24 May 2025

 

Some of us have been with the choir for many years and others have only joined recently. No matter how long we’ve been members the anticipation builds as we gather in the car park. After a month of sun and heat on a bank holiday weekend the weather has broken.  Yet it’s still quite warm and it’s not actually raining. The temperature is in fact just right for what we’re about to do.  

‘I’m feeling curiously nervous,’ says one of our members.’

‘A few nerves can be useful,’ I reply, ‘as long as you don’t let them get to you.’   

And so they are. A satisfying warm-up calms them and we’re soon in the church where we’re delighted to find a decent- sized audience.         

Chorlton Arts Festival is a wondrous event.  This year it lasted form 16 – 24 May, with a pre-festival event on 6 May, and took place in variety of venues throughout Chorlton.

Many of the events are free of charge though some you need to book for and you can donate to the festival at any event if you wish. This includes some fascinating ones like the group on just before us  - Sign Me Happy  offered a group of primary school children who signed (British Sign language) to music.

The festival has sponsors and patrons but is entirely run by volunteers.

So we were delighted to return to a venue with which we’ve become familiar: St Ninian’s Church at 4 pm on Saturday 24 May.

Our audience is a mixture of friends of the choir, friends of the festival and locals curious about who we are and what we do.

Our performance lasts one hour. We offer most of our current repertoire, including some news songs, ones that speak of peace and hope, special arrangements of popular songs and some old favourites. Some contain parts that some of us find tricky but with the care of other choir members, our warm-hearted audience and our supportive musical director we sail through them.     

We go home yet again glad that we came.  What a nice way to spend an afternoon on a disappointing bank holiday weekend.

More Christmas Goings On

Trafford General’s Moorside Unit

 

Tuesday 17 December found us not at our normal rehearsal spot but at Trafford General’s Moorside Unit. It has become a bit of a tradition that we visit this place that offers such considered care to it patients. They provide us with such a lovely audience and offer us hot chocolate and cupcakes as well.  

‘Some of your songs ae a bit cringy,’ said one a member of our audience who met us in the corridor later, ‘but they’re really good because we can see you enjoy singing them.’ I guess he was right on both counts: yes, they’re some of the good old ones that everybody knows, though some of them have a particular twist and are sung in four parts anyway, and yes we enjoy them. How lovely for our final Tuesday in 2024.

Christmas jumpers, tinsel and purple hats abounded.

 

Lancaster Castle

 

… used to be a prison which might have been useful when we demanded our figgy pudding and we weren’t going to go until we got some in that well-known sung.

It certainly didn’t have a prison-like atmosphere on Saturday 21 December and I’m also certain that our audience weren’t held against their will.

We joined with Jeff’s other choirs – Blackburn People’sChoir, Gathered Voices and  South Lakes Acappella to brave walking across the cobbles and offer a programme of Christmas music including many numbers that the audience were invited to join in with.  We even had a very young lady signing several of the well-known songs.

Lancaster Castle is just 300 meters form the railway station so getting there by train is a good option.  The station also has a large public car park and I was pleased to find several free places even on the Saturday before Christmas. There is a short cut is though the station and the castle is then only a little bit uphill.

I arrived early, in a downpour, but my phone informed me the rain would stop in twelve minutes. It did and kept mainly away from us as we sang three sets between 11.00 am and 2.00 pm.

There were short breaks between sets and plenty for us to do: visit the excellent café, be tempted by the lovely chocolate shop or take a stroll through the atmospheric town centre, which starts just a few meters away.

It’s fun singing with other choirs. We all know how much work goes into getting the songs to this standard. And we also know what a lot of fun it is, especially when we can sing together like this.

 

Buile Hill Park

 

Another tradition – we’ve been singing there on the last Sunday before Christmas now, we worked out, for six years.

This is the second time we’ve had to sing inside.

There was a very strong wind on the afternoon of Sunday 22 December. The gazebo was down and the tables and chairs stacked flat.

The atmosphere inside the pavilion though was lively. Mulled wine, mince pies, jacket potatoes, tea, coffee, hot chocolate and chocolate tarts were on offer.

We sang for just over an hour: some of our Christmas repertoire, some of our normal repertoire and our singalong Christmas karaoke.

Christmas wouldn’t be the same without our visit to Buile Hill Park.  We hope to come for many more years. Thank you for having us.

 

Busy Weekend

Yes, indeed, what a lot we did the weekend 13-15 December 2024.

Brockholes  

 

Several of us trooped up to the wild-life centre, Brockholes, near Preston to join Blackburn People’s Choir and Gathered Voices to sing at the Winter Fayre and for the lighting of the Christmas tree on Friday 13 December. .

We entered the Fayre through a tunnel of lights and a barrel organ played Christmas tunes.  We even managed to sign along to a couple of them on the way out: Feliz Navidad and Oh Come All Ye Faithful.   

As usual we enjoyed singing with other choirs.

The Fayre was full of artisan stalls selling all sorts of carefully crafted handmade items. Not that we had much time to look: we had a whole repertoire to get through, including all the old favourites.

The wild-life trusts do much important work in looking after nature and confronting climate change so it was good to be able to support them   

 

Memorial Service Manchester Crematorium

This was the first time a service like that had been held at Manchester Crematorium. There have been similar events at other venues in the past. People, who have lost a loved one recently and in some cases longer ago, are invited to attend and during the service leave a message on the Christmas tree.

We sang the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City and then the congregation joined us on the other verses. We sang along with the congregation on the other hymns. We ‘performed’ Silent Night and, at the organisers’ request, Holly Jolly. The latter perhaps serves to remind us that this was a celebration of life as well as a service of remembrance.

The service was just the right length and touching without being heavy. 

 

Singing on the Bee Network 

 

Oh, yes, there we were singing on the Metrolink trams. We mainly circled round between Deansgate  and Cornbrook. Note the lovely yellow Santa hats.  

Our repertoire consisted of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, White Christmas (not the four voices version – we sang in unison), The Twelve Days of Christmas, Holly Jolly and Carol of the Bells. We did manage to sing the latter two in parts.  

“They must have rehearsed that for days,” we heard someone say of Carol of the Bells. Yes and no. Most of us in the group have been singing that for several years but probably have to relearn it every Christmas.

We had a welcome pit-stop at the Costa at Media City where we enjoyed our favourite beverages, mince pies and other cakes and pastries. It gave us the opportunity to get to know the organisers a little better.

Could we tempt them to join?

“We work hard but we have a lot of fun,” we explained. “See you 7 pm on 7 January at Go Church?”         

As we got out of the tram at St Peter’s Square at one point someone who had been at the memorial service the day before recognised us. Fame at last?

Our finale was on Platform B at Piccadilly where we gave our final rendition of Holly Jolly.    

 

                      

 

Festive singalong with Stan, Manchester Museum

 

 Now then, what is this picture all about? To make any sense of it you need to refer back to our Facebook post about what we did ten years ago. See our post on 16 November this year.

The picture below is perhaps more what you were expecting. 

 

What a lovely time we had.

Manchester Museum is a glorious building, even if it does involve a circuitous route to get to dinosaur Stan.

A few of us arrived early and indulged in some of the lovely cake served in the café.

It’s a busy time of year but we were managed to put together a well-balanced group of just sixteen. The acoustics are so fantastic there that we sounded like more and we could hear each other well.

We offered a mixture of our Christmas songs and our normal repertoire.  Then we asked our audience to join in as we sang some of everyone’s favourites, including The Twelve Days of Christmas, along with actions, of course.

We had a fifteen minute interval which gave us some time to have a quick look at the museum and to chat to some of our audience. I’d shared my copy of the ‘singalong’ numbers with one young woman earlier and I made a point of talking to her in the break. She had been so enthusiastic.

“I suppose you’re auditioned, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I replied.

Of course we invited her and her partner to join us.  The invitation naturally went out to everyone.

We had a small but every appreciative audience. I’m sure I spotted Stan nodding along to the music.

We can’t wait to be invited back again.