Not to mention the cake …. . Oh yes, we’re becoming as renowned
for our cake as we are for our signing. Both are, we hope, good and getting better
all the time. Oh, that reminds me of a Lennon-McCartney number and that’s appropriate
too – we do a couple or three of those. Yes, we did both days.
Concert number one was at St Ninnian’s Church, Wilbraham
Road, Chorlton on 21 May 2016. This was a part of the Chorlton Arts Festival
and this was out third year of participation. We’re never sure on occasions like
this whether we’ll get audience. Last year and two years ago we offered a free concert.
This time we made a modest charge.
We needn’t have worried.
We had an audience and a very good one at that. They were fun! I was
very impressed with one young woman who arrived really early. “I want to make sure
I get a good seat,” she said. She did. Right on the front row. She had three young
boys in tow, so she’d had to pay quite a bit.
Mind you, her youngsters really
enjoyed the cake.
At both concerts the audience was invited to join in.
“It’s so interesting to watch them when he (she means Jeff,
our musical director) does that,” said one of the tenors. “They look so scared
to start with and then they really get in to it and enjoy themselves.”
Yes, I thought, GPs should prescribe it. I’m sure if
they made joining a choir compulsory all of the NHS’s problems would go away.
Well, a lot of them anyway.
Our second concert in a church, on 22 May 2016, was entirely
different. Except for the quality of the singing and the cake, of course. St
Ninnian’s is an older, very traditional United Reformed church. We performed in the evening. We had tea and
cake at the beginning. St Mary and St Philip Neri, Radcliffe, is a modern,
light and airy, Roman Catholic Church. We performed in the afternoon. We had a traditional
interval for tea and cake. The audience was especially invited by the church
and the concert was to celebrate the anniversary of the opening of the new
building. A retiring collection was taken for the building fund.
“We had a hundred leaflets made,” said one of the ladies who
helped with the tea, “and we asked people to take one if they were interesting
in coming. They all went.”
Tat would seem about right. We had quite a packed
church.
There was one awkward moment. “We’re now going to do Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” No we’re
not. We’ve only just started that. It’s in my folder which I’ve actually decided
I don’t need with me here. Phew! He meant Somewhere
after all, minus the rainbow, and just with “a place for us”.
Yes, “Acappella and Cake” is becoming quite our trademark. It
reminds me of the Koffikonzerts my family and I used to enjoy when we lived in
the Netherlands. For the price of cup of coffee and a slice of apple cake in a café
you got a cup of coffee and a slice of apple cake and a first class concert by
gifted amateurs or rising professionals in a church. Kind of similar?
Oh, my, but it wasn’t just apple cake this weekend was it? Lemon
cheese cake, lemon drizzle, coffee and walnut, artistic cup-cakes, healthy (yes,
healthy) brownies and Guinness and chocolate cake. Amongst others.
And musically? We’re consolidating I Will, Royals, and I Know Him
so Well. We performed Groovin’,
on Sunday afternoon, for the first time. There are the old solid favourites of
course. Kum Ba Yah went down well in both venues and Viva la Musica tested the solidity of the new build in Radcliffe.
“I love these busy musical weekends,” said one of the altos
as we left. Yep. Have to agree.
No comments:
Post a Comment