A wonderful, uplifting and thought provoking evening at St. John’s in Penistone. Stories of hope, and light after dark times told on ‘Voices of Hope’ audio recordings. Alongside amazing art, creativity and encouragement. We loved all the ‘Trees of Life’ woven in to the displays. Huge thanks to Mick Rowe and her inspirational ideas. We were thrilled to be able to add some voices in song, We loved a bit of improv gospel “Amazing Grace” with the fabulous Lorna. We were super grateful to the support from Julie Curtis in accompanying on the piano. Do take a look at brilliant photography from Kat at Bumblebugs Photography For more info on the ‘Suicide Sucks’, and their ‘Have you got 8 mins mate’ campaign check out their website https://www.suicidesucks.co.uk/
What a night we had at the Paramount. Old Silkstone Band are so talented, with amazing soloists, especially their horn section and their euphonium player! A special thank you to Norman for working with the band on Great Is Thy Faithfulness, so we could perform it as a joint item!
15 people who have been coming along to our Ready Steady Sing course came along to perform Don’t Fence Me In, and the Drunken Sailor with the choir. For an Encore we performed our Gospel Medley, thanks to Michael B for bringing his bass guitar (and hat!) along!
12 RSSers (at least) have decided to join our choir. It’s been such a brilliant experience for us all ❤️🎵🎉
Here’s our Drunken Sailor – arranged by our MD Rachel, and performed by us (the choir and RSS), Philip (piano), Matthew (fiddle), Ralph (spoons and harmonica) and Gordon (Irish pipes)
Mulligan’s Muskateers, as requested by founding member Peter Green, losely inspired by American civil war hero Hercules Mulligan, a contemporary of Alexander Hamilton (of Hamilton the musical fame!)
Our last Ready Steady Sing was on Sunday 1st March, St. David’s Day, we warmed up with Calon Lan, and All Through the Night. The breath work, tuning and lyrical lines were incredible. Philip (our pianist, and professional vocal coach), led us though a session on vocal range, and how to accurately find both higher, and lower notes, with good control, tone and support. We have all learnt so much from his sessions, even the choir members coming along, and our MD, who has been loving the vocal training.
Our MD, Rachel, took a session on conducting, so we can all now conduct, and understand how to follow conducting, in both simple and compound time. Such fun!
We worked hard on the pieces we are singing with the choir at the Paramount on March 21st. Don’t Fence Me In (complete with coconuts!) our MDs arrangement of Drunken Sailor (with our newly formed choir folk band!) and the Gospel Medley. We can’t wait to share with our friends, and family.
We’ve had fantastic feedback on the course, bowled over by how much you’ve all enjoyed it. This Monday, 9th, and next Monday, 16th sees RSS members joining MGMVC at the beginning of the practice to rehearse our joint items.
We can’t say thank you enough to those choir and committee members who made this possible – to Paul P for applying for funding, to Dave A for coordinating the events, to Jon J for all the correspondence, to Di A for tea making and welcomes, to John O’B for being the most fab tech team… and to all the members who came along to make everyone so welcome and support the singing.. and newly formed folk band (Ralph, Matthew and Gordon) what a team ❤️🎶
