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!)

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/hercules-mulligan

We’re looking forward to welcoming about 20 new faces to the Institute tonight, as we begin our ‘learn to sing course’! The snow is turned to hideous rain, so pack your brolly… as well as your smile and your singing voice. See you there at 6pm!

Thank you to you all for sharing Christmas with us! 3 super successful concerts – with the Penistone Ladies, with Thurlstone Brass Band and with our friends at the Millhouse Green Institute.

Highlights this year were the super arrangement of ‘Do You hear what I hear?’ for brass and voices, and our own arrangement of Stop the Cavalry for voices and instrumentalists!

We thoroughly enjoyed performing Phil’s Shchedryk arrangement as a whole choir in Ukranian, with violin as traditional accompaniment. There’s been pub carols twice – once after Christmas dinner at the Dog and Partridge, and once at the Blacksmiths in Millhouse. We’ve had a whole host of soloists, duos, group sings (an excellent Gaudete!) and so much fun and laughter. Merry Christmas all 🧑‍🎄 🎄 🌟

Saturday 20th Sept – it’s never rained quite as much in any one day yet this year! So a very fitting day in which to raise money for the church’s much needed new roof. We’d forgotten how fabulous the acoustics were, and how much of a warm welcome we received. So lovely to sing to those in our local community. We’re really looking forward to performing with Penistone ladies on Sat 6th Dec in this church, and again in Oct next year with the Holme Valley Singers

We’re back from the most fabulous choir weekend away!
A few highlights for you –

Thursday 11th Sept: performance of a lunchtime concert in Durham Cathedral to a packed audience. The most wonderful acoustics and very fitting program, including Harbour, Cwm Rhonda, You Raise Me Up, My Lord What a Morning, and our first performance of Arthur Sullivan’s ‘The Long Day Closes’

Friday 12th Sept: Whole choir trip to Beamish, with a flashmob sing in the visitor centre (which our MD and pianist missed… as they were still riding the vintage tram!) Choir social and informal performances, with special guests from Sunderland Male Voice Choir. We gave another first performance, this time of ‘A Field of Gold’ as a special gift to Brenda Hind, in memory of John.

Saturday 13th Sept: An early breakfast before our MD rehearsed us and checked we were performance ready. The coach went back to Durham today, where a group flashmobbed the main square, by the Markets. The Durham Market Facebook page has 13.3k views to date.

Our evening concert was in the fabulous setting of Hartlepool St. Hilda’s, hosted by Hartlepool Male Voice choir and with Sunderland Male Voice Choir as guests too. Huge thanks to the leadership and MD teams from both choirs. We felt super welcome, and loved the performances from all 3 choirs. The joint items were our favourite – Philip, the MD from Sunderland led us through American Trilogy at the end of the first half, and our MD Rachel finished the concert by uniting the 3 choirs with ‘Bring Him Home’ from Les Mis, and Morte Christe.

Huge thank you to the fabulous trip organising team of Paul Pearson and Michael Bond. We can’t wait for next year!

Thank you to David, Kim and Yvonne for inviting us up to Kirkburton to sing in the marvellous All Hallows Church, what a wonderful evening of song and camaraderie. Fantastic singing from both groups, bar and buffet laid on by the HVS team. Lovely start and finish to the concert with joint numbers ‘With a Voice of Singing’ and ‘Anthem’ from Chess. We’re looking forward to their return visit to Penistone / Thurlstone.

We had a fabulous afternoon on Sat 28th June singing in the sunshine. Thanks to Phil for conducting us, and to church for inviting us. What a splendid afternoon we’ve all had.

We were delighted to perform alongside The Dalesmen MVC and the V&A Choral Ensemble in St. Peter’s Church Belper. This was a return visit for us, after the V&A joined us in Silkstone last year.

As well as performing our own sets, we enjoyed some joint male voice choir items with the Dalesmen – Conducted by the very talented (and super sparkly) Paul Marshall, we sang Anthem, Gwahhodiad and American Trilogy. Elliott Walker joined the Dalesmen’s pianist Bill on the organ for a roof raising duet accompaniment to American Trilogy.

The three choirs together performed under the direction of our musical director Rachel Atkinson. We sang Anna Tabblesh’s ‘Harbour’, as well as Alan Barnard’s arrangement of ‘Caro Mio Ben’. The final number was ‘You Raise Me Up’, this time with our very own Philip Sutcliffe on piano, joined by Elliott on the organ. What a sound!

Sat April 26th brought our 44th annual celebrity concert at the Penistone Paramount. This year we welcomed The Band of the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service as our celebrities. They played a huge and varied repertoire from the upbeat and fast ‘Jitterbug’, to the most beautiful arrangement of ‘O Magnum Mysterium’.

The choir sang a varied program too, including our winning pieces from the Eskdale festival. The concert joint items were ‘Hymn to the Fallen’ (John Williams for the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’) and Nick Dolling’s arrangement of a ‘Gospel Medley’ which required audience participation too.

Our commère for the evening was Christine Goodwin. A fabulous evening was had by all, and a huge thank you to Barbara Green and her volunteers for preparing supper afterwards.