We can’t quite believe it’s all over… or is it?

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 ❤️🎶

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 🧑‍🎄 🎄 🌟

A wonderful concert of remembrance. Huge thank you to all our fabulous soloists – the beautiful soprano Ruth Bisby, our own lovely bass William Johnson, and to Emily Atkinson on the flute, and Flynn who came to play the last post for our act of remembrance. A small group from within the choir, sang a beautiful arrangement of ‘The Parting Glass’, a traditional Irish / Scottish melody sung at the parting of friends.

We were led into the act of remembrance by our choir Veteran Richard who read a moving poem, and then the words before the silence. Such a warm and welcoming church.

Thank you to Canon Keith for his kind words and blessing, and to all the church community who provided such amazing refreshments! The baking is always a highlight of our year. Such an important concert in the choir’s calendar.

#wewillrememberthem

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.