A full house greeted Chordiality at Cottingley and the choir put in a performance worthy of the after-concert prosecco and cream teas.
The concert, at St Mary’s and St Monica’s Church, was an enjoyable fundraiser for the St Vincent de Paul Society. A total of £2059 was raised for the charity, whose work focusses on tackling poverty and loneliness by visiting the sick, providing material assistance and hosting community and social events.
A few changes were added to the Chordiality programme of works by contemporary composers, however, the audience’s responses, as at the previous concert in Otley, was the same… they loved it!
Chordiality’s Music Director Peter Sherlock praised the singers for their focus throughout and for producing a beautiful collective sound; a choir at one with its performance.
“There were a number of highlights in the programme,” he said, “but, for me, Ola Gjeilo’s Lux Beata Trinitas probably best illustrated the singers’ control and was absolutely fabulous.
“Throughout the programme, there were a number of pieces where the choir reached a new level of technical precision, discipline and delivery. We performed Seal Lullaby and Resolution better than I have heard the choir sing them before and Wellerman, although unaccompanied, was so just together and precise.”
The choir took the audience with them with magnificent performances of You’re The Voice, led by soloist Liz Leonard, and the BBC Proms commissioned-piece The Gathering Tree by Rachel Portman.
Talent throughout
On the day, a number of choir members added to the programme with their own solo performances. The standard was excellent and showed off the depth of talent in the choir.
The soloists were (in order of appearance):
- Soprano Catherine Bolland who sang If I Loved You (Rogers and Hammerstein)
- Soprano Alexandra Stevens who played flute solo Après Un Rêve (Gabriel Faure)
- Soprano Rachel Pearce who sang Tell Me On A Sunday (Andrew Lloyd Webber)
- Alto Liz Leonard who sang You’re The Voice (K Reid, A Quanta, C Thompson and M Ryder)
- Soprano Jane Clark who sang Canzonetta Spagnuola (Gioachino Rossini)
- Tenor Robin Reid who sang Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat (Frank Loesser)
In addition, Music Director Peter Sherlock put down his conductor’s baton to join the choir’s accompanist Helen Orme with the Johannes Brahms piano duet Hungarian Dance No. 5.
Next Concert … Huddersfield, Sunday 27 September