St Mary's Music News November 2023

It was a delight to return to choir after the summer break and we are pleased to welcome Esma Kashif to the alto section. We were also pleased to see Jo Byers who re-joins the altos after a year working on Skye. In the Junior Choir we welcome new singers Hoi Hoi, Nam Nam, Danncha, Eve and Sylvia. We wish them a long and happy stay with us. This brings the Junior choir to capacity with over twenty children. Ziyi, our organ scholar who joined us before the break, is beginning to learn the pattern of services. It is good to welcome her properly this month.

One of the pleasures of the autumn term is what has become an annual scholar’s concert. This is usually led by the scholars who are leaving for university. This year however, as no one is leaving us, it was a celebration of present and past scholars: a splendid evening in which we celebrated a very talented group of young musicians. Masterminded by Kate Beare various scholars past and present entertained us with solos on violin, flute, piano and vocals and a group medley from West Side Story. The ambience was cabaret style with twinkling lights; there were great eats. ‘It was an absolute blast!’

We celebrated the patronal festival with a feast of music both morning Eucharist and Festal evensong. In the morning the introit Locus Iste (Bruckner) served to quieten our hearts for worship and then the ever joyful A maiden most gentle (Carter) lifted our spirits. In the evening we sang a new anthem for the Patronal Festal Evensong. Jeremy Allen introduced many of us to Let all the world in every corner sing (Vaughan Williams) – a splendid piece which aptly reflected the beauty of our building as we celebrated our patron. The Junior choir took part in the Harvest Festival Family service. Their contribution of singing was much appreciated by the congregation.

Children from some of the local primary schools (Y3 and Y4) attended an exciting organ concert given by Oli King, Jeremy Allen, Philip Sunderland and Peter De Vile on 29th September. They learnt about the organ and listened to some interesting and fun pieces. The idea of the concert was to introduce the children to the sound and the history of the organ in the beautiful setting of the church and to spark an interest in a sound with which many of them may be unfamiliar. Works were performed from all three organs in the church.

The choir is preparing to sing evensong at Birmingham Cathedral on 4th November. The anthem will be Save us Oh Lord (Bairstow), setting Stanford in B flat and Smith’s responses. We look forward to this event and hope to be joined by David and Jenny Tomlinson.

Gill Gibson