What an evening we had last night at the 2nd Great Waltham Choir Festival. We were joined in the festival by 8 other choirs, including a primary school choir and 3 choirs from The Sandon School.
One of the highlights was having choirs join together: Chelmsford Male Voice Choir joined forces with Braintree Male Voice Choir to sing American Trilogy, Braintree Voices joined with Chelmsford Male Voice Choir to sing World in Union and Great Waltham Village Choir were also joined by Chelmsford Male Voice Choir for their rendition of A Clare Benediction.
Praise must go to the school children though. The primary school ‘Small But Mighty’ choir sang a fabulous version of Power in Me and also sang a Swahili number, Amani Utupe Na Ustawi (Grant us peace, Give us Courage), with actions and it was great to see the audience join in with the actions.
The choirs from Sandon School also blew the audience away. The Year 7 Choir sang ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams, the Young Singing Leaders Elite choir sang Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac and
Sandon Voices sang ‘Shackles (Praise You)’ by Mary Mary. All the children sang confidently and with gusto. For some of Sandon Voices, it was their last performance as they will be leaving the school this year and moving onto pastures new.
A huge thanks to the staff of both schools for supporting the children so well.
The evening’s finale was all the choirs coming together to sing ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing’ which went down extremely well.
Thanks must also go to Clare Howell, who not only accompanied Chelmsford Male Voice Choir, but accompanied the rest of the adult choirs so beautifully.
Thank you to the church of St. Mary and St. Lawrence for allowing the choirs to use the fabulous venue. Thanks also go to the FOH and Bar Staff team and Malcolm – chair of Great Waltham Village Choir for having the idea in the first place, and for his team who worked behind the scenes.
You can see Braintree Male Voice perform next on 28th June at the Public Hall in Witham where they are part of a Gala Charity Concert. Tickets can be purchased HERE
Braintree Voices and Chelmsford Male Voice Choir are joining forces again on 4th July at ‘Songs on a Summer Afternoon’ – their joint concert in Pleshey. Tickets can be purchased HERE
Great Waltham Village Choir can be heard next at their Summer Soiree on 9th July.
We hope that you are able to join one, or more of these events.
Braintree Male Voice Choir hosted a fabulous concert this afternoon at Christ Church, Braintree and were joined by special guests The Selion Swing Band.
BMVC started off the proceedings with some of their favourite numbers entwined with songs from the sixties. Their Welsh verse of Myfanwy was praised by our Welsh audience member and it was great to hear the audience join in with some of the songs from the sixties.
The Selion Swing Band entertained the audience with a range of numbers from Muskrat Ramble to Blue Skies with a few jazz numbers in between.
After the audience had enjoyed tea or coffee with a slice of cake, it was back to business with The Selion Swing Band.
BMVC finished the half with their second collection of Songs from the Sixties. Prior to that the audience joined in with the choir's rendition of Magnificent Men. I am now sure which side won - the up diddly up ups or the down diddly down downs !!
The last number of this afternoon's concert was Big Spender with the choir and audience joining in.
It was a lovely afternoon of music and we would like to thank everyone who came and supported us.
BMVC will be singing at the Great Waltham Festival of Choirs on 5th June and are then joining the mass choirs at Witham Public Hall on 28th June.
You can next see The Selion Swing Band when they perform at Braintree and Bocking Public Gardens on 14th June
The choir were invited to entertain the residents of St. Dominics Residential Home. They sang a selection of songs from the Sixities mixed with some of the choir's favourite songs.
The residents enjoyed the afternoon and as an encore asked for a second rendition of Myfanwy - so our Welsh cannot have been that bad!
We look forward to joining the residents again at Christmas.
You can next catch Braintree Male Voice Choir at their Spring Concert on 16th May at Christ Church, Braintree when they will be joined by Selion Swing Band.