What's coming up...and what we've recently sung.
Mozart - Requiem
Haydn - Maria Theresa Mass
Saturday 25th May 2024
Tewkesbury Abbey
Joint concert with Charlton Kings Choral Society
A Tapestry of Christmas Music
Mon 18th December 2023, 7pm
with St Mary’s CofE Primary School
& The Beauregard Academy
Over £600 raised for Pancreatic Cancer UK - thank you!
85th Anniversary Concert
All Saints Church, Cheltenham
11th November 2023
Celebrate our 85th Aniversary concert with beautiful pieces such as
Haydn ‘Little Organ Mass,’ Faure ‘Requiem’, Vivaldi 'Gloria' RV 588 (the unfamiliar one!)
Thank you for joining us, more photos of this wonderful evening to follow!
Summer Concert
Gloucester Cathedral
3rd June 2023
A magical lunchtime recital singing Vivaldi's 'Gloria', Mozart's 'Laudate Dominium', Sumsion's 'They that go down to the sea in ships' and Elgar's version of 'God Save the King'
Surely Gloucester Cathedral is one of the ‘great’ religious buildings of the land - even just to visit. For a few moments, as you walk along the cloisters, you can pretend you‘re in a Harry Potter film, but the real treat for any choir, of course, is to sing there. We were very happy, therefore, to put on a lunchtime concert at the beginning of the month.
After a very successful and enjoyable ‘Jubilee’ performance in the quire last year, we were keen to have a repeat performance and what an enjoyable morning we had on 3rd June. Our repertoire consisted of uplifting Vivaldi, soothing Mozart, rousing Elgar and a new piece to many of us by a one-time Gloucester Cathedral organist, Herbert Sumsion. The choir were kept in tune by the brilliant Alison Howell on the organ and in time by our guest conductor Shaun Pirrtijarvi (soon to be Head of Music at Cheltenham College) to whom we are so grateful for taking us on at such short notice while Alex Thacker could not be with us. We were also very pleased to hear beautiful solos from our own Cara Nichols and her friend Bethany Evans.
It was a particular delight this year to sing in the nave. The acoustics in this fabulous space certainly present some challenges but also great rewards as the vault seems to both increase our volume yet also soften any ‘ hard edges’ of sound to send back a soothing harmony to the listeners. A very good audience we had too, who passed on lots of lovely comments and were generous with both applause and donations.
Alexandra Brooke (Alto)
English Touring Opera - Giulio Cesare
04 May 2023
English Touring Opera returned to Cheltenham Everyman with their spring 2023 tour, featuring two new ETO productions and a 2020 revival. Cheltenham Choral society will be featuring.
A memorable night at the opera (while others were out voting) on 4th May, as the Choral Society’s own “Sixteen” contributed to the English Touring Opera production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Everyman Theatre. CCS had been asked to supply singers to act as an Egyptian mob. This request followed our involvement with ETO in the St John Passion at the Town Hall last year. Four of each voice were to sit in the circle at the opera and erupt into song, to the surprise of the surrounding audience. Right at the beginning of the piece, the mob was praising Cesare as the conquering hero (Viva, viva!). Even before the interval had arrived, however, this same mob was baying for blood and the death of Cesare (Mora, Cesare, Mora), so great versatility was required from the sixteen amateur performers! Needless to say, the professionals put on a magnificent show of Baroque opera with first class singing and playing. It was a great night out for the “mob” and for the loyal CCS members who turned out in support from within the audience.
Rob Lindsay (Bass)
Handel's Messiah
All Saints Church, Cheltenham
1st April 2023
The committee was thrilled that we managed to pull off Messiah on 1st April after our musical director had an emergency the afternoon of the performance. We were so lucky that John Wright , the current director of CKCS, was available and of course that he had all the experience necessary to conduct a Choir and an
orchestra from the Choral score! He said that although he had a full orchestral score he felt he could direct better if he was not having to look downat a huge score all the time. I certainly felt he was helpful to us singers in his conducting.
We were pleased to be able to present John and his wife with flowers and some wine to thank them for the disruption to their Saturday! Mrs Wright enjoyed the performance very much - more compliments!
We felt very well looked after and welcomed by the team at All Saints. One of the real benefits the committee feels is that we were able to see the Conductor so well from our elevated seating. The staging had been erected for us and real thought had been put into preparing for us as well as they could. We are looking forward to returning for our November concert.
We received compliments from the alto and bass soloists about our singing which is most pleasing so we feel that overall we presented a most successful concert - to an audience of around 120. We would be happy to receive any suggestions for improvements in our planning for future concerts.
We all hope to hear that Alex is making progress with his recovery and send him our very best wishes.
Sue Mildenhall (Alto)