Christmas Concert

The choir walked out quietly and calmly and took their seats. The ladies looked splendid in their blacks with gorgeous red roses and berries corsages, all placed on the same side, all pointing the same way, the gentlemen teamed their blacks with festive red dickie bows. There is really only one word to describe what we the audience were seeing and that is polished. 

Musical Director Alasdair Gordon came out, received his applause and then we were off . The first full choir number was "For To Us A Child Is Born", it's a joyous number and sets a good pace to move forwards with plenty of vocal stretching and different vocal parts. Saddleworth M.S. handled it well, pronunciation and enunciation was good, I could hear the ends of the letters of words and not just the tune. Performing "A Prayer For Ukraine" was a lovely touch and even more touching was the fact that the society cared enough that they had gone to the trouble of bringing in a Ukrainian lady to help teach them the correct phrasing and pronunciation of the unfamiliar words. This was followed by "Irish Blessing", this is a difficult one to perform as it has many different vocal parts and also unleashes emotion with the meaning of the song, it invokes a time for the audience to reminisce and remember people who have passed. Alasdair controlled the volume levels of the choir well and it was quite a gentle and empathetic delivery. 
This was followed by a rousing " Good King Wenceslas" which we were invited to join in with so of course we did happily. Diggle School Choir sang three songs within the concert, it was a shame that their speaker system was turned up too loud on the music level as it made it very difficult for us to hear the children singing, Saddleworth M.S. were very encouraging to the young choristers and showered them with some lovely, genuine support and pride. 
Saddleworth M.S. presented a fantastic version of "Little Town" complete with the complicated undersinginging and harmonies, breath control is very important in a piece like this because of the volume swell and note lengths, there were definitely no audible gasps for breath and no gaps in sound so Well Done! It is a tricky one to conduct too because of all the stops and starts without fades and bringing each vocal section in and out without overpowering or under powering the rest, Alasdair managed it and he didn't fall off his mini stage/podium as he angled himself every which way to connect with all the singers and musicians and keep himself and his baton seen through the stage lights.

Descants in "O Come All Ye Faithfull" were soaring and it was altogether a fantastic rich sound. The concert was brought to a rousing close with "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", I was beside myself pleased to hear all the "t" sounds in all the words. Well done, Saddleworth M.S. You sang Christmas in! 

Thank you for your hospitality. I hope to see you all again very soon.

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