Sounds like Christmas

IODS gave us another beautiful concert in St Peters Church, last night, and we were given a warm welcome by the FOH team.  The church was decorated with festive Christmas trees and some wonderful lighting to  illuminate the stained glass windows in a multitude of ever changing colours  and this was the backdrop for the singers, all lined up on multi level staging.  The church was packed again this year but unfortunately, with so many singers and the soloists on floor level, it was often impossible to see them, which was a great shame.

Martin Leigh  compered the evening beginning with the traditional dusting of terrible Christmas cracker jokes, but redeemed himself with a beautiful rendition of ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’. His mellow tones always a joy to hear.  Mike  Wren had done a brilliant job again with his expertise and encouragement to produce some brilliant harmonies,  solos and group numbers. The  musical arrangements were by Andrew  Burke,  Mike Wren, Ashley Betts  and Therese Miller.  

The production team of Stephanie, Bridget and Owen had once again found some new Christmas numbers  along with all your old favourites,  Christmas carols and a couple of comedy numbers, some solos, duets and others with a group of singers or full chorus numbers.  All were performed professionally by this talented group of singers.  These songs included  some beautiful individual  numbers and duets by Owen Berry, Ashleigh Hewitt,  Amanda Langley and  Chloe Brown to name just a few. Towards the end Stephanie Brown gave us a wonderful version of ‘Santa Claus is coming to Town’ with Mike Wren giving us a Sax solo mid way through. Brilliant! With a total of about 40 singers you can just imagine they certainly raised the roof on the church with some of their full company numbers.

The excellent music was provided by Andrew Burke, David Butcher, John Lindley, Jonathan Mudd  and Pearl Rapley-Gibson giving a perfect blend  of both big rousing numbers and softer accompaniments for the quieter solos. Lighting and sound was by Jeremy Shuter  which enhanced the whole effect for this Christmas show.

Thank you to Mike Wren and all the production team and cast with a quality evening to start our festive  season.

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