Sounds Like Christmas

St Peters Church was all lit up again last night as we were welcomed to IODS  Christmas concert, Sounds Like Christmas. The church and it’s beautiful stained glass window was wonderfully  illuminated with an array of ever changing lights which made the perfect backdrop for the singers, all lined up on tiered staging with decorated Christmas trees  to complete the festive feeling. Lighting and sound was by Jeremy Shuter. Thank you to the FOH team for your usual warm welcome, lovely to see you all again.  This  always proves to be a popular annual event as the tickets were completely sold out.  

Mike Wren, with his skill, expertise and encouragement always produces a high standard of singing with some brilliant harmonies,  solos and group numbers together with the excellent music  provided by  David Butcher, John Lindley, Jonathan Mudd, Jon Gibbs and Pearl Rapley-Gibson. The musical arrangements were by Andrew Burke,  Mike Wren and Therese Miller.  One must also appreciate all the time and effort which is spent in putting together all the musical arrangements and it must be tremendously rewarding to hear them being beautifully sung by this talented group.

It never ceases to amaze me that the production team of Stephanie, Bridget and Owen  had  once again found lots of different Christmas songs I had never heard before, along with some great arrangements  of old favourites and carols.  With the good acoustics in the church and with over 40 singers, together,  they produced some brilliant full company numbers.  These were contrasted with some solos, duets  and small ensemble pieces giving a perfect balance. With so many great numbers it is difficult to pick out a few favourites but I would say there were some beautiful solos and duets by Becky Gaffer, Courtney Yule, Freyer Marsh, Chloe Brown & Owen Berry to name just a few.  There was the  always popular comedy from the five ladies with  ‘Deck the Halls’ and  not to be outdone the  men gave us another comedy with ‘Stay another Day’   together with IODS very own Elvis (Roger Jackaman ).

Martin Leigh compered the evening and had once again spent many hours in researching some delightfully, terrible  Christmas cracker jokes.  Well done Martin, we hadn’t heard those ones before, honestly! He and Stephanie traditionally give us a duet which this year was a beautiful arrangement of ‘Let it Snow/Winter Wonderland’ My husband Derek loves these numbers, so reminiscent of the famous crooners of his youth.  Beautifully done.

Thank you to Mike Wren, Owen, Stephanie, Bridget and all the production team and singers for a wonderful festive evening.  

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