Your Favourite Things

I was quite excited to go along to see Saddleworth Musical Society`s Concert titled “ Your Favourite Things” as I do love a bit of Rogers and Hammerstein. This concert was being performed at The Millgate Arts Centre. The audience were sat on chairs in tiered seating looking forwards onto a flat stage area where the performers were. The accompanying band consisted of Louise Brennan on keyboard and Robert Banham on drums . The performers themselves were dressed in concert blacks if they weren`t  doing a solo, duet or trio. The Musical Director, Dan James, was stood quite far back from the performers and made himself very unobtrusive to the audience. Martin Roche was Master of Ceremonies and it was lovely to hear the introductions to the sections of music and also a little bit about the shows that the music was taken from. Martin Bradbury opened the concert by coming down through the audience singing “ Oh What A Beautiful Morning”, it was very evident from his opening notes that this was a very different concert than I had ever seen them perform before – in the past I had asked for more “ performance” in a musical theatre number, they positively threw it at me – Bravo! Diction and actually singing to the ends of the lines were spot on. I heard no sliding notes, no cheating, diaphraghmatic breathing was all looking and sounding  good, there were some lovely harmonies blending and some superb animation in people`s faces. Lisa Kay performed “Honey Bun” , she really brought out the comedic acting in the song and I saw a real, full bodied performance. I thoroughly enjoyed “There Is Nothing Like A Dame”  performed by the Men`s Chorus – they looked to be having so much fun! Mirriam Lawton performed some lovely strong  solos throughout, unfortunately she did have some mic issues but she is old school and resorted to some  good old vocal  projection instead .

Both myself and my guest weren`t ready for this concert to come to an end, we thoroughly enjoyed it.  I look forward to seeing you all again very soon.

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