Tenby Male Choir – Military Precision?

We were delighted to hold a charity concert in St. Mary’s church last Thursday in aid of the Red Cross. There was a very enthusiastic audience of people on holiday and of course local Red Cross supporters, those people who give up their time for things like this to support their cause but of course give up their time in many other ways. Those local efforts often have a benefit in far flung places to aid people in need from the effect of all sorts of disasters. It would be impossible to count the number of people who owe their lives to these efforts all over the UK and in other parts. Just one of the good causes we help.

The concert featured local musician James Crowney Richards on Saxophone accompanied by Mark Thompson. James is only 17 years old and currently attending Greenhill School but he has been playing Tenor Sax since he was 12 years old.

He recently passed Grade 8 with merit. 

He is a very busy musician performing with Greenhill School Wind Band, Jazz Band and Orchestra, the Pembrokeshire County Schools Symphonic Wind Band and Big Band and is a member of local 7 piece function band, Tuxedo Funktion established in 2013. 

James performed four pieces being Melody (in search of a musical) by Graham Lyons, Bethena by Scott Joplin,Pastorale by Edward German and The Adagio and the Allegro from Sonata in G minor by J.S. Bach

There is little rest for the choir as two days after that concert we performed in Fishguard at a dinner of the Fishguard Lions where we received a standing ovation from the large audience. Paul Varallo performed four solo songs on the night being Stars,  Anfonaf Angel,  At Lan y Mor and  La Danza by Gioacchino Rossini lyrics by Carlo Pepoli. Paul sang this final number in Italian.

Our busy programme continued on Monday evening with a rehearsal for our 2018 Massed Choirs concert which will take place in 2018 at the Royal Albert Hall and this weekend we will be at an international competitive festival in Cornwall  featuring 21 British choirs, six of them from Wales, 8 Overseas choirs from Russia, Germany, Norway, USA, Australia, Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland and no less than 28 Cornish choirs..

This competition has meant us not only practising our singing but also what we refer to as “staging” this being our positioning and the process of assembling and leaving the area where we are to perform. Whilst we don’t take this lightly it has to be said that it has not always been undertaken with military precision or at least if it was I am not sure which army it was based on. Perhaps a clue may be found in the tune which our accompanist Jill Williams often plays which is a World War 2 song featured in Dad’s Army. This at least gives the audience something to smile about.

Our full choir programme for 2017 can be downloaded in printable version from the choir website.

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir. These videos are all live so they may not always be our best performance but they are still enjoyable.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted as Secretary on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.

Tenby Male Choir – The Red Cross – Always there.

Tenby Male choir are pleased to be holding a charity concert next Thursday in aid of the Red Cross. The key words that come to mind when thinking about the Red Cross are “They are there wherever there is an emergency.” From floods and fires to terrorist attacks the Red Cross stands ready to come to the aid of people at home and abroad. We are all aware of the Red Cross at international emergencies taking aid to people in desperate circumstances but also close to home they support our fire, health and police services. They have at their disposal a fleet of modern ambulances and Land Rover 4x4 vehicles which often plug gaps in our formal emergency services. By attending our charity concert you will be helping this worthy cause as well as enjoying an evening of singing.

Your local Tenby male choir are pleased to give up our time free of charge to support this cause and many others so please come along and support us and them. We will also be featuring local musician James Crowney-Richards on tenor sax so it should be a varied evening of entertainment. The concert takes place at St. Mary’s Church Tenby on 20^th April starting at 8pm.

Last week we sang at St. John’s Church and an audience of local people and some early bird holidaymakers enjoyed the choir performance and also that of yet another local musician Fred Stace-Smith on the trumpet. He gave a polished performance and was ably assisted by his accompanist Mark Thompson.

We are very grateful to Jim Cornwell who helped the choir by selling our popular CDs to audience members (those who don’t already have one!!). Jim is well known locally and recently took on the role of Tenby town crier. Jim is one of a very welcome group of volunteers who support the choir but don’t want to sing or perhaps think they can’t sing. This group is known as the Friends of Tenby Male choir and as well as taking on some of the many non-singing tasks that a choir has also organises social events to which the choir and anyone else is welcome to attend.

You can find out more about the Friends from our website or from Secretary. Contact details are shown below.

Our full choir programme for 2017 can also be downloaded in printable version from the choir website.

Later this year we will be attending the Cornwall International choir festival featuring 21 British choirs, six of them from Wales, 8 Overseas choirs from Russia, Germany, Norway, USA, Australia, Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland and no less than 28 Cornish choirs. Its going to be an interesting weekend.

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir.   Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted as Secretary on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.

Tenby Male Choir – Come and join us 2017

Tenby Male Choir – Come and join us

Christmas is over. Our short break is behind us and we began rehearsals again last week so its time to look ahead to a new choir season.

During last year we had a number of new members join us and all of them have settled in and added to the size and quality of the choir. Sometimes new members come along because they move into the area or just find that they have more time for one reason or another but they are always welcome. However, this year we have decided to make a specific effort to recruit new members with a couple of invitation evenings.

If you’ve never sung in a choir we know it can be daunting to take that first step so we want to try to make that easier. We have set aside two rehearsal evenings on 17^th and 31^st January. The idea of this is to let potential new members come along and sit in on a rehearsal session to see how it goes. Our MD and the committee are putting in lots of effort to make these evenings a bit of fun and will not involve new recruits in voice tests or even singing at all if they don’t wish to.  Just as you might do in a pub or club you can just join in and sing along if you wish or just sit, watch and listen.

In the choir we have some very good voices, we have some very average voices and it is even possible we have some who are not all that good but in a choir it is about getting the best out of everyone and about improving on whatever abilities we have.

Like anything in the world you get better with practice. We do use music sheets but many of the choir cannot read music as its not necessary but it does help to see the music scores as you hear the other voices around you. We also sing in Welsh sometimes but the vast majority of members don’t speak Welsh. So we use the few Welsh speakers we do have to help non-Welsh speakers pronounce the words and we also have a variety of CDs to aid learning of both the Welsh and the music. We even have music for each section of the choir stored on our website for playing on your Iphone’s tablets etc.

So the message is that singing is fun, a lot of people like singing and this is a chance to see what being in a choir is really like and don’t let things like Welsh or reading music put you off.

Apart from singing being in a choir involves you in a number of other enjoyable and fulfilling activities.

There is always the chance of a few drinks and a bit of hwyl in the County Club after our rehearsals or concerts in Tenby but we also travel to different places. Next year we will have trips to Ledbury, Herefordshire and Newquay, Cornwall.

We also get out and about in our own area with concerts, some indoor and some outdoor in Fishguard, Narberth, Saundersfoot, Lawrenny and Cresswell Quay.

This year’s programme involves four hotel concerts at the Giltar Hotel Tenby. These are a different kind of evening being a bit less formal and often involve anything from stand up comedy, to soloists and guitar performances.

Looking farther ahead we have been invited to sing at the Royal Albert Hall, in London in 2018 so you could find yourself taking part with a number of other choirs in a concert at this prestigious event.

The final aspect of Tenby male choir is that we put on concerts to raise money for for local charities and this year we will hold concerts for the Red Cross, the Stroke Association, St Johns Ambulance, RNLI, HOPE, Bloodwise, the Arts Festival and Air Ambulance Wales. Why not come and meet us and see if being in a choir is for you. Even if you should find that you don’t want to join in the singing at first or perhaps never there are plenty of social events organised by the Friends of Tenby Male choir and we would really welcome more people to join in this group to support the choir in a non-singing capacity.

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir. These videos are all live so they may not always be our best performance but they are still enjoyable.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926 or by email on TenbyMaleChoir@gmail.com

Tenby Male Choir – The end of a season

Well its here again, the end of another summer season. Thirty concerts in all and a lot of charity funds raised. There is a definite feeling amongst the choir that we have reached a new level this year particularly towards the end. This is backed up up by our MD “Wilbur” Williams who has been uncharacteristically complimentary of late. I’m sure it won’t last but it’s nice while it does.

Both concerts this week were of the highest quality. After the Giltar concert on Tuesday 27^th September “Wilbur” was quoted as saying “that was possibly chorally the best Giltar in memory. I certainly believe it to be the best in my personal decade with the boys.”

Soloists on the night were Peter Neate with Danny Boy, Eric Mullins with "If I were a rich man." and a mammoth session of stand up comedy from Eddie Stapleton.

Then on Thursday 29^th September at a packed Arts Festival concert the best compliment of all was the almost universal standing ovation and demands for an encore. I feel sure that the few people not standing were not doing so because of their inability to do that easily. Delight was evident on the faces of members of the audience. It can be hard work sometimes going over difficult parts of a song when we are learning it or practising it but evenings like that make it all worthwhile. Of course our performances are immensely enhanced by the beautiful piano accompaniment of Jill “No Relation” Williams. They say that children should be seen but never heard but in Jill’s case she very much heard but hardly ever seen.

The only remaining founder member of the choir is Tom Pearce and that means he has been with the choir for over 40 years but he has lost none of his enthusiasm or singing quality. He often performs a solo of “My Little Welsh Home” but this time he also sang two other solos with the lovely John Denver song “Annie’s song” and Panis Angelicus.

Annie’s song is said to have been written in about 10 minutes by John Denver on a ski lift in the Aspen mountains in Colorado as an ode to his wife at the time Annie Martel Denver. Panis Angelicus which is Latin for “The Bread of Angels” no doubt took longer than 10 minutes when written by Saint Thomas Aquinas.

For the second interval spot we had something completely different with a trumpet solo by Fred Smith who played the Trumpet Concerto in E flat major. 1st movement. by Joseph Haydn. Fred tells me this is his real name and not just a deeply thought out stage name!! It has a definite “Bert Weedon” ring about it and we all remember him. Don’t we?

Fred is a 17 year old student at Ysgol Greenhill Having started trumpet aged 7 he has been playing trumpet for over 10 years and has just recently achieved his Grade 8. In addition to solo playing, he is an active member of numerous County Ensembles, ranging from County Wind Band and Big Band, to the Pembrokeshire Brass Quintet and the award winning Symphonic Brass. Recently, several ensembles in which Fred is a key member made it though to the national round of the highly regarded Music for Youth festival to perform at the Birmingham Concert Hall. He is also heavily involved with school ensembles such as the Orchestra and Jazz Band, and has been on multiple European tours over the years.

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir. These videos are all live so they may not always be our best performance but they are still enjoyable.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.

Tenby Male Choir – Supporting the Civic Parade

There were no concerts to report on last week so we had two very successful rehearsal sessions including some good progress towards the songs we have to learn for our attendance in the massed choirs’ concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2018. We did however, receive a very nice message from Barnados to thank the choir and to tell us that the charity benefited by £1300 from the concert we held in the previous week.

On Sunday 25^th September we attended the Civic Parade and Civic service for the blessing of the new Mayor. Six members of the choir attended but two of them, chairman Paul Varallo and Ken Sanderson had to rush off before the photo opportunity. Shown in the photo with Mayor Laurence Blackhall are Peter Neate, Tony Hesselgrave, Secretary David Stewart-Walvin and Allan Keating.

This was also the commencement of the Arts Festival week and by the time this report appears we will have attended our last two concerts for the year. One at the Giltar Hotel and one for the Arts Festival at St. Mary’s church. So with the concert season over it will be concentrated rehearsing and learning for some months. If you have ever thought of joining a choir there is no better time than now to come along and see just what happens. You don’t need to plunge in, just come along and meet us or watch a rehearsal and maybe enjoy a drink and a chat with members afterwards. Even if you don’t feel you want to sing you can still take part in choir activities and the social side by joining the Friends of Tenby Male choir.

The Friends of Tenby Male Choir are people who support us in various ways and enjoy joining in the social side without necessarily being singers. It is small at the moment but we want to encourage it to grow. Details of this can be found on our website (details below).

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir. These videos are all live so they may not always be our best performance but they are still enjoyable.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.

Friends of Tenby Male Choir – Poems and Puddings

The group met for a social evening last Friday at the County Club on the Croft, Tenby with 30 supporters turning up to read poems from varying sources. It was interesting and very entertaining with perhaps the stars of the evening being nonagenarian Duncan Hilling and his allegedly much younger wife Audrey. Breaking all the rules of the evening by not reading a poem they did instead a mini two person play about a husband trying to tell his wife something but being constantly interrupted. It had everybody in stitches. As they criticised and argued with each other it was difficult to tell if it was still part of the play or not. Very funny.

Interspersed between three sessions of reading poems from such poets as Pam Ayres and Roald Dahl and even Dylan Thomas as well as personal contributions were breaks to enjoy a fine selection of home made puddings and of course the club bar was open. Thanks to Phil Mumford for manning the bar at short notice.

The history of the Friends of Tenby Male choir is that this originated as a ladies section being formed by wives and partners of choir members but it has now been reborn as a group open to males and females, choir members, partners and absolutely anyone else young or old who wants to come along.

It doesn’t have an official set of aims yet but in simple terms it has been formed to support the Tenby Male choir in any way it can. The group believes that the choir serves a great purpose in the town putting the town on the map, raising charity funds with its concerts and providing a platform for young musicians, often from Greenhill School.

So this is a way of supporting the choir. One member, Jim Cornwell, for instance has now become the choir photographer something we have struggled with in the past as we have to be on stage and we can’t sing and take pictures. Could you help in some way?

If it has another aim it is to have fun and we intend to have a variety of evenings such as the Poems and Puddings evenings to further that aim whilst raising a bit for the choir at the same time.

If you would like to join us or know more or if you have ideas on what we could do you can email Allan Keating on allangkeating@gmail.com or by phone on 07967 370481. 

Tenby Male Choir – 150 years and Always.....

That is the current slogan of the Barnardos childrens charity. This year marks 150 years of helping children, young people and families and as the slogan implies they will go on doing so. The charity handles almost a quarter of a million cases per year so this was another worthy cause for the choir to be involved with.

We were honoured with the attendance of Mayor of Tenby, Councillor Laurence Blackhall and it was a packed evening of music with three sessions from the choir and in between each session no less than four songs from oratoria and concert soprano Jessica Robinson. Jessica sang a very varied collection with:-

O Mio Babbino Caro (Puccini), On my Lips every Kiss is like wine (Lehar), We'll Gather Lilacs (Novello), Eli Jenkins Prayer (Dylan Thomas), Anfonnaf Angel (Robat Arwyn, Cymru Fach (David Richards), Can't help lovin dat man (Showboat), Girl in 14g (Tesori)

Jessica who has a Masters Degree in Opera has won many prestigious awards including the Aneurin Davies Memorial award, the Mansel Thomas prize, the Margaret Tann award and the Elias Soprano award and was recently chosen as part of an octet to perform for HRH, Prince of Wales. She has appeared at many major venues including the Millennium Stadium and is soon to appear at the Albert Hall.  It would take up an entire page in fact to list the places she has been to and performed in and the people she has performed with. Of course Tenby Male choir could now be top of that list!!

Jessica contacted me afterwards to say that she had had a great night and that is certainly true for the audience and choir as well. Mayor Blackhall also joined us later in the county club for a post concert chat

The choir’s programme for the evening included once again a solo by Tom Pearce with his always popular Home on the Hill and “not only but also” we had our Peter Cook and Dudley Moore look-alikes John Butland and Kevin Morgan singing the third verse of Working Man. You have to imagine them both with a little more hair for the full effect!! John who often performs for the choir with his guitar told me that in his younger days he often appeared with Cream but it took me a while to realise that he used to have a milk round.

The choir finished with the always popular American Trilogy where once again Dr. John Harrison, Director of Music at St. Mary’s church, accompanied us with the magnificent church organ. The audience that evening was a very international one. I’m not sure that I can recall all of the countries represented but I know that we had Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Austrians and French. I think we can safely say that we enhanced the special relationship with the singing of the American Trilogy as the people from the USA stood to their feet and applauded furiously at the end.

Tonight (Friday) we have a light hearted evening planned which has been arranged by the Friends of Tenby Male choir. The evening is called Poems and Puddings. It will, as the title implies, be an evening when poems are read by choir members and friends and there will be a selection of free puddings afterwards, or perhaps during, the readings. It takes place at the County club starting at 7:30. You can come along just to listen and eat or you can volunteer to read a poem either one of your own or someone else’s. All contributions are welcome. The entrance fee to include puddings is just £5. If you are thinking of joining us please give our secretary David Stewart-Walvin a ring so that we can make sure there are enough puddings to go round.

The Friends of Tenby Male Choir are people who support us in various ways and enjoy joining in the social side without necessarily being singers. It is small at the moment but we want to encourage it to grow. Details of this can be found on our website (details below).

Next week we have two concerts with a hotel concert at the Giltar Hotel, Tenby on Tuesday 27^th. If anyone would like to come to this there is no entrance fee. Just turn up at the bar in time for singing to begin around 9pm.

We then have one of our most important regular annual concerts when we perform as part of the Arts Festival week. This is on Thursday 29^th September at St. Mary’s church, Tenby starting at 8pm. You are advised to be early if you want to get a good seat as this is always well attended having been publicised as a major event in the festival. It will also be the last chance to see the choir in concert this year as this is the final one in our 2016 programme.

It’s been another year of raising a lot of money for worthy local organisations and once again its been a lot of fun.

We have a bit more enjoyment though as even though our planned programme has officially finished we have been asked to sing as “The Specsavers choir” for a promotion by this leading opticians group. We were asked to do this last year in support of Welsh Deaf Rugby charity and it was so successful that we have been asked again. Details of when and where we will be singing will be published nearer the time.

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir including some really good ones from this latest concert produced by choir Friend Di Mumford.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.

Tenby Male Choir – Another excellent audience

Given that it was September when the town is a bit quieter following the school holidays we were very pleasantly surprised to have a large enthusiastic audience last week. The choir sang a varied programme including Bring Him Home, Let It be Me, Working Man and My Grandfather’s Clock as well as popular Welsh songs such as Hiraeth and Y Tangnefeddwyr. The final item in our programme for the evening was supposed to be The American Trilogy. It is always a surprise for new visitors when the church organ accompanies the choir during the third song in the trilogy – the Battle Hymn of the republic. It is a wonderful sound which delights the audience every time. However our intended finish was cancelled with calls for an encore and we then sang the beautiful traditional hymn Morte Christi with this once again being accompanied to great effect by Dr. John Harrison on the church organ. This was a real treat for the audience.

Master of ceremonies Dave Blackmore was on good form with a mixture of dubious facts and undoubtedly an element of fiction in introducing each song. I think the choir members learn something knew about each song they sing with Dave’s entertaining introductions although I’m not sure how reliable that learning would be in a quiz.

There were also a number of solo performances on the night by lead vocalist Paul Varallo who sang a number of songs, Tom Pearce with a moving rendition of Home on the Hill, John Butland in Working Man and 90 year old Duncan Hilling in The Fields of Athenry.

We have a bit of a break from concerts next week so we can get in some quality rehearsal time but we will also have the opportunity to socialise as the Friends of Tenby Male choir have organised a Poems and Puddings evening on Friday 23^rd September at the County club starting at 7:30. You can come along just to listen and eat or you can volunteer to read a poem either one of your own or someone else’s. All contributions are welcome. The entrance fee to include puddings is just £5.

The Friends of Tenby Male Choir are people who support us in various ways and enjoy joining in the social side without necessarily being singers. It is small at the moment but we want to encourage it to grow. Details of this can be found on our website (details below). We are very grateful for their help at our successful coffee morning held on Saturday 10^th September where local people and holidaymakers were treated to a cup of tea and a biscuit for just £1 and also had the opportunity to purchase tasty homemade cakes.

There will be little rest in the following week as we have two concerts in this final week of our 2016 programme. We start with a hotel concert at the Giltar Hotel, Tenby on Tuesday 27^th. If anyone would like to come to this there is no entrance fee. Just turn up at the bar in time for singing to begin around 9pm.

We then have one of our most important regular annual concerts when we perform as part of the Arts Festival week. This is on Thursday 29^th September at St. Mary’s church, Tenby which starts at 8pm. You are advised to be early if you want to get a good seat as this is always well attended having been publicised as a major event in the festival.

After that although our season has officially finished we have been asked to sing as “The Specsavers choir” for a promotion by this leading opticians group. We were asked to do this last year in support of Welsh Deaf Rugby charity and it was so successful that we have been asked again. Details of when and where we will be singing will be published nearer the time.

The choir has a really interesting and information packed website. If you haven’t visited it at www.tenbymalechoir.org then it’s really worth a visit. Amongst other things there are videos of the choir including some really good ones from this latest concert produced by choir Friend Di Mumford.  Webmaster David Stewart-Walvin keeps the website bang up to date with news, photos, the choir blog and absolutely anything you need to know about the choir. If you’ve enjoyed a concert there is also a guestbook where you can put your comments and read what others think. David also maintains a choir Facebook page.

He can be contacted on anything to do with the choir on 01834 844926.