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.