Opus Theatre, Friday 8^th December 2017

Tenors Un Limited drew a full house to Opus Theatre, no doubt aided by the inclusion of Guestling-Bradshaw CE Primary School Choir. The combination of familiar Christmas music and popular light-classical numbers proved to be a winning combination. When Volare is crooned so effortlessly to the front row it surely can’t fail.

Many of the songs were drawn from their recent album The Journey including fine versions of La Mer and Senza di Te written by Scott Ciscon – one of the Tenors Un Limited on stage.

The children’s choir sang Angels’ watching over me angelically, and were then joined by the tenors for You raise me up.

Tenors UnLimited have a strong relationship with charities and they sang their most recent single – Who is he? –  which is now top of the classical charts.

After the interval we heard Fragile, Lucia Dalla’s Caruso and Moon River, before launching into a carols for all and a rousing version of Nessun dorma. The official part of the evening was rounded off with The Twelve Days of Christmas complete with wonderfully appropriate actions from the children.

An encore was of course essential and they raised the roof with their own version of Largo al factotum.

Two minor caveats. The lighting proved confusing at times, with the often lurid coloured uplights creating strange effects on the singers faces. More importantly, in a venue with such fine acoustics why did they need amplification? It was all the more telling when one small boy in the choir sang unaided and could be heard perfectly. Opus Theatre is not the Royal Albert Hall and the voices would have carried with more beauty and impact unaided.

Who is he? Can be downloaded at www.tenorsunlimited.com

St John the Evangelist, Hollington, Thursday 7 December 2017

Treble Clefs started life as a WI Choir with just seven members – today, under their founder and conductor Keith Richardson, they number almost forty and make a remarkable impact not only musically but also in the funds raised for local charities.

On Thursday they sang at St John’s Hollington, to a comfortably full church, in aid of the roof restoration and on-going plans to develop the building, opening with Joy to the World and Starry Night. Alongside the many familiar items there was an impressive number of lesser known ones. Howard Davies The angels sang the story and Ray Steadman-Allen’s Long, long ago were delightful additions to the regular canon as was Laura Farnell’s Come to the Celebration written for a choral convention in the USA in 2015 and possibly being given its first performance here.

To add a little variety, Stephen Page gave two splendid jazz arrangements for piano and later Chestnuts roasting and Sleigh ride on the churches pipe organ, now released from its wrappings while the roof was repaired.

We were encouraged to join in with three carols plus the final enthusiastic renditions of Winter wonderland and White Christmas. It was a wonderful evening and could easily become a regular feature at St John’s.