Come and help us celebrate 25 years of the Melodians. We will be singing some old favourites and some all new items from pop to classical and folk, including music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Bach, Queen and Morten Lauridsen. You can hear the concert on Saturday 22nd June, 7.00pm at the Emmanuel Centre, Battle. Tickets £7 in advance or £9 on the door. Or on Saturday 13th July, 7.00pm at St John’s Pevensey Road, St Leonards on Sea. TN38 0RD. all proceeds will be going to St Michael’s Hospice.
Tickets £7 on the door.
When the Melodians was first formed we all agreed that any money raised from our concerts should go to a local charity. It didn’t take long for us to decide that St Michael’s Hospice was the perfect choice. Several choir members had had personal experience of the Hospices’ care and we were aware that many of us would go on to require hospice services for either our family members or ourselves at one time or another. Many of our choir members have gone on to directly benefit from hospice care themselves over the last 25 years. Several of our current members also volunteer with the Hospice in various roles.
The Melodians have traditionally put on 2-3 concerts a year. We have always aimed to keep ticket prices very low to ensure concerts are accessible to a wide audience, we then encourage our patrons to dig deep and show their appreciation by filling our hospice buckets as they leave. We are grateful for the support of hospice representatives who attend our concerts and describe the wide-ranging role of St Michael’s to our audiences.
We are very lucky that the Melodians expenses are minimal. Members pay termly fees for their music and our venue hire fees so that we don’t have to take any proceeds from concerts to pay for these. For the first 18 years we met every week in the home of our musical director’s parents, Les and Yvonne Pembery. They carefully squeezed as many chairs as possible into their conservatory – once we were in it was very difficult getting out! Our musical director, John Pembery, has led the choir for the last 25 years, arranging and composing our music. The choir is very grateful to him for giving so much of his time to do this and it means we can generally pass on all ticket proceeds along with the donations straight to the hospice.
We are very proud to say we are part of the Melodians. We love spending time with our musical family and enjoy all the mental and physical health benefits that singing with others can bring.
Raising money for such an amazing charity at the same time is the icing on the cake for us.
We are aiming to reach a £25,000 fundraising target in celebration of their anniversary. All profits from the event are donated to the Hospice.