Author: Bingham Choral

The sun shone and the singers came from near and far. One person had got up at dawn and driven up from London that morning. Such is the charisma of Bob Chilcott, one of the leading choral composers and conductors of our time. Bingham and District Choral Society was honoured that he had agreed to lead our first Singing Day since the pandemic. The Minster School at Southwell was an excellent, spacious venue.  Ably supported by our superb accompanist Michael Overbury, Bob led us through a selection of his own pieces, some hauntingly lyrical, others challenging us with exciting, complex rhythms. In-between sessions, a magnificent selection of home-baked cakes was eagerly consumed by the singers. In short, we had all the ingredients for a hugely successful day. Our thanks go to Bob, Michael and the volunteers from BDCS who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to enable everything to run so smoothly.

The Bingham & District Choral Society’s Christmas Concert is a hugely popular community event and a highlight of our winter programme. This year’s concert took place last Saturday at Bingham Methodist Church where we were joined once more by the wonderful Carnarvon Children’s choir. After the performance, there was a retiring collection for Framework, a Nottingham-based charity whose mission is to support and house homeless people. The collection raised the splendid sum of £400. Also included were  two hearing-aid batteries and a small Euro coin!

Guy’s heroic endeavour to walk from Land’s End to John ‘O Groats was followed eagerly by members of the choir in the summer. We are now able to announce that, as one of Guy’s four charities selected to benefit from the funds raised by his walk,  Bingham and District Choral Society will receive £3,121.60 . This is a splendid boost to the choir’s finances at a time when extra resources are badly needed. We are  hugely grateful to Guy and wish him every success in completing the walk in shorter stages over the next year or two.

LAND’S END TO …. ER …. ELLESMERE

Despite a great start, local musician Guy Turner’s solo attempt to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats was cut short at Ellesmere. He woke up with a very painful foot, which was diagnosed as Plantar Fasciitis, brought on by constant heavy duty walking, and was forced to call a halt to the walk.

Guy has now returned to Nottinghamshire and his work as a singer in Southwell Minster Choir, and conducting Bingham Choral Society.

Despite the great disappointment, Guy prefers to emphasise the positive! He walked 468 miles in 28 walking days, which averages nearly 17 miles per day. He survived long walks and high hills during the heat wave. He has raised over £18,000 for his four charities. He met lots of interesting people and saw some amazing scenery. Even though shorter than planned it is an adventure he will never forget.

He plans to complete the journey over the next couple of years, but in short sections.

If you would like to read about his walk, all the daily blogs can still be found on his website, as can details of the charities and how to donate.

https://guyscottturner.wixsite.com/guygoesnorth

Here are some images  of our lunchtime concert with Scunthorpe Choral Society  at St Mary’s Church Newark on Saturday 18th June 2022, followed by a celebration lunch and a presentation of a set of Jubilee mugs to our founder and first Musical Director, Neville Ward. Our special thanks go to James Turner, the photographer.

Our splendid 50th anniversary mug is now on sale. It will be a lovely memento of this special year. Sincere thanks to choir member Linda Hunter for her brilliant artwork.

The results of our Composing Competition are now known and the winner is George Parris, from Kinoulton (and at Manchester University) for his piece called ‘A Psalmic Fantasia’ a setting, in Latin, of verses from Psalm 7. It last just over 8 minutes and will open our concert (initially scheduled for April 24^th 2021, but we must wait and see when), when we will also sing Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and the Rutter Requiem.

The standard of entries was high, and the judges enjoyed looking at and listening to them.

The identities of the composers were only told to the judges after the winner had been selected.

Judges were the choir’s Musical Director, Guy Turner, Ellie Martin, conductor of Mansfield Choral Society and David Machell, Lowdham based composer and concert promoter.

George’s piece is in a modern, but approachable, idiom, well written for an amateur choir, and although the choir will have to work to bring it off, it is not as hard as some previous pieces which the choir has performer successfully.

This is separate from the Easyfundraising scheme.  You can nominate the choir as a beneficiary under Amazon Smile by clicking on this link. Please ensure that you enter the choir’s name as follows:

Bingham and District Choral Society.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/503557-0

Choir members tuning into Anne-Marie Minhall’s afternoon programme on Classic FM last Friday (18th January, 2019) were delighted to hear a request from  Brad Poulson being aired on behalf of BDCS. Here is the clip for those who missed it. The Rutter piece chosen for Brad and the choir was the Requiem Aeternam.  Well done Brad for putting the choir out there!

John Rutter, the legendary composer and conductor of choral music, came to lead a Singing Day at The Minster School, Southwell, on Saturday at the invitation of the Bingham and District Choral Society.  Judith Unell, Publicity Officer for the choir, says, ‘We just couldn’t believe our luck when John agreed to do this for us because he has such an incredibly busy schedule of international commitments. We feel very honoured’  The Singing Day was widely advertised and quickly sold out with more than 300 people attending.   Four young members of the Minster Girls’ Choir helped ensure that things ran smoothly on the day and also took the opportunity to pose for a photo with John.

His exuberant and warm personality enabled everyone to relax and experience the joy of singing, but also to benefit from his immense knowledge of vocal technique. There were plenty of highly entertaining anecdotes too, drawn from his rich musical career.  The choice of musical pieces ranged from the poignant and delicate ‘Who is Silvia’ by British composer George Shearing to the storming adaptation by John himself of `When the Saints go Marching In’ at the end of an uplifting, entertaining and unforgettable day.