Reviews

The choir in sashes

A scene from our concert at Buxton Opera House on 4 October 2009. A review is here.


 

Charity Concert in aid of the Haiti Appeal
St John's Church, Buxton, 27 January 2010

Hosted by Colin Sykes of BBC North West, a spectacular musical evening was organised at St John’s Church, Buxton, to raise funds in aid of the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. This concert was put together in just one week by Dennis Kay, enthusiastic musical director of Tideswell Male Voice Choir. With tremendous support from many members and non-members, the idea was to provide free admission to the concert, but to make a collection at the end of the evening.

Tideswell Male Voice Choir (‘The Boys’) began steadily with three pieces, the final one being a superb rendition of Rhythm Of Life.

Then it was the turn of 17 year old Phil Rigley who, having been coached for only 6 months, produced a fine version of Somewhere. More to come from Phil in the future! Next to perform were Four To The Bar (accompanied by Colin Sykes) who gave us a selection of Beatles songs, one of which – Follow The Sun – was a particularly lovely arrangement.

Nicholas Bennett, the highly acclaimed baritone, performed a superb solo. We would not have heard a pin drop; such was the audience’s anticipation of this fine singer. Mary Cobbold gave us Toccata from Suite Gothique on the organ. I am certain that I saw the pipes vibrate from the passion channelling through Mary’s fingers. This led to ‘The Boys’ (Boys indeed!) completing the first half; tears for The Lord Is My Shepherd and goose bumps for the rousing Let There Be Light. I am sure conductor Dennis Kay’s feet left the ground when driving ‘The Boys’ through this number. What a finish!

To commence the second half, Mary Cobbold powered her way though Sortie by Lefebure-Wely, leading the way into a selection of Elvis songs by Four To The Bar; Glynis Wells fighting her way though a cold to sing splendidly. Nicholas Bennett was then back again to deserving tremendous applause.

Twen’y Quid (two tenners – two tenors!) gave a vocal duet of Love Changes Everything to the delight of their colleagues (‘The Boys’).

For me, the coming together of all performers in a heart-rending and magnificent vocal rendition of a Les Miserables medley was the highlight of the evening. Soloists Glynis Wells, Nicholas Bennett, Alan Wells and Jeanette Sykes were joined by Dennis Kay for enchanting performances of high quality. Here was the moment when ‘The Boys’ really came into power, singing with emotion, singing with vigour, and singing into the hearts of the audience. This musical certainly does pierce its way into your very soul.

Let us not forget the fine musician Christopher Ellis for his magnificent introductions and musical skills on the piano. His ability to lift everyone is special indeed.

After the appeal, an encore of Les Miserables’ Do You Hear The People Sing by ‘The Boys’ raised the roof and raised people from their seats towards a standing ovation. This time Dennis Kay almost leapt up to the chandelier with excitement!

Well done all!

Thank you to everyone who gave up their time to produce such a splendid evening, in aid of this appeal.

Ray Whiteley



Celebration Concert at Bakewell Methodist Church

24 October 2009—A Night to Remember

Performing to a full house the choir presented a programme of music which had been selected by past members and family members of those men who once sang with the choir, who sadly are no longer with us.

The evening was a resounding success, bringing back many fond memories of loved ones, and of the music itself.

Under the leadership of Eileen Rigg, T.M.V.C.’s deputy conductor, the choir opened the programme with Rhythm of Life, and following a short introduction and welcome from Musical Director Dennis Kay they followed on with the beautiful Howard Goodall arrangement of The Lord Is My Shepherd, also conducted by Eileen.

God’s Choir, Let There Be Light, Let It Be Me, Softly, As I Leave You, were just a selection of pieces requested and which were included in this excellent programme. The choir performed them all to a very high standard and the quality of their presentation lived up to the high expectations for which this choir has now become renowned. There were some magical moments, particularly in the beautifully controlled soft singing and the equally magical accompaniments, so beautifully played by the choir’s Principal Accompanist, Christopher Ellis.

The programme included two solo items from Christopher, who continues to delight and excite audiences with his sheer brilliance at the piano. His talents have definitely brought a new dimension to T.M.V.C.’s concert programme.

The idea behind the concert was to remember and pay tribute to past members and celebrate their service and commitment. I believe it was achieved with great success, and I am certain this will be repeated.

[Thanks to an anonymous reviewer – Ed]


Annual Concert at Buxton Opera House, 2009

We have a review of this concert by Gay Bolton of Derbys­hire Times here. This is a PDF file; click­ing the link should down­load the file to your com­puter. Grate­ful thanks go to Gay and the DT for per­mis­sion to publish the review here.



The 2009 Buxton Fringe Festival

(This review is reproduced from the Fringe's Web site by kind permission of the organisers.)

Tuesday 14 July

I'll start with a confession: this would not usu­ally have been my first choice con­cert. But having heard them per­form­ing on the Prom on Fringe Sun­day, I was happy to step in as a last min­ute reviewer.

And I was not disappointed. The first half was a little low key for my liking with the choir show­ing great con­trol in their col­lec­tive sing­ing in a range of music from sacred – God's Choir and The Lord Is My Shep­herd – to pop includ­ing West­life's You Raise Me Up and Bette Midler's The Rose, ending with Any Dream Will Do from Joseph.

The second half saw the choir step up a gear as they swung into two Frank Sin­atra num­bers, New York, New York and My Way, before mov­ing on to Amer­ican Tril­ogy. All of which gave them the chance to really open up to good effect.

The choir closed the concert  – fit­tingly on Bas­tille Day – with a medley from Les Miser­ables, includ­ing a sen­sit­ive solo from Maur­ice Har­greaves in Bring Him Home.

However, a special mention must be given to 18-year-old bass bari­tone Tyler Cooper, for two won­der­ful solos: Empty Chairs and Empty Tables, and, Stars. It was no sur­prise to learn that he is due to go to the Royal North­ern Col­lege of Music next year – but on a long lead, back to Tideswell!

Another 'find' for the choir is accom­pan­ist Chris­topher Ellis who stun­ned the audi­ence with his per­form­an­ces of the first of four ball­ades by Chopin and a scin­til­lat­ing ren­dition of Earl Wild's trans­crip­tion of the Intro­duc­tion and Sum­mer­time from Gersh­win's Fan­tasy on Porgy and Bess. Both played from memory.

He is appearing on the Fringe again on Wed­nes­day 22 July with bari­tone Nich­olas Ben­nett in A Way With Words, an even­ing of great poe­try in song.

Throughout the concert, from the quiet­est num­bers to the loud­est, the choir's con­trol and power was evident – person­ally, I would have liked to have heard a little more var­iety, and a bit more of the power they so obvi­ously possess.

In my experience, choral direc­tors and con­duc­tors have a bit of a repu­ta­tion for being drag­ons. Den­nis Kay is not one of them, he is gener­ous and nur­tur­ing and this clearly brings out the best in the choir. He is happy to share the lime­light with solo­ists, musici­ans and his very able dep­uty con­duc­tor Eileen Rigg, with a nice line in pat­ter as he intro­duced every item.

Most importantly he is very wil­ling to pro­mote young tal­ent such as Tyler and Chris­topher, and drum­mer Dan­iel Hop­kins (16). As he rightly says these are the future of Tides­well Male Voice Choir, it is good to know that they are already work­ing with Hope Valley College to att­ract more young men to singing.

Although not strictly part of the Fringe, the choir can be heard again, this time on their home turf in their Ann­ual Con­cert in Tideswell Parish Church on Satur­day 25 July.

Caitlin Bisknell



The 2008 Buxton Fringe Festival

As a recent convert to early choral music one can often find me list­en­ing to the 'Tallis Scholars' or 'Kings College Choir', so the thought of being drag­ged out by Mrs Flett to lis­ten to a dusty old bunch of duff­ers sing­ing songs from the shows filled me with dread. In fact I had planned on feign­ing some dread­ful acute ill­ness which ren­dered me couch bound for the evening.

Notwithstanding any of this kind of tom­foolery, I often find that these things are not half as bad as you think they are going to be once you have torn your­self from the womb-like com­fort of the arm­chair and put your shoes on, besides which, Mrs Flett reminded me of our old insur­ance sales­man Nigel Willis who sings with the TMVC. Well that was it then – 'he's almost family' I muttered under my breath pull­ing on my trainers.

On our arrival the boys had just laun­ched into their first num­ber. I remem­ber think­ing "well this could have been worse" and the rest of the pro­gramme just got bet­ter and bet­ter as I became less and less cyn­ical. The Musical Direc­tor the jovial Den­nis Kay was into audi­ence part­icipa­tion in a big way and he soon had the audi­ence join­ing in and aug­ment­ing the glor­ious sound that was the TMVC. (shhh don't tell every­one but, what was worst of all the bug­gers almost made me shed a tear or two...Almost I said!

So as well as enjoying an excellent musical even­ing with a genu­inely nice bunch of blokes I learned a val­uable les­son in my ignor­ance and arro­gance, that any song how­ever modest, sung with enthus­iasm, passion and sheer joy will sound any bit as good as any Agnus dei or a Spem in Alium. Highly recommended.

Mark Flett



The 2007 Buxton Fringe Festival

It is an incontrovertible fact that music is good for the soul. After wit­ness­ing the Tides­well Male Voice Choir's con­cert in St. John's Church with its excell­ent acous­tics, it is evi­dent that sing­ing must also be good for the heart, lungs and mem­ory. Where else would one find a group of three dozen upright men includ­ing at least one octo­gen­arian stand­ing for a couple of hours "bustin' their hearts with melody"? The aud­ience was treated to peren­nial favour­ites – The Rose, When the Saints Go March­ing In, Amer­ican Tril­ogy – and an offer­ing from the more recent "Les Miser­ables", "Bring Him Home" with its sen­sit­ive tenor solo.

Musical Director Dennis Kay took an unusual app­roach to the even­ing's delights by demon­strat­ing to his app­reciat­ive listen­ers how a Tues­day even­ing's rehear­sal with the Choir might go, even to the extent of invit­ing their par­ticipa­tion in Jeru­salem (yes, that one) and a les­son in dic­tion with Let there be peace on earth. It is easy to see how the Choir came to be awar­ded the sil­ver trophy in the Male Voice Sec­tion of the 2003 Malta Inter­national Choir Fes­tival. The rich bar­itone sup­port for the soul-stirring har­monies in Jerusalem (no, not that one, but W. Walker's air from Dennis Kay's Sal­vation Army back­ground with his twin brother) was glorious.

This reviewer's delight knew no bounds when the con­cert fin­ished with the arr­ange­ment by inter­nation­ally well-known Gwyn Arch OBE of the stirr­ing African Tril­ogy, sung so sen­sit­ively that one young lady in the front row was reduced to tears. Much credit must also be given to Llinos Hodg­son on the piano who has so skil­fully accom­pan­ied the Choir for 23 years. She con­fessed that she had never before played under a large umbrella as occur­red when some of the Choir gave a tas­ter last Sun­day out­side the Pavilion.

It was perhaps unfortunate that with such a rich choice of events in the Fes­tival and the Fringe con­cur­rently, the opera aud­ience across the road could not also app­laud this most pro­fess­ional Choir under their charis­matic Musical Direc­tor. The Choir's Gala Con­cert with Aled Jones at the Bux­ton Opera House on Sep­tem­ber 1st is almost sold out, but they give numer­ous per­form­an­ces in the sur­round­ing area. Make a point of hear­ing them.

Juliet Widdowson


Updated 2 February 2010