9:30am Sunday 15th March 2009
Basingstoke Ladies Choir
St Bede’s Church
Basingstoke
BASINGSTOKE Ladies Choir and their guests – the Stevenage Ladies Choir and the Treble Clef Choir from Weybridge – received a standing ovation at the end of a wonderful evening of music and song at St Bede’s Church, Popley.
The church was full, with profits from the evening going towards the church furnishing fund.
The compere for the evening was Basingstoke Ladies’ Choir’s president, Paul Con-nolly.
The Treble Clef was the first choir to sing and they entertained with a variety of songs from the beautiful Gaelic Blessing, arranged by John Rutter, through to music from Broadway shows and ended with the very lively Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Stevenage followed with two songs made famous by Eva Cassidy – Autumn Leaves and Somewhere Over The Rainbow – both beautifully arranged by Joanna Forbes.
They also had the audience spellbound with John Williams’ composition Dry Your Tears, Afrika before finishing with a medley of six songs from the show Oliver.
In the second half, Basingstoke Ladies held centre stage beginning with Gonna Build A Mountain followed by Can You Hear Me? written by Bob Chilcott.
Eternal Flame followed before they sang Sting’s Fields of Gold for the first time in public. They completed this part of the concert with a very popular Abba medley, arranged by their accompanist Jonathan Hedgecock.
Basingstoke Ladies stayed on stage and were first joined by the Treble Clef to sing John Rutter’s lovely The Lord Bless You And Keep You and then by Stevenage for another John Rutter piece For The Beauty of The Earth.
Finally, all three choirs, some 150 voices, completed a wonderful evening with One Voice, You Raise Me Up and that old favourite Rhythm of Life.
Basingstoke Ladies Choir’s next engagement is another charity concert at the Salvation Army Church, in Wessex Close, Basingstoke.
This concert, on Saturday March 21, will commence at 7.30pm, and tickets are available from Kathy and Graham Ling, at £5 each, on 01256 476646.
–Graham Ling
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