Sing it in the Valleys

What a great sound you were all making at this morning’s Family Mass. It was a joy to see so many of you bright and sparky and ready to give it your all during the service. There was a jovial atmosphere at warm-up as we sang “Happy Birthday” to Alex who certainly looked surprised but (I hope) pleased! We wish him many happy returns on his special day. We’re so lucky to have him as our accompanist. We sang through some of our standard repertoire of hymns and then, rather excitedly, “premiered” the wonderful Ken Burton arrangement of “Praise the Lord, oh my soul” which everyone seemed to enjoy singing so much (afterwards I got many positive comments about that one from the congregation!) We also sang the Taize Cantate Domino Canticum Novum for the first time as one of our communion hymns. The round was going well – though I did hear one or two “unilateral entries” in the male section, which luckily didn’t put my wonderful tenors and basses off (wait till I bring you in, that’s what my hands are doing!) The church was packed so we sang our second Communion Hymn, “Here I am, Lord.” Our recessional hymn, “Sing it in the Valleys” got everyone singing and swaying in time to this upbeat, lively tune which was great. When we reached the end, once again, we heard the sound of spontaneous applause from the congregation which was rather heart-warming and lovely. It was so uplifting to hear your voices filling the church so beautifully! We even had a new recruit to the choir right there on the spot – a young, German au pair came up excitedly and asked “please can I come and sing in your choir, you were so great?” We’ll be welcoming another soprano to our female section. Well done all of you, you’ve worked so hard at choir practice all these weeks. Onwards and upwards with our Christmas repertoire and see you on Thursday evening for our last, week-night practice before the half-term break. You deserve a big pat on the back all round! Check out all the video clips which I’ve uploaded on to the gallery page here on the website (special thanks to Mrs Niamh Van Leeuwen for agreeing to record them ever so discreetly on my ipad!)