Surrey Hills Young Voices
The Surrey Hills Singers and Young Voices joined together in May to present their summer concert for 2010. The evening was well supported by family and friends who responded enthusiastically to the singing and choreography on a very hot summer’s eve.
The programme began with a very appropriate joint rendition of “Sing Together”, a song provided by the Sing Up Song Bank, an organisation dedicated to promoting singing in primary schools. The Young Voices presented a programme comprising of 16th century madrigals, folk songs, tongue twisters, pop songs and musicals. The contemporary song “Wheels” talks about the frustrations of travelling on public transport and the effects of pollution on our planet. Individuals, including the youngest members Mattie and Gracie, beautifully sang some of the lines as solos. The amusing and emphatic words “I won’t grow up” of Peter Pan started the set of songs for the second half, but the piece de resistance came with the sheer skill of speaking the very fast shoo bop lines in “We Go Together” from the musical “Grease”. Coupled with the choreography, this number was a big crowd pleaser and the children’s favourite song.
The Surrey Hills Singers also presented a very diverse programme from Henry VIII to Andrew Lloyd Webber. The performances of “The Lily and the Rose” by Bob Chilcott and “Wishing you were Somehow” here again were particularly moving and made one member of the audience shed a tear! One of our newest members, Helen, gave a delightful and very cheeky solo in the Andrew Sisters number “Bei Mir Bist du Shön and the choir concluded with an all singing, all dancing performance of the classic swing number “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”.
The concert was also enhanced by two performances by Jennifer, who blew the audience away with her rendition of Puccini’s “O mio Babbino Caro” and Gershwin’s “Summertime”. The programme concluded with a joint performance of the uplifting spiritual “Rockin’ Jerusalem” and later all performers relaxed with their supporters for an after-concert party.
Sadly, the SH Singers were affected by a couple of nasty bugs going around and after all her hard work throughout the year, Judith was unable to make the concert. However, The Surrey Hills Singers also joined forces with the Surrey Hills Chamber Choir for two performances to a local audience in June, which gave her the opportunity to sing some of the songs she had learnt after all!
