Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

For the third year running, the RLSBC and our audience enjoyed the festive sounds of the talented young brass quintet, ARC Brass, at our Christmas carol concert. Along with Colin Druce on organ, and Keith Crompton on percussion, this winning formula yet again delivered a sparkling mix of seasonal music to get us in the mood for Christmas.

The first half of this year’s concert, on Saturday 14th December at Holy Trinity Church, focussed on the Christmas story itself, beginning with a hushed arrangement of Stille Nacht by one of our former musical directors, Martindale Sidwell. Other former directors were represented too: Peter Hurford’s arrangement of The Holy Son, and Paul Trepte’s version of All Hail to the Days, appeared alongside an original composition by our recent MD Lee Dunleavy, an exuberant setting of the anonymous carol Christ the Lord was Born Today. ARC Brass contributed an arrangement of Gabriel’s Message, and the upper voices of the choir sang Roxanna Panufnik’s haunting and deeply felt setting of the Ave Maria, a piece that deserves to be performed more often. The first half of the concert concluded with Cecilia McDowall’s Christmas cantata A Winter’s Night, a lively composition for choir, organ, brass and percussion which stitches together five well known carols in unusual arrangements.

The second half featured more popular music, with ARC Brass giving us their much-loved arrangements of Sleigh Ride and Jingle Bells. 'Jingle Bells' was also one of the many tunes heard in Jonathan Scott’s A Christmas Night, a fantasia for organ played with his usual brilliance by Colin Druce. Paul Trepte’s arrangement of Deck the Hall reminded us of other festive customs, and our audience joined us in singing O Come All Ye Faithful and Hark! the Herald Angels Sing. Finally, Bob Chilcott’s jazz arrangement of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, with Colin Druce swinging it on piano, sent us all on our way with a spring in our step.

Huge thanks to our Musical Director Jim Bate for working so hard with us to prepare such a varied range of music in just six weeks. We look forward to very different musical challenges with Jim next term, as we begin rehearsing CPE Bach and some little known pieces by 17th century Italian nuns, for our next concert on March 22nd - please click here for more details and to buy tickets.

Please follow the link below for Clive Peacock's review of our concert in the Leamington Courier.