On Saturday 7th September we sang at a dinner of the Boy’s Brigade of UK and ROI at the Marriott Hotel, Swansea. The Boy’s Brigade were holding their Annual Conference in Swansea and they had organised a number of events over the weekend. We sang our usual varied repertoire and were thanked at the end by the President of the Brigade, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port. He said that they had all enjoyed our singing and revealed that he was a founder member of the Burry Port Male Voice Choir and felt that he had ‘come home’! He was a bottom bass and the first piece he remembers singing was ‘Morte Criste’ and, as we were asked for an encore, Nick duly sang this and asked ‘Les’ to join in with our basses, which he really enjoyed. Thanks also to Rev Steven Bunting for asking us to sing at the event.

Patrons’ Concert.
We had St Stythians Male Voice Choir, from Cornwall, as our guests at our first Patrons’ Concert held at St Mary’s Church, Swansea on Saturday 28th. The choir was founded in 1947 and their MD was Ken Downing, who has been directing the choir for 33 years! They opened the concert with ‘Let There Be Light’ arranged by Cornishman, Goff Richards, and sung a varied repertoire throughout including the lively ‘Georgy Girl’, a ‘Cole Porter’ medley and ‘Bring Him Home’ from Les Miserables. They concluded their singing with the rousing ‘We Rise Again’. We sang items from our usual repertoire but included ‘Pacem’ for the first time. This is a beautiful piece sung to the Latin text ‘Donna nobis pacem’, and has been composed by an American, Lee Dengler. It also features an additional string accompaniment and we are lucky to have Gareth Widlake in our baritones, who played the viola, with Rhian. This really adds an extra texture and we gave a great performance. We have also added Mark Hayes’ arrangement of ‘The Impossible Dream’, which is a great sing with a number of key changes throughout. This was the last piece we sang on our own and the choirs then joined forces to sing ‘Morte Criste’ and ‘An American Trilogy’, which featured Steve on the organ, resulting in a standing ovation. Considering the atrocious weather outside the church was almost full and the appreciative audience were treated to a fine concert. During the concert we presented some service ties. Rob Smith was presented with his 5 year tie and Haydn Lewis with his 10 year tie. The last presentation went to our hard-working secretary Alan Clewett, who has been in the choir for 25 years. We battled through the wind and rain to the Railwaymen’s Club in Wind Street following the concert and we were treated to a wonderful buffet provided by the choir.