Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

The church may have been chilly but the welcome was warm at the RLSBC’s annual carol concert at Holy Trinity Church in Leamington on Saturday 17 December.

For the second year running, the choir performed a selection of carols composed or arranged by the choir’s musical directors. These included two by our founder, Dr Stanley Vann, and the first performance of a brand new piece by our current MD, Lee Dunleavy. This was a setting of the poem God bless you brother by Eleanor Farjeon, on the theme of homelessness. There was a retiring collection for the Mayor of Royal Leamington Spa’s charity, the LWS Night Shelter, which provides much-needed support for homeless people in the local area. Thanks to the generosity of our wonderful audience, we raised over £1,100 for this good cause.

Our audience were also generous in their singing, joining in the congregational carols with great enthusiasm - no doubt partly in an attempt to keep themselves warm! The church resounded to the sound of the organ, played by Colin Druce, and also of the ARC Brass Ensemble, a group of young musicians recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Music. This talented septet delighted us with a number of inventive arrangements, including music from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, as well as providing opening fanfares for a couple of congregational carols. They also added a very appropriate brass-band style accompaniment to Paul Trepte’s carol arrangements.

As always, the Christmas concert was hugely satisfying for our members as well as our audience. If you’d like to find out what it’s like to be part of this enthusiastic choir, why not come to one of our open rehearsals in January, as we start to prepare for our performance of Bach’s great Mass in B minor in April? Please please click here to find out more. You’d be most welcome!

The Christmas concert earned another very complimentary review in the local press, which can be viewed via the link below.