Arran Singers’ concert brings Christmas warmth
The Arran Singers hosted their very successful annual Christmas Concert which raised £700 towards the Arran Churches Together fuel fund which goes towards helping the needy with heating costs during winter.
This year’s Christmas concert by the Arran Singers in Whiting Bay hall provided the audience with a fine variety of enjoyable music, from both choir and guests, and, if audience reaction is a reflection of the music making, then it was a very successful concert indeed.
The choir is fortunate to be able to call on a number of members to introduce the programme, and this year, Fiona Henderson proved to be both an informative and witty compere.
This being an event near Christmas, much of the music, from both choir and guest groups, was seasonal, with a fine mixture of sacred and secular, traditional and modern, solo, groups and full choir, as well as some audience participation.
Four new carols featured in the choir’s contribution, all written by finalists in the 2015 BBC Carol Competition, including new settings of Sir Christemas and What Child Is This? All these new carols were really attractive, and the choir performed really well in some quite demanding music. The choir were also able to take the audience on a trip down memory lane with a clever compilation of children’s favourites, and also swing a little through a Harry Warren medley.
Soloists from the choir also made telling contributions to the afternoon’s enjoyment. We were treated to a lovely rendering of O Holy Night in a twopart arrangement beautifully sung by Sarah Thomson and Susan Dobson, while John Cruickshank gave a fine performance of This Nearly was Mine from South Pacific.
We are fortunate in Arran to have so much good music-making from a considerable variety of groups within our relatively small community, as well as some very fine young musical talent. Two of the smaller groups were performing with distinction at the concert. The ladies’ group Vivace gave us some exquisite three-part singing in two traditional carol arrangements, Coventry Carol and Away in a Manger, but also upped the tempo in Winter Wonderland and Rudolph, the Rednosed Reindeer. Ain’tMisbehavin’, the mixed-voice group, gave us idiomatic and slick renderings of two standards in the first half – You Make Me Feel So Young and Dream a Little Dream of Me, and two Christmas favourites in the second half.
Alison Provan gave a delightful performance of Gossec’s popular Tambourin on the flute, her second appearance with the choir, and also played the important flute obbligato in Mike Silk’s fine new setting of What Child Is This. The second young performer was the singer Nastassja Alberti, a young lady with a truly lovely voice, who sang The Christmas Song and Jerome Kern’s Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man which was rightly acclaimed by the audience.
All credit to the Arran Singers and their soloists, under their conductor, Diana Hamilton, ably accompanied by Douglas Hamilton, and also to Vivace, Ain’tMisbehavin’, and all the soloists, for providing such an enjoyable afternoon’s music, and also to the audience who attended, even in the bleak midwinter, and who joined in for some of the singing. Well done.