Choir gets us warmed up for summer

SUMMER days are now upon us and Melbourne ensemble

A Choir ’d Taste got us all in the mood for warmer weather with an uplifting evening of music for sultry days over two concert nights in May.

The choir ’s Summer Nights A’ Coming programme featured everything from traditional folk songs to musical numbers, not forgetting, of course, their own rendition of Summer Nights from the classic film Grease

Opening with English folk song The Bold Grenadier which featured some lovely harmonies, A Choir ’d Taste moved on to a fabulous rendering of I do Like to Be Beside the Seaside – as you’ve (probably) not heard it before A Choir ’d Taste’s programmes are very thoughtfully put together with lots of change of pace and humour interspersed with powerful emotional songs to keep the audience by turns entertained and moved throughout the evening

There’s also always a great balance of whole choir singing, smaller group ensembles and solo pieces to enjoy.

An early solo came courtesy of Beth Tranter whose beautiful liquid vocals held the audience spellbound with her gorgeous rendering of Lloyd-Webber ’s Tell Me on a Sunday.

We were treated to brilliant piano accompaniment from Alexander Binns, director of music at Derby Cathedral –who has been described as “one of our finest young players” by Organ Magazine His and musical director Paul Marshall’s impromptu piano duet performance of the Percy Grainger summertime classic: Country Gardens even saw some highly impressive swapping of places!

Paul Marshall’s wardrobe of sparkly jackets and funny stories keep the audience smiling at A Choir ’d Taste’s gigs, as do the opportunity for some participation, with concertgoers on this occasion kept busy with the ‘weller wellers’ during Summer Nights, plus the option of joining in with the tear-jerking You’ll Never Walk Alone by Richard Rodgers.

A Choir ’d Taste benefits greatly from its tenors and basses who showed their talents to great effect in songs such as Irish traditional song Down by the Sally Gardens. With choir members even chanting Cliff Richard’s classic, Summer Holiday, as they sauntered off for the interval, it was a gloriously light-hearted evening of song – beating off competition on the musical front from Eurovision, which was showing on TV at the same time!

– LUCY STEPHENS