ALCESTER Male Voice Choir has rounded off its 50th anniversary year with a final performance at Chester Cathedral.
The 80-strong choir led by founder and director Judith Land BEM sang to an appreciative audience of visitors and staff on July 11 with a varied repertoire of seven pieces from Charpentier to Billy Joel.
An earlier impromptu performance outside Chester visitor information centre drew a large appreciative group of spectators, many of whom came to the concert later in the day.
Following on from a class act by the choir its professional accompanist Irina Chagunava performed a solo recital that complimented the programme on the piano.
She played Sonata in F major by Haydn, Mendelssohn’s Fantasy in F sharp minor and Lagidze’s Rondo-Toccata. Her performance earned enthusiastic encores which were answered with her playing two further pieces from her native Georgia.
The concert earned warm applause from the audience with members of the choir being stopped in the street afterwards to be told how much it had been enjoyed.
Member Patrick Smith told the Standard: “Some members were even serenaded by a group of Italian schoolchildren who had listened to the performance and wanted to sing for us as a way of thanks.”
Alcester Male Voice Choir was founded by Judith Land in 1974 when she was a music teacher at Alcester Grammar School. It formally marked its half century milestone with two concerts at Ragley Hall in April this spring.
Judith said: “What a great joy it has been to have celebrated 50 years of AMVC with a variety of different events during this momentous year.
“I have been lucky enough to have used my lifelong passion of musicianship, leadership and organiser to make a sustainable community choir that has transformed and contributed to the small vibrant town of Alcester.
“I hope that its members will remain working with me alongside a broad selection of charities so that we can continue to go from strength to strength, ‘as the well never dries up’.”
The choir performs between a dozen to 15 concerts a year and practises twice weekly at the Eric Payne Community Centre. New members welcome.
