2023 – 2024 Singing Year Review.
What a wonderful 10th Anniversary year of singing we have had. It has flown by, but, during that year so much has been achieved , both in the musical development of the group and also raising our profile within the community and further afield as well as being able to make substantial donations to local charities.
With such a busy year, comes a lot of organisation and hard work behind the scenes. Concerts with good audiences do not just happen they take months of planning involving meetings, paperwork and all sorts of endless tasks. The committee have worked tirelessly to ensure that everything we have done this year has gone smoothly – whether that be rehearsals, workshops or concerts. I am sure you agree that they all deserve our grateful thanks.
Our Christmas events included a very snowy tree lighting in Grange, two rather chilly performances of carols at Beetham Garden Centre, a super performance at St Paul’s Xmas Tree Festival which culminated in a great article in Cumbria Life Magazine and, new for this year, the URC Carols by candlelight. Not forgetting our annual tradition of carol singing next to the Co-op in Grange raising funds for Blood Bikes.
The highlight of our singing year has to be the 10th Anniversary Celebrations on March 23rd in the Victoria Hall starting with a Community come and sing in the afternoon. This was well attended by both choir members and locals and seemed to go down very well. It was good to be able to welcome some of the afternoon singers onto the stage to perform at the Evening Concert. What a fantastic audience we had for the main event – probably the biggest concert that BCS has ever done in the last 10 years with an incredible 18 songs being performed including our Abba set of five favourites.
Just six weeks later we welcomed Of One Accord choir from Shrewsbury to Grange and shared a concert with them in the Victoria Hall. We also had the opportunity to sing a couple of songs together. Performing ‘Across the Hills to the Bay’ in front of Karen Kirkland was really emotional, a moving moment.
Having had such a busy Christmas and spring term, it was nice to take things a bit easier in the summer term. We worked on some new songs and prepared for our outdoor performance at the Classic Car Rally in August. It was an excellent turn out of members for this and, despite the searing heat, our songs were very well received.
