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As part of our 25th Anniversary celebrations Vocal Expressions decided to organise 5 walks of 5 miles. The first of these on 13th May was the Holme, Holmbridge, Digley circular walk. Eleven members and two dogs enjoyed a convivial walk and the beautiful views and attractive spring countryside of the Upper Holme Valley on a cool, breezy day. As well as enjoying friendship and healthy exercise on these walks, some walkers have sponsorship which will help raise funds for Kirklees Young Carers.
Vocal Expressions celebrated their 25th Anniversary in style at Homfirth Civic Hall, with wonderful music, fabulous decorations, and delicious refreshments. We were delighted to be joined by our founder, Catherine Williams and former accompanists Emma McKenna and Cath Stevenson, and guest performers Robert Webb ( our previous Musical Director) and his wife Jenny who entertained us brilliantly. As well as being a great celebration, the concert raised funds for Kirklees Young Carers ( the choir’s chosen charity for 2022).
The choir came together for a long awaited workshop weekend at the Red Lea Hotel in Scarborough, on 28th to 30th January 2022. It was wonderful to all be together again, learning, singing and socialising after so many restrictions. The weekend which took a great deal of planning was a great success and did everyone so much good. Even though we had to take various precautions we managed to get to grip with plenty of new music and have lots of fun as usual. The sun came out for us too, and we ended the weekend by singing Bella Mamma together, outdoors, overlooking the wonderful Scarborough Bay.
July 1st 2021 - Rehearsing together as a choir at last, albeit socially distanced and outdoors. It was wonderful to see familiar faces again in the flesh and even better to be actually singing together again after so long.
The choir had a productive and enjoyable day workshop at Hade Edge Band Room where we learnt two new pieces of music and improved our performance of some pieces previously learnt. As usual we worked hard but had some fun too.
Our Christmas Concert with Lindley Junior School Choir at Lindley Methodist Church was a great success. Lindley JS Choir, as always, were marvellous. Vocal Expressions sang well and the addition of handbells added plenty of variety to a wide range of Christmas music which was enjoyed by a very appreciative audience.The money raised by the concert and raffle was donated to the choir’s charity of the year - Huddersfield Mission.
“ I haven’t played this since I was little !”, was the comment most frequently heard at this traditional Beetle Drive and Pie and Pea supper in support of Huddersfield Mission ( VE’s charity of the year). There was much laughter, frantic dice throwing and changing of seats as everyone entered into the spirit of the evening. Tickets sales and a raffle raised a wonderful £556.92 which was presented to Paul from the Mission, along a large selection of much needed new socks and underwear donated by members of the choir.
On Thursday June 27th Vocal Expressions were visited the Radius Opera Company for an amazing workshop. Radius Opera will performing ‘The Fire of Olympus” (written by Tim Benjamin) with brilliant live singers, powerful music, and a recorded chorus of the voices of 1000 volunteers, in 8 theatres in the North of England this autumn. https://radiusopera.org
VE were lucky enough to be some of those voices. Michael Jones (who will perform the role of Hephaestus and has a wonderful voice) guided us through various exciting choruses and demonstrated lots of little things to do to improve our singing that really work. A fantastic, fun evening
On Saturday June 15th we performed our first concert with Kate as MD and guests LB Brass at The Huddersfield Mission. The concert was varied and entertaining and the choir sang well. We particularly enjoyed performing one of our new pieces, ‘Alice’ by Sarah Quartel, (based on the story of Alice in Wonderland). As well as providing wonderful accompaniment as usual, Lloyd really entered into the spirit of the piece and made a very convincing Mad Hatter!
