Following a concert held in memory of Haverfordwest Ladies Choir chorister, Victoria Doehring, a cheque was presented to The Wales Air Ambulance. The event which had been sponsored by Total and Semlogistics of Milford Haven, featured the Haverfordwest Ladies Choir, The Clare Harrison Singers and Clare Harrison, soprano. Mike Davies was compere for the evening, which raised over £2000 for the charity.
Pictured are members of the Haverfordwest Ladies Choir and their Musical Director Nancy Mann, together with John Hardwick (Wales Air Ambulance), Clare Harrison (soloist and concert organiser), Mike Davies (compere), Paul Doehring and Beryl and Glynn Davies (Victoria’s husband and parents).
Picture – Paul Harrison Photography
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2009 Christmas Concert at St. Mary’s Church, Haverfordwest
As is the custom now each Christmas-time, the high spaces of St. Mary’s Church rang to the light, brightly melodic sound of a ladies choir on Friday 11th December. The Haverfordwest Ladies Choir, under the baton of Dr. Nancy Mann and with Gerald Nicholas as accompanist, performed their annual Christmas concert in aid of the Church’s Restoration Appeal.
The programme contained a few traditional seasonal favourites, beginning with ‘Deck the hall’ and ending with Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’, but much of the evening was devoted to songs and readings which pleased the audience by their qualities of surprise rather than simple familiarity. The first half of the programme had Dr. Mann’s arrangement of the American traditional carol, ‘Rise up shepherd and follow’ and John Rutter’s ‘Star carol’.
Throughout the evening the choir displayed the range of its talents as a number of them offered solo performances. Carol Mayhew’s soprano blended with Marian Graceson’s mezzo-soprano in Hadley’s ‘I sing of a maiden’ and each offered two solos in the second half of the evening. As many as eight choristers took solo verses in ‘Rise up shepherd and follow’, while Sally Wilson, Gyll Nisbet, Linda Fowler and Gladys Morris read a selection of Christmas verse.
Gladys’s reading, of Snell’s ‘The lament of the ostrich’, ushered in a rollicking end to the evening as she was succeeded by Robert Mann, on vibraphone, playing Stock’s ‘(Santa’s) Cycling song’ and the whole choir rounding off the evening with Chinn’s arrangement, ‘A winter celebration’ and finally, and rather prophetically, given the weather in the weeks to come, ‘A White Christmas’.
Robert Nisbet
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