The Surrey Hills Chamber Choir and Surrey Hills Singers will be holding a special concert on Saturday 10th May, 7.30pm to celebrate 20 years of high quality choral singing and long friendships. To mark this unique occasion the concert will be held at the superb auditorium of St Catherine’s School, Bramley, where, with tiered seating, a large stage and a licensed bar, it is an ideal setting to showcase both choirs and provide the perfect concert experience for their audience.
Founded in September 2005 at Ewhurst Baptist Church, both choirs have evolved over the two decades and past members have been invited back to perform with the current choir to travel back in time and re-live past events through song. The programme will follow the journey of both choirs, starting with the first song ever performed, moving on to songs that mark success at competitions - such as Choir of the Year, Manchester Amateur Choral Competition, Cheltenham, and Huddersfield – as well as including favourite songs.
As always, the repertoire is diverse and includes all styles of songs from medieval to recent chart toppers. Highlights from the Chamber Choir will include songs by modern day composers, ‘With a lily in your hand’ by Eric Whitacre, ‘Christus est stella’ by Will Todd and ‘Ubi Caritas’ by Ola Gjeilo. Also to look forward to are some traditional songs, the lively spirituals ‘Nothin’ gonna stumble my feet’ and ‘Good News’, and the charming English Folk Song ‘Scarborough Fair’. From the pop world the choir will perform two beautiful ballads, ‘And so it goes’ by Billy Joel and ‘Say Something’ by A Great Big World.
The Surrey Hills Singers also have a great selection of songs to share, including the earthy and rhythmic medieval ‘Pastime with good company’, the delightful folk song ‘Bring me little water Sylvie’ with body percussion, the very poignant song ‘Sing Gently’ by Eric Whitacre (a song that was written during lockdown when choirs were not able to sing together), and a reflective part song by Tchaikovsky called ‘The Nightingale’. They will also sing a number of popular songs spanning the eras, including ‘Don’t sit under the apple tree’ originally sung by the Andrew Sisters, ‘You raise me up’ made famous by Josh Groban, ‘Fix you’ by Cold Play and ‘Royals’ by Lorde.
The choirs’ director, Debbie Walton, believes that communication of the songs to the audience is of paramount importance and works with her singers to create a unified interpretation which is performed without music and often unconducted. Audiences respond to this extra effort and their Christmas concert has become a sell-out within a matter of days during the last few years.
Don’t miss out on this special concert with these popular choirs! Tickets are £18 for adults and £5 for under 16s and are available from www.singsurreyhills.com. Further information about the choirs is available on their website, video performances are available on their youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@SurreyHillsChoirs and you can also follow both choirs on Instagram and Facebook.