On 22nd September, Caldicot Male Voice Choir was invited to perform at the illustrious Chepstow Racecourse on one of the calendar days of the early National Hunt season. The Silver Trophy Race Day is second only to the Welsh Grand National at the premier racecourse in Wales. The event, unique to Chepstow, gives an early season guide to the top hurdlers in the U.K. and Ireland and all the top racing nobility were assembled in fine attire.
The choir shared a platform in a large marquee with “Murphy’s Marbles”, an excellent Irish folk quartet, who are the resident band at the Cheltenham Festival. The haunting mystique of traditional Irish music, in tandem with the sweet intonation of Welsh male voice choral singing, provided a Celtic pastiche to the ambience of a languorous autumn day.
The choir entertained a slowly meandering flow of appreciative racing fans, as they gathered in mellow ‘bonhomie’ in the shadow of the Premier Grandstand.
During a two hour overture to the main event, the choir combined a mixture of powerful Welsh anthems with International folk classics in a showcase production of lighter work from their extensive repertoire.
The choir’s next Sports-related concert is at the Millennium Stadium, where they have been invited to be one of the constituent choirs, brought together by the WRU to sing before the Wales v. Australia rugby International, on 3rd December.
Here are some of the photos taken at Chepstow Racecourse. Left click once on the images to enlarge. Many thanks to Kevin Sauntry of Murphy’s Marbles for taking many of the choir photographs. If you want to know more about the group, click on Murphy’s Marbles. Pictures of choir members not wearing shirts at the end of the day are not shown.
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