Photos by Colleen Gauntlett. Left click on images to enlarge. 
On Saturday 3rd October, approximately sixty Caldicot choristers made their way down the M4 to the dreamily spired, historic University City of Oxford to perform at the magnificently decorated Oxford Town Hall with Oxford Welsh Male Voice Choir. This is the third occasion that the choir has sung at this fabulous venue, the first being with Oxford Welsh in 1980 and the other two at the invitation of The Oxford Welsh Society.
Oxford Welsh Male Voice Choir was the guest choir at our own Gala concert in Caldicot recently and we were pleased to accept their invitation to sing with them at their Annual Concert in the splendid Town Hall. Following afternoon rehearsals, Caldicot took their place at the front in the escalating stage area to join in with Oxford in combined presentations, conducted by Siân Hatton and accompanied by Stephen Berry and John Nicholson, of Welsh favourites ‘Rachie’, ‘Yfory’, and ‘Gwahoddiad’ not to mention finalising the set with a roof shaking Morte Criste – ‘When I Survey the Wond’rous Cross’. The concert was complemented by delightful appearances of guest duo, sopranos Sophie Pullen and Charlotte Tetley who thrilled the audience of over 300 with excerpts from Bacarolle from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, Habanera from Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and ‘Prendero fuel brunettino’ from Mozart’s ‘Cosi fan Tutti’.
Returning to the stage, Caldicot re-opened choral proceedings with their new renditions of ‘A Miner’s Song’, ‘California Dreamin’ and the famous all-time favourite Welsh Hymn arranged by Mansell Thomas, ‘Llef – O Iesu mawr’. We believe that Caldicot Male Voice Choir is the first single male voice choir to sing ‘The Miner’s Song’. Written by Dan and Laura Curtis who recently heard it sung for the first time at our Gala concert. It was originally recorded by over three hundred Welsh contributors to help raise funds to erect the National Miner’s Memorial in the Universal Memorial Gardens in Senghenydd. The choirs then combined to sing a rousing rendition of ‘O Gymru’ in which Oxford’s Bob Edwards sang the solo part.
Following the interval, the choirs exchanged places with Oxford at the front to sing their own pieces, conducted by Helen Swift and accompanied by Tim Croston, of ‘Let all men sing’, ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘If we only have love’ before combining with us to sing ‘She’, made famous by Charles Aznavour. Sarah and Charlotte then took to the stage to once again delight us all with the famous ‘Flower Duet, Delibe from Lakme’, ‘Je veux vivre’ from Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet and the amusing, flirtatious duet ‘We are women’ from Bernstein’s Candide.
The finale consisted of the combined choirs thrilling the audience with ‘American Trilogy’ with organist Andrew Patterson, ‘Anthem’ (from Chess), the love song ‘Let it be me’ made famous by the Everly Brothers and finally both choirs raced through the foot tapping, almost tongue tripping ‘Rhythm of Life’ from the musical Sweet Charity.
Following well deserved presentations to the musical directors and accompanists of both choirs, to Sophie, Charlotte and Andrew the proceedings closed with ‘Hen wlad fy nhadau’, the Welsh National anthem.
The concert was arranged to help the Oxfordshire Fund for Music which aims to provide financial support to enable young musicians to have free instrument tuition.