2017 with Horsham Harmony
Posted April 2017 by Rachel
We celebrated our first anniversary in April 2017 with a fantastic cake made by Pat Piggott, and with Prosecco to hand to toast—what a lovely surprise on a Wednesday morning!
Our first full-length concert took place in July 2017 at St Leonard’s Church in Horsham. We raised money for the Admiral Nurses with our Afternoon Tea free performance with donations for cakes, which we hope will become a fixture in Horsham over the years ahead.
Stunning result
Posted 31st July 2017 by Rachel
Still reeling and only just pulling myself together after our spectacular success yesterday at our Afternoon Tea concert. The adrenalin rush disappeared halfway through our family celebration curry last night and I lost the power of speech! I know! So, if I felt that exhausted I can only imagine what it was like for the behind-the-scenes teams. I’m truly amazed at the numbers that turned up. We estimate we had something in the region of 180-200. It has thrown my understanding of estimates for concert audiences completely out.
As soon as we have info on the total money raised, I will let you know – the Admiral Nurses have to open up their sealed collection tins first. This information can be found in the Fundraising section of this website when available. Our main man for this concert, Jim Tester, is banking the cash and writing a cheque to the Admiral Nurses and I’m investigating getting one of those huge cheques so we can present it to them with some publicity for the papers. But I can say with great certainty it was over £1000.
I’m afraid in all the excitement I missed out so many thanks. I’m mortified that the team doing the teas and cake sale didn’t get a mention. Pat Piggott—you are an absolute star. You have been a fantastic leader throughout; she deserves a medal. With Ali Hickman, Ali’s and my daughters, Denise Leach, and their friends from Scottish Country Dancing on a Monday night (big plug) it was a superb team running the kitchen and cake stall. The tables and table decorations were a beautiful touch – thanks Denise.
Thank you to everyone who went to the trouble to bake a homemade cake. I feel like we just had our own little ‘loaves and fishes’ moment.
Thank you to Edwina Mills and hubby for running the raffle. A great idea which even by itself raised about £350.
Thank you to all our soloists, duettists and trios — you all did a superb job and it really lifted the programme with the variety of music we ended up with. Bethany Lickiss, you are a fabulous singer and I wish you success with your singing career. We’ve done our little bit there to encourage some local talent. Mike Harling, I heard quite a few voices itching to go full volume on the ‘Li-Li Li’ bit of The Boxer. Val Barter and Mig Cutbush put on a feisty performance in Oom Pah Pah and the opening to River To Pray was really lovely with Doh Williams joining the trio and then the chaps.
Many thanks to Natalie, the vicar of St Leonard’s, who let us have the considerable extra time it took us to feed our ‘5000’ for free. Mark Reeves, our star accompanist also gave us a charity rate. He said he’d love to accompany us again so we can’t be too bad. He was really excellent and it was lovely to be free of the rigidity of the backing tracks.
I’m still trying to piece together how choirs repeat that success. Jim has to be the secret ingredient with his fervent publicising of the event and getting the charity involved. However there’s also something about the community spirit in Horsham – everybody in that audience that I spoke to knew one of our singers or was a member of the church. I’ve never seen anything like it!
Our first anniversary
Posted 21st April 2017 by Rachel
With a regular membership of over thirty, Horsham Harmony has grown into a fully developed choir over the past year, to my complete joy and satisfaction. We are now starting to take on four-part harmony pieces though we do juggle these with some simpler music including unison singing and rounds, so that people don’t feel overwhelmed.
Our first week back after the Easter break marked our first anniversary, which I had entirely forgotten about. Thank you to Pat Piggott for a remarkable cake and to Mike Harling for the wine. What a lovely surprise!
Spring is here, spring is here, life is skittles, life is beer…
Posted 21st March 2017 by Rachel
Thank you to the sunshine and the marvellous Tom Lehrer for a bit of inspiration for the title and if you — didn’t know, it is the opening of his fabulous song, ‘Poisoning Pigeons In The Park’ (apologies to all pigeon-lovers!).
Well, our Spring term is well under way, and we are making huge progress towards our Summer concert. Thanks to one of our lovely altos Jacqui for emailing me these wonderful alternative words for the middle section of the ‘The Rhythm of Life’:
‘Go and spread the gospel in the Carfax;
Sing along the Bishopric to Warnham Mill!
Have a break in Roffey; – Causeway coffee!
Beat in joyful Harmony – and Scale Denne Hill!’
Well done, Jacqui!
We’ll gather lilacs…
Posted 17th November 2016 by Rachel
Our new uniform is ordered and on its way. I wanted to put out a special thanks to Mig and Mike for their sterling work in organising this. Lilac waistcoats for men and lilac floaty scarves for women with black underneath. Very chic!
Settling into autumn
Posted 8th October 2016 by Rachel
Well, we are a term in, and Horsham Harmony has made rapid progress. With Mig and Mike at the helm of the Uniform Committee, and Jayne as our Social Secretary, the choir is taking shape.
Our name change from Oakley Singers to Horsham Harmony has proved popular with younger members in-particular, and two new members arrived this term.
We have two fun performances lined up for Christmas, one public and one private at a local care home, which will be lovely for the choir as an intro to performing as a group.
As with most choirs, we are crying out for tenors. We have a lovely group of basses, and the men have great camaraderie. We have four tenors, and it would be so wonderful to have a few more. Where are they all? Overall, the choir has over 30 members now. I think its popularity has a lot to do with the fact that singers are encouraged to investigate the challenges of reading music, rather than rote-learning and memorising—score-reading is not difficult and can be mastered at any age. It just takes patience and practice and at the gentle pace I set, everyone is enjoying the challenge.
Wednesday!
Posted 7th April 2016 by Rachel
Oakley Singers in Horsham starts on Wednesday! Looking forward to meeting the 30 people who have signed up.