African Prayer raises roof in South Croydon

JUNE 16: The Croydon choir delivered a stirring concert to an appreciative audience on Saturday, 9 June.  The venue, Emmanuel Church in South Croydon, proved to have excellent acoustics which brought out the best in the choir.

Emmanuel Church

Conducted by music director Richard Hoyle, the choir performed its usual eclectic repertoire, beginning with the spiritual Go Down Moses and ending with the frenetic Israeli song Hava Nageela.  It premiered Eric Whitacre’s evocative Seal Lullaby to great effect, and raised the roof with its resounding version of African Prayer.  The solo spot was taken by CMVC top tenor Nick Hewitt.

In delivering thanks on behalf of Emmanuel, Jeremy Davies praised the choir’s “wonderful” and “disciplined” singing.  He added that his daughter’s husband was a black South African – and he had  doubted whether a white choir could make a success of singing African Prayer.  But the CMVC had proved triumphantly that it could do so!

Roger and Richard at Emmanuel

This was the final concert CMVC Richard Hoyle would be directing in Croydon, pending his retirement after the choir’s Exeter tour in July.  Among the audience was Richard’s successor Roger Pinsent, who – like Richard – also attended the choir apres in the Crown and Sceptre. Afterwards Roger thanked the choir for making him feel so welcome, adding that he was very much looking forward to assuming his duties in September.