From familiar Essex to new-found Penge!

CMVC delighted audiences at joint concerts over successive weekends in Essex and Penge. The choir performed with the Swift Singers in South Woodham Ferrers on Saturday 18 April, then sang in the finale of the Penge Music Festival on Sunday 26 April.

CMVC thrills Penge (Photo Victoria Rockport)

The choir felt it was on familiar territory as it headed into Essex, as its relationship with the all-women Swift Singers started some 25 years ago. The choirs sing together every two years, alternating between Croydon and Essex. This year, following the usual warm welcome from the Swifts, the choirs rehearsed their joint items. 

Both choirs were on top form for the concert. Highlights of the Swifts’ two sets included  Sailing and My Guy, while CMVC’s programme ranged from Coldplay’s Fix You to Vivaldi’s Gloria. In his introduction to the Welsh hymn Gwahoddiad, MD Andrew Moore delivered a moving tribute to Stewart Robinson, a CMVC stalwart  well-known to the Swifts who sadly died two days previously.

CMVC delights Essex  (photo Bob Owen)

The choirs sang the lively Rhythm of Life together and the concert concluded with a piece which had become a tradition, the unlikely quodlibet combination of Ave Maria sung by the Swifts concurrently with I Believe by Croydon. In keeping with another tradition, the two choirs retired to the nearby Woodham Club for refreshment, a cornucopia of food and more singing well into the night.

A week later, it felt to some CMVC members as if they were heading into an unkown land when they crossed the borough boundary from Croydon and found themselves in Penge.   The occasion was the choir's first appearance at the Penge Music Festival, where it sang in the Three Choirs Concert that provided a climactic finale to the three-day event. Staged at the  Penge Congregational Church, the participants were the Penge Chamber Choir, Sing All Together Beckenham (SATB) and CMVC.

The concert had a resounding start with the three choirs performing Vivaldi’s Gloria, accompanied by a local string ensemble. Then came a selection of breath-taking a capella choral pieces by the Penge Chamber Choir. Highlights included Lobo’s Versa est in luctum, with the choir spread around the church, and Jauchzet dem herrn by Schutz, when the choir divided into two, one half singing from the church pulpit. The conductor was Jess Blake, a prime mover behind the Penge Music Festival and a key figure in Penge’s exciting current music scene.

Sing All Together Beckenham provided a stunning contrast to the chamber choir, with a selection of modern numbers including Stargazing, Unstoppable and Beautiful Things.  The songs included lively choreography and a selection of accomplished soloists.

CMVC added yet more variety with its set which included Robbie Williams’ Angels, the rollicking gospel song When the Saints Go Marchin’ In and the operatic classic Nessun Dorma. Unusually these were all performed unaccompanied under Dave Bannister’s energetic baton.

Climactic three-choir Piaf Penge finale, Banners conducting and Jess at far right (Victoria Rockport)

The programme concluded with the three choirs joining again for Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, conducted by CMVC’s Banners.   After thanking all the festival helpers for their wonderful contributions over the weekend, Festival Coordinator and MC Jess Blake invited choirs and audience to join in a final rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone.

As the applause died away, Banners was among the conductors awarded a posie of flowers, recorded for posterity by photographers.  Needless to say, the Croydon choristers were not finished. They retired next door to Wetherspoons’ Moon & Stars to celebrate an uplifting concert and to serenade local drinkers and birthday party revellers well into the evening.

Banners poses with his posie