Well it’s that time of year again, when we all start preparing for the busy Christmas festive season, and in our home it starts when the Ballianlay Choir holds its Christmas Concert.
This year that treat was held on Wednesday, December 4 at the Rothesay Joint Campus Hall – and what a delightful evening that turned out to be.
Fiona Shaw started the evening off with a wonderful rendition of ‘Nella Fantasia’ to the theme music from the award winning film, The Mission, the music by Ennio Morriconi.
The Ballianlay Choir under Fiona’s direction then sang ‘In The Stillness of Winter’, and the ‘Seal Lullaby’, before Jim Holland on saxophone accompanied by Olga Morgan on piano gave us an inspirational rendering of that great jazz piece ‘Take Five’. Brilliant.
Fiona served up a curved ball by getting the audience participation in ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ followed by the Choir singing ‘Christmas Grace’ and ‘A Great Light’.
We, the audience were then treated to Catherine Rae and her beautiful rendering of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. This lady sounded like an angel and definitely is an angel in her day job as a first responder in the Ambulance Service. Thank you for your service.
The Academy Jazz Band under the direction of their music teacher Murray McGrinder then entertained us with a medley of jazz classics and weren’t they good. I was lucky enough to hear them warming up much earlier in the evening before the audience had arrived and was in awe of the level of playing. Well done to them and keep it up. The first half was completed with the Ballianlay Choir under the direction of Fiona Shaw singing ‘One Small Child’ and ‘Christmas Blessing’.
Following the intermission, the choir sang ‘The Child of Light’ and the ‘Beautiful Impossible’ before the audience participated with the Choir in an emotional ‘Silent Night’. This has always been a tear jerker for me as I think it was with many in the audience.
Thanks must go to the next two people on stage, Tony Posser and Malcolm Alexander, these two members of the choir then put on a pantomime as Father Christmas and a Fat Old Fairy which left everybody in fits of giggles, fantastic as always. Together, on these evenings they very successfully turn into the Laurel and Hardy of Bute.
Olga Morgan, then brought us back to reality with the stunning first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No 1, to the absolute delight and applause of the audience.
The choir then delighted the large audience with ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ and ‘Somewhere in My Memory’, taken from the film Home Alone. Peter Wallace, another member of the choir, and his daughter Grace then sang as a duet ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, and what a talented young lady she is, having already played in the Academy Jazz Band.
The Ballianlay Choir then rounded a wonderful evening of song and laughter with their rendition of ‘Why We Sing’ and ‘The Holiday Tango’ and then the whole audience and Choir finished the night with that favourite ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.’
This concert raised £1,840 on the night to go to the local School Charity Fund. Thank you, and well done to all.
I know that we are a small island with a small population, but this choir is nothing short of exceptional. So much so that they have been invited back by the Phoenix Choir in Glasgow to sing with them in the Royal Concert Hall next April, so if you want to sing, join them. If you want to see your island choir perform join the audience, and support them.
The last thing to mention is that these joint choral concerts owe their existence to Bute Arts Society who put on a variety of concerts and who stop at nothing to get outstanding artists to come over the water to play and sing for us here on Bute, so let’s support them too and come along.
A big thank you must go to all the members of the Ballianlay Choir, Fiona Shaw the musical director, Olga Morgan the accompanist, all the artistes and the academy who gave so freely of their spare time to put such an evening of delightful entertainment.
