Market Drayton Choral Society treated a large audience to a varied and entertaining selection of pieces at their spring concert on Saturday, June 8 in the Methodist Church.Conductor and Musical Director Harry Hitchen, together with accompanist Alan Hayes, began by leading the 25-strong choir through a beautiful selection of sacred choral music, including Bruckner’s Locus Iste and Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus.
This was followed by a selection of part songs by CV Stanford. Particularly notable was the choir’s rendition of The Blue Bird, a much-played favourite recently on Classic FM, which featured a memorable solo from soprano Claire Jeggo. After the interval Harry Hitchen played Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude to an enraptured audience and this was followed by a keyboard duet between Messrs Hitchen and Hayes of Fauré’s Berceuse - a melody very familiar to those members of the audience who could remember Listen With Mother!
The choir concluded with a medley of songs by 20’s American song-writer Hoagy Carmichael including Stardust, Heart and Soul and Georgia on my Mind. Tenor Scott Whitehead provided a sonorous spoken introduction and soprano Carol Hitchen added an entrancing solo on The Nearness of You. The appreciative audience thoroughly enjoyed the versatility of the choir’s performance and we look forward to their Christmas concert with great pleasure. As Mr Hitchen reminded us, the choir, which has been in existence for almost 50 years, is always looking to welcome new members. It’s good to know that Market Drayton can produce entertainment of this quality!