Gentlemen Songsters Male Voice Choir

THE GENTLEMEN SONGSTERS MALE VOICE CHOIR

Singing from the heart of the Black Country

NEXT YEAR'S ENGLISH ASSOCIATION OF MALE VOICE CHOIRS CONCERT

The Gentlemen Songsters will have the honour of hosting the 2009 English Association of Male Voice Choirs' concert.

We have just been informed that we are able to hold this concert in the magnificent setting of Lichfield Cathedral. The concert takes place at 7.00pm on Saturday 20th June 2009, and once again we hope that this massed male voice choir event - featuring approximately 300 voices from 9 male voice choirs - will be a resounding success.

Lichfield Cathedral

The organising committee is busy making the early preparations for this event, and we soon hope to have plans in place for supporting artists etc. More details will be published when final arrangements have been made.

NEW MUSICAL DIRECTOR APPOINTED

The Committee is pleased to announce that at its meeting early in March, 2008, Mike Wells was appointed as the Gentlemen Songsters' new Musical Director

Mike's knowledge of music has been gained from many years of experience. His father was an opera lover who also sang with a Birmingham based Gilbert & Sullivan society, teaching Mike many songs at home from an early age. With help from his parents, Mike learned to play the piano whilst still at junior school and then went on to direct and accompany various school concerts at senior school. For many years he was accompanist for several amateur operatic societies and musical groups, first taking up the baton in 1994 as musical director for a local operatic society. Mike has now been conducting mixed voice groups and choirs for a number of years but this is his first time with an all male voice choir. He is looking forward to taking on this new challenge and is trying hard not to refer to the first tenors as sopranos!

Over recent weeks, Mike and the choir have been getting to know each other, and already, a great working relationship has developed, and we are sure that the choir will flourish under his leadership

2008 EVENTS

Details of the events held prior to June 2008 have been moved to the "Current Year" section of our History Page

OUR NEXT CONCERT

We now have a short break before our next major concert (when we appear with Viva Musica in Dudley Concert Hall at the end of September) - but don't fear, we will be working very hard bringing some new music into our repertoire, and also polishing up some old male voice favourites which we have not sung for the last few years. This promises to be an exciting time for the choir, and we hope to demonstrate the fruits of our labours in the Autumn and Winter concerts

OTHER FUTURE CONCERTS - Click Here

EARLY NOTIFICATION OF A CONCERT IN FEBRUARY 2009

We are eagerly anticipating a concert to be held in Holy Trinity Church, Wordsley on Saturday 14th February 2009, when we will be joined "on stage" by a touring choir from The Netherlands - the DON KOZAKKENKOOR (Don Cossacks Choir) - a Dutch choir which specialises in singing Russian music. This promises to be a fantastic start to our 2009 programme, and we very much look forward to this event

To read about, and listen to Don Kozakkenkoor, click on the picture above - some of their website is written in English

Here, in their own words, is a brief history of the choir

The Don Cossacks Choir

After World War I the Cossacks, who fought for Tsar Nicolaj II, were sent to the Tschillinger Camp. There in poor tents they lived a miserable life. Trying to forget all misery they sang the songs of their homeland at the campfire. A young lieutenant Sergej Jarov (25 years), with a remarkable education in music, took the lead and so a community was born which was destined to become one of the most beautiful choirs in the world.

The maiden concert took place in Sofia and soon(4th of July 1923) they gave a concert in Vienna. The following years Sergej Jarov and his Don Cossacks Choir went to other countries all over the world. This unique choir fell apart before Sergej Jarov died (89 years of age) in Lakewood, United States. Michael Minsky, one of the Don Cossacks star- soloists with an impressive musical background, tried to restart the choir, together with a small ensemble of enthusiastic singers. He was appointed to be the new conductor and he succeeded. He died in 1988 in Zwolle, The Netherlands.

Nowadays the choir is conducted by Serge Latychev. He was born in Moscow in 1957. The Don Cossacks Choir has given more than 250 concerts in the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, Belgium and Canada. During the tour to Russia it was a great honour to perform in a service where Patriarch Alexi II led in prayer.

The choir has 35 members. Each voice-section has a number of people performing as soloists. The repertoire includes songs from the Slavic Church, composed by Bortnjansky; Doebjenski; Gretsjaninov; Rachmaninov; Tsjesnokov, among others. Besides this the program contains many Cossack-, soldiers-, and folk-songs from Russia and the Ukraine, composed by various composers.

The choir does not only give concerts for a great number of people but also performs in front of smaller groups, for instance at:

• Special occasions like commemoration,

• icon display, Russian weeks etc.

• Jubilee concerts.

• Benefit performances.

• Churchservices.

THE GENTLEMEN SONGSTERS' POEM

Mel Thomas, who was the compère at our Celebrity Concert (see our History Page) wrote a poem and dedicated it to the Songsters in celebration of our "Fifty Glorious Years". He gave the world premier reading of the poem at the Celebrity Concert. So with a deep debt of gratitude, we have bestowed upon him the title of Gentlemen Songsters Poet Laureate - or to be more precise - Poet Llaureate ('cos he's Welsh)

Click on the link to download a copy of the poem >>> Gentlemen Songsters

OUR MOST RECENT CONCERTS

From the grandiose setting of the recently refurbished Birmingham Town Hall - it was back to our roots (well almost) for our next concert on Saturday 5th July in the pretty church of St John's in Swindon, South Staffordshire. This promised to be another good concert, and it certainly was - we turned out a large contingent of choristers and made the valley of the Smestow Brook resonate with sound. A second impromptu concert was held later in the evening in the bar of the Green Man pub in the village - and Alan, the landlord, was beginning to think that he might have to send for emergency supplies of Banks's Bitter!!

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On June 28th, we had the privilege of singing with eight other member choirs of the English Association of Male Voice Choirs in the magnificent surroundings of the recently refurbished Birmingham Town Hall. It is traditional at these events that one choir acts as the host choir for the evening, and this year it was the turn of Birmingham Icknield Male Voice Choir. Our great friend Professor Carl Chinn was the host for the evening, and the event raised funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Also appearing with the 300-strong massed choirs were Birmingham soprano, Sharron Burns; Midland-based organist Keith Hearnshaw and the splendid Midlands Young Persons String Group, Bravura.

The concert was a fantastic success - just to hear the power of 300 plus male voices and the grand organ at full tilt was something to witness - but equally the power of 300 unaccompanied voices singing pianissimo - on a whisper. There were many hairs standing on necks on that occasion

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We were invited to perform with a whole host of Black Country entertainers in a concert in tribute to the former Black Country comedienne, Dolly Allen - this concert took place on Sunday 22nd June at Brierley Hill Civic Hall, and coincided with the dedication of a "blue plaque" in Dolly's honour

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We were invited by the Kidderminster Valentines ladies choir to join them on stage in Kidderminster Town Hall on Saturday 7th June with the Malvern Singers and Kidderminster Male Choir to celebrate the Valentines' 20th Birthday. We sang a number of joint items with the other choirs, plus a few items from our own repertoire.

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THE DONATIONS CONTINUE

In 2007, we raised and donated a record £8410 to charity. Already in 2008, we have been able to donate £100 to Holy Trinity Church, Wordsley, and a cheque for £2000 has been presented to Rev Peter Jenkins for use by the Ban Kamala School, Phuket, in furtherance of our support to them following the south east Asia Tsunami

BERT BISSELL MEMORIAL SHIELD

Walsall's Mayfield School Choir have once again been successful in competing for the Bert Bissell Memorial Shield at the Dudley Festival of Music Drama and Dance. A presentation will be made to the choir at one of our future concerts - details will be posted on this page when arrangements have been put in place.

FUTURE CONCERTS

We will be appearing in Dudley Concert Hall as guests of Viva Musica on Saturday 27th September at 7.30pm. Tickets for this concert are now on sale priced £10.00 and £8.00

Following on from this concert, our own Autumn Concert takes place in Dudley Concert Hall on Saturday 11th October at 7.30pm, when our guests will be the Langley Band, and our compère Don Maclean. Tickets for this event are available at £12.00 each. See the poster below for further details on this concert

Details of other future concerts will soon be announced on this page (but they are already in summary form on our Future Concerts Page)

CHOIR PUBLICITY PHOTOGRAPHS

The following picture gallery contains recent publicity photographs, which are published with the kind permission of the Express & Star, Wolverhampton and Newsquest (The Stourbridge News and the Dudley News)

Click on the thumbnail image to view in detail