Rosebud Concert
After two years we were in back at All Saints Church Rosebud for a sold-out Saturday afternoon concert. After the opening Welsh verses of Gwŷr Harlech the audience were able to join in with the English words, printed in the program, and this they did eagerly and very tunefully.
The opening Welsh bracket continued with We’ll Keep a Welcome with a mellifluous solo by Roger Bartlett, the old favourite Calon Lân and, after an explanation by compère Bob Ash, Y Tangnefeddwyr (The peacemakers).
Introducing the love section, tenors Drew Hopkins and Rushan Hewawasam masterfully joined together in a harmonious rendition of Perhaps Love.
Myfanwy was presented without accompaniment before the choir sang We’ll Gather Lilacs with a very willing and musical participation by the audience in the reprise of the last chorus. This was followed by The Rose and then the stirring and emotional You’ll Never Walk Alone, again with a very sensitive solo from Roger.
Versatile compère Bob Ash then introduced the mining bracket with himself singing a beautifully modulated a cappella version of Prince Among Men before fellow bass Geoff Serpell stirred the emotions with the iconic Working Man. Before the last song of the first half, Faleiry put the congregation through their paces as far as rehearsing their parts in the final chorus before the choir launched into the John Rutter arrangement of When the Saints Go Marching In. After repeating the final chorus everyone was glad to have fifteen minutes rest and refreshments.
The second half opened with the rhetorical What Would I Do Without My Music before Bob introduced the specially commissioned work Land of My Song by Paul Jarman with confident solos by John Adams and Geoff Roberts. This was followed by Jarman’s iconic song about the Aboriginal guerrilla fighter Pemulwuy, complete with co-ordinated clapsticks by three different choristers.
Some comic relief was then provided by John Hales and Geoff Serpell, dressed in their princes’ coronets, to give us a suitably theatrical and well-articulated performance of Sondheim’s Agony.
Once order had been restored we were off to join the dispossessed in 19th century Paris with a medley from Les Misérables which included beautiful solos by Rushan and Roger. The final number was a special arrangement of Waltzing Matilda, with solos by Drew and Bob, which culminated with part of the choir singing the Welsh National anthem whilst the other sections and the audience kept up the well-known English chorus from what is effectively the alternative Australian anthem.
Fr. Stephen Pollard stepped up to the microphone to give thanks not only to the choir and the music team but also to all those people in the church who had made the concert possible and Invited everybody to afternoon tea.
After Bob’s round of thanks for the music team and all the soloists, the choir moved off to surround the musical assembly before bidding them farewell with the aptly named Sunset Poem.