The Weybridge Male Voice Choir travelled down to Cornwall on May Bank Holiday weekend to take part in the 2024 Cornwall International Male Choral Festival.  The festival is the largest competition of its kind in the world, attracting 60 youth and adult choirs from around the globe. As well as the main competition in Truro cathedral the choir took part in 4 Gala concerts where they sang with other choirs – The Newquay Gala organiser wrote ‘’We want to thank you personally for all you did to make the evening the success that it was and to thank the choir for the quality of their performance at the concert.  One of the most inspired decisions I made over the whole weekend was to have you to close the concert.  What a performance!’’

On their way down the choir stopped at Bath Abbey, see photograph, to give an hour-long lunchtime concert, along with a Chopin Nocturne by Tom Kelsey the Choirs accompanist. It was an absolutely fabulous setting, the music resounding around the Abbey.

On competition day the choir travelled from their base in Newquay to Truro Cathedral to meet up with 11 other choirs who patiently awaited their turn to perform in front of the judges and a packed Cathedral, filled with wives and partners, quite a tense moment!  Each choir was required to sing 3 songs one of which must be A cappella.

The choir first performed Wide Open Spaces, written by Sarah Quartel, a young upcoming Canadian composer. The second, Sing your Way Home, A cappella, is based on music written by Dvorak. Their finale was a rousing, powerful song called Baba Yetu, written by an American composer called Christopher Tin and comes from the soundtrack of the computer game Civilization IV; a version of the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili. David Ingoldby gave a tremendous performance as soloist in this last piece.  The choir received a standing ovation and was widely acknowledged to be one of the most entertaining choirs present. When the results were announced – the Choir gaining 5^th place in their category of 12 choirs, their best-ever competition performance! The judges commented ‘’Lovely range of programme, great sense of entertainment throughout.’’

“We were blown away by the result” said Andrew Wilson, the choir’s chairman. “The standard is very high. All the work, the extra rehearsals, the commitment made by everyone in the choir, the focus on getting everything right, paid off. The sun shone, the men sang beautifully, we had fun hearing new songs and meeting people from the other choirs. It was brilliant.” Hats off to Jonathan Kilhams, our Music Director, and Tom Kelsey our accomplished Accompanist, for putting together such a great show!

The choir meets every Tuesday from 8-10pm in St. James Parish Centre, Weybridge and is unauditioned, just come along and join in the fun. The choir’s motto is ‘Serving the Community’ and sings at many concerts in the local area, usually as fundraising for a local charity. Our next concert is a joint concert with the Treble Clef on Saturday 6^th July and our main choir Autumn concert is on Saturday 21^st September. We can also sing for you!!! You can learn more about the choir and hear their music at weybridgemvc.org.uk.