A fantastic day! Take a look at a collection of photographs and music from the whole day.

Thank you to all those who helped out and all the singers who came along, hopefully you enjoyed it as much as we did!!

If you have any comments on the day please post them below it would be great to hear from you.

The 2010 Make a Noise workshop is being held on SATURDAY 20th FEBRUARY and this year will be an adventure into the songs of the Beatles.

The workshop is open to all aged 7-16 and will involve singing, dance, live music, craft, face painting and more! It is a great day packed with fun from 10.45am to 4pm with an open public performance at 4.30pm for all to enjoy.

We are very lucky to have a great group of musicians coming to play for us again this year – with the addition of drums and guitars to the line-up of woodwind and brass for extra rock-and-roll factor.

There is a charge of £5 per child to cover costs and each child will need a packed lunch on the day. Places are limited, so be sure to sign up early.

See you there!!

This year kicks off for us on Thursday 7th January 2010 at the Village Hall from 6.30-7.30pm for Harbury Young Voices and 7.30-8.00pm for the Chamber Choir.

We have an exciting programme of songs to work on this term and hope to find everyone in good voice and ready to sing!! As always, we welcome new members and are open to anyone aged 7-16. If you are thinking of joining, please contact us to register your interest.

The New Year also sees the return of our very popular ‘Make a Noise’ workshops, which allow anyone to get involved without a regular commitment. Following the success of the Mamma Mia day last year, we will be running a one day workshop on Saturday 20th February.

The children will again be joined by members of The Warwickshire Band to have the invaluable experience of working up close with live musicians. The day of singing, music, dance, acting, art and fun will culminate in an open public performance. There will be a charge of £5 per child for this event to cover costs. Spaces will be limited so make sure to register early. We are very excited about this year’s ‘Make a Noise’ theme but you will have to watch this space for more details!!

Leamington Courier 12/11/09

The performance drew an audience of around 100 people of all ages from the local community. Even passing cars and a van collecting timber for the local bonfire stopped to hear the children sing.

The concert had a modern feel; using pop songs and live instrumentals on Saxophone and Clarinet by Helen Iles of The Warwickshire Band – Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. There were also traditional Remembrance Day elements. Two poems were read by the youngsters before the Last Post, which was played by the Choir’s Musical Director, David Iles and Ian Bode of The Warwickshire Band.

During the silence, two young singers laid a poppy wreath made from over 200 hand painted poppies. Each poppy was made by the children using their fingerprints – continuing the theme of ‘Joining Hands in Hope’ of this year’s Poppy Appeal.

The Harbury Choir School put a fresh take on the traditional Remembrance Day. The concert had an overall feeling of being part of the local community and bringing people together. An emotional reaction from the audience, showed that war has affected many of us. This message of hope coming from the youth of our community is one that we should not forget.

Novemeber 7th 2009, Harbury

As always our young singers did us proud – they always seem to end up being put right on the front row of anything we do! They were impeccably behaved and their unusual bright purple ties even attracted the attention of the dignitaries, who wanted to know which choir they were from and congratulate them on their performance.

As most of the children had arrived on the same train, I expect that the journey home was interesting for parents and other passengers; as everyone (including David and I) seemed to leave the event buzzing and unable to stop singing!

We are also looking forward to the first ever performance for the whole choir; including the new look ‘Harbury Young Voices’, who have now been rehearsing together for 6 weeks. We will be singing a Remembrance Tribute on Saturday 7^th November: ‘Songs of Remembrance and Hope’ including some beautiful contemporary songs. The performance will begin at 12.15 at the Harbury War Memorial and is a free concert open to all, lasing for approximately 45 minutes – hopefully it will be a good way to spend the afternoon before going to the bonfire and fireworks display!

We have now created ‘Harbury Young Voices’ which will be a fun, informal choir open to everyone aged 7-16. This choir will be based on popular music and songs. We will work from word sheets so that no prior musical knowledge is necessary. They will have their own uniform and logo, which we will be working with members of this choir to design.

The second section of the choir will be run as a ‘Chamber Choir’. This will be an auditioned smaller choir and the singers will be taught to read music. In addition to music from the ‘Young Voices’ section, we will work on more complex music involving part singing and classical works.

We hope that these changes will make the choir more accessible to all local youngsters – from those who want to come along and have a laugh to those who are serious about singing. We had a great start to the Autumn Term last week in our new venue of the Village Hall at 6.30pm on Thursdays. Word has obviously spread, as we have seen an increase in the numbers coming to choir!

In ‘Young Voices,’ we sang through ‘Just Dance’ by Lady Gaga and a ‘Band Aid’ style song called ‘No More Wars’; both of which everyone enjoyed. We will be working on some solos and harmony parts for these during the coming weeks. The Chamber Choir are working on writing a song of their own and will be looking at some classical pieces in the next few weeks.

Our first public performance of the term will be upon us before we know it so watch this space…

We planned our own ceremony at the local church to include all of our singing friends and collegues from the choirs we sing in. This, of course, included the children of Harbury Choir School. All of the singers received a top secret little brown envelope some weeks before the wedding. This had all the music and a CD with practice tracks. This was the only rehearsal that everyone had until the morning of the wedding when they all came together.

We were very lucky to have an exceptionally good organist and choir master from St Martins in the Bullring to lead the massed choir and David was there on the morning of the wedding to see that the rehearsal went ok. (I think I was probably lacing up bridesmaid dresses at this point!!)

The ceremony was incredible – to come into the church with such an amazing choir singing ‘The Lord Bless you and Keep you’ was just perfect. I had to stop singing during the first hymn for fear of my eye makeup running when the children and sopranos launched into the first descant of the day!

The children from HCS and their parents joined in the procession through the village to the reception venue. Of course, this was led by The Warwickshire band with David and I marching along playing fench horn and clarinet as well! I think this woke the village up and as it was such a nice day, lots of people were outside to see us go by. The band also played for the drinks reception with me playing saxophone and David conducting!

We all got a break in the evening when we had the local folk band to play a barn dance for us to which the children and their parents were invited.

We cannot thank all the singers enough – they really provided us with a special, personal day that will be talked about for years to come.

We ran the afternoon as an informal ‘open rehearsal’ to allow people to come and go. We sang through the full variety of songs we had covered throughout the year which really showed what the children had acheived in one year.

It was also an opportunity for some children to have their first go at singing solos in public in a more informal setting.

The day was a huge success, with a packed audience for most of the afternoon thanks to the annual Harbury Beer Walk stopping in Chesterton on the same afternoon! It really gave us a chance to show off everything we had learnt over the year and the children (and tutors) went home very proud of that achievement.

The choir school tutors accompanied the younger choristers to the movie and a great time was had by all – especially as the tuck shop was very well stocked and there was an interval to refresh supplies! As we had covered some of the songs in our rehearsals the show turned into a sing-along in places.

This was a great opportunity for the youngsters to socialise outside of rehearsals and we look forward to having regular social outings for the Choir School.