G&S from Emsworth singers

Emsworth Meridian Singers are offering a concert version of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Gondoliers.
The singersThe singers
The singers

The music will be accompanied by narration at Christ Church, Old Market Avenue, Chichester on Saturday, April 21 at 7.30pm.

Spokeswoman Louise Russell said: “At the beginning of this year, we got together expert singers, good amateurs, people who are known to have sung in local societies, people from Gosport, Fareham, Emsworth, Chichester and Bognor, and we got together about 20 to perform this concert version of The Gondoliers.

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“The choir is based on what we did before but it has been reformed. Before we were the Emsworth Community Singers, but now we have become the Emsworth Meridian Singers which was our original name.

“We have been doing this since 2006, and we have built it up a couple of times, and we have had two new choirs formed out of what we have had. It has not been a case of a change of direction. I have always been about performance experience and aiming for performance and training and helping people achieve and grow.

“But this choir will be different in the sense that we can handpick people that want to come and perform at particular events. We have got two different branches. On Fridays we do a come and sing, people that just want to come along for the pleasure of singing, and on Wednesdays we rehearse seriously towards performance. We have been rehearsing for this one since January.

“We have picked G&S because it is something that we have enjoyed. It’s G&S and there is not a lot of G&S about these days. Some people just like the variety and the idiom of G&S. It is something traditional that some people just like to focus on. CAOS Musical Productions used to focus on G&S but now they have branched out into musical theatre, and a lot of the older people that used to love G&S don’t have that platform in Chichester anymore.”

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As for the concert version: “There are people that don’t have time to do the full stage production, but by modifying it and doing it as a concert version, we can get more people. We have got somebody that narrates between the numbers.”

Tickets available at The Novium at £10 with proceeds going to the Joe Glover Trust: www.thenovium.org/boxoffice. The Joe Glover Trust is a Hampshire-based children’s cancer charity working with families and specialist children’s cancer units across Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, West Sussex and the Isle of Wight. It was formed in 2007 following the death of eight-year-old Joe Glover to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

The Gondoliers in Concert features: Dennis Brombley, Merryl Spong, Ann Bray, Andrew Wilcock, Nigel Ashdown-Watts, Roger Parham, David Bennett, Ollie Embourne, Peter Rogers, Stephanie Peat, Nicola Bennett, Louise Russell, Katherine Chapman, Jacqui Bradshaw, Julie Bromble, Ann Bray, Elizabeth Wilcock and Sarah Winship.

For other stories by Phil, see: https://www.chichester.co.uk/author/Phil.Hewitt2

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