Skipton Choral Society's wonderful free singing workshops

A SERIES of free workshops by Skipton Choral Society for people who enjoy singing has just come to an end.

The five workshops included 'sacred choruses', 'passion music', 'choir showstoppers' and Gospel meets Choral' and finished with an informal recital of Brahms' Requiem at Christ Church, Skipton.

Directed by Robert Webb, the recital included two pianists and soprano and baritone soloists.

The workshops were free, thanks to grants from Skipton's North Yorkshire councillors from their locality grant funding.

Here, Mike Swinden, a society member who took part in the workshops, explains what it was all about.

"Well, we did it - five weeks of wonderful workshops at Skipton Choral Society, covering a wide range of music culminated in an informal recital of Brahms' Requiem. We were really pleased that around 20 guest singers took up our open invitation to join us for this, some of whom had travelled a long way. It was also really good to see plenty of new people in the audience.

The choir did amazingly well considering most of us had never sung the Brahms before and had had less than three hours of rehearsal time on it.

Richard Cressall was absolutely brilliant as our baritone soloist, singing with power, superb tone and feeling. Our regular accompanist, Robin Terry, did a fantastic job on the piano, as did Jenny Martins - special thanks to her for stepping in at the eleventh hour to make up the "four hands".

Thanks also to all on the Skipton Choral Society Committee who helped with the considerable organisation involved and to North Yorkshire Councillors Andy Solloway, David Noland, Simon Myers and Robert Heseltine for their very generous financial support towards this project.

Last but not least, we couldn't have done any of this without our maestro Robert Webb, who had the vision and daring to put together such an ambitious and diverse programme of workshops.

We're now off to enjoy a well-deserved summer break. If you fancy giving us a try, why not come along to our first rehearsal back, on Monday September 2, or to the open rehearsal we're holding the week after? We'll be singing a lot of Christmassy music in preparation for performances with no less than the fabulous York Railway Institute Brass Band in Skipton Town Hall and Selby Abbey on December 7 and December 14 respectively. Not to be missed."

Find out more at: https://skiptonchoralsociety.com/