Catsfield

If you missed last Friday’s ‘Summer Concert’ held at St Laurence’s church, then you certainly missed a treat. The church was full of an audience of all ages and the evening opened with a welcome to everyone from the Rev Dr Michael Brydon. The first to perform, with a varied selection of music beautifully sung, was the Rother Community Choir. They were followed by the sweet voices of the Catsfield Junior Choir, who sang two traditional songs accompanied by church choirmaster and organist Bob Andrew on the piano. Next on the programme was the local-based singing group ‘Waits and Measures’ who were conducted from the piano by their musical director Robert Aldwinckle. They entertained with a choice of songs from their considerable repertoire, which suited their beautifully blended voices. A contrast came from young Olly March, just a couple of days away from his seventeenth birthday and he held the audience spellbound with his amazing virtuosity on the violin as he played music by Bach and Monti. A very talented young man.
By The Newsroom
Published 18th Jul 2014, 00:00 BST

In the interval a selection of drinks and tasty snacks were passed around and one had the opportunity to chat with old friends. After the raffle, the second half of the programme began with the sweet, melodic voice of Bob’s granddaughter Ella Andrew aged thirteen, who enchanted us by singing unaccompanied and with perfect diction, the amusing story of ‘The Frog and the Mouse’. She followed this with the wistful song ‘Part of Your World’ from the Disney film ‘The Little Mermaid’. The St Laurence Choir were next on the programme singing music by Tallis, a Madrigal by T. Morley and then Vaughan-Williams’ arrangement of Psalm 100, known as ‘The Old 100th’. This turned out to be a special musical treat as it was accompanied on the trumpet by Andrew Gill. Andrew then gave us an unscheduled performance of Purcell’s stirring ‘Trumpet Voluntary’ which brought rapturous applause and cheers from the delighted audience.

The pure and powerful voice of the lovely Lucy Ashton rose to the rafters with a selection from her repertoire and she ended her performance with a moving rendition of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ from Carousel. This was then encored, with everyone throwing their hearts and souls into singing with her. Lucy is currently doing a Masters degree at the Royal College of Music in London and seems destined to go far with her singing career. Rother Community Choir brought the evening to an end with three more songs and a finale of William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’, in which everyone joined together to sing and practically lifted the roof off the ancient parish church! It was the best music evening yet and congratulations to fundraiser and organiser Sandra Shoobridge, who says that it raised £571 for church funds. The evening gave an enormous amount of pleasure to a lot of people and the opportunity to enjoy music performed by some of the best local talent around.

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A splendid cricket match at Southbourne, Eastbourne saw another win for the cricket team on Sunday. Within the constraints of finishing the match in time to get home to watch the World Cup, we scored 169 for 7 with Julian Buss 69 not out and Keith Cook 21 amongst the scorers. Bowling figures saw Andy Williams 2 for 19, Julian Buss 3 for 27, Nick Gurr, Connor Earl and Tom Wisden all got a wicket each and Connor Earl took 3 catches. Catsfield winning on the last ball of the match. The next match is Sunday, when we play Crowhurst at home at 2pm.

Next Friday 25th July our friends & neighbours in Crowhurst will be holding a weekend dedicated to remembering WWl. This memorial weekend will be centred in and around St George’s Church.

Friday 25th July at 19.30 Talk – The War Poets

Saturday 26th July at midday to 4pm Opening of exhibition with displays, films, period games and quizzes, etc. Lunch and refreshments available. At 7pm there’s a memorial concert

Sunday 27th July at 11.00 a service of commemoration followed by a social gathering at the church at midday.

We very much hope that you will be able to join us for some or all these events.

Jill Jarrett

Broadview, Bexhill

Related topics:Jerusalem