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Editor’s View
Welcome to the latest edition of Sharp Notes and my first since rashly agreeing to take
over. I am sure we would all like to thank Andy for all the hard work he has put into
making each issue both informative and enjoyable. Hopefully I can bring a new set of eyes
to things and I welcome any ideas you may have.
Kevin has agreed to provide a piece for each issue where he can expand on a subject that
perhaps we don’t have time for in rehearsals. I am sure he would welcome any ideas for a
theme.
Ryland’s World is a new feature which will hopefully bring a smile to everyone’s faces.
All the usual news and stories will appear. I have now been with the choir for 16 months
and am looking forward to 2018 and a time when I can finally work out what that guy
waving his arms about at the front is doing!
John
Issue 104– Feb 2018
SharpNotes#
The Official Newsletter of
Hart Male Voice Choir
1975 - 2018
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Hart Male Voice Choir
President: Alan Titchmarsh MBE DL
Musical Directors: Kevin Jacot (assisted by Margaret Brackenborough & Mike Morgan)
Accompanist: Judith Morgan GTCL, LTCL LRSM Accs.
Deputy Musical Director: Dai Ogborne
Choir Committee 2016 – 2017
Chairman: Eamonn O'Rourke
Treasurer: Eamonn O’Rourke
Secretary: Richard Nightingale
Librarian: John Wilson
Stage Manager: Mike Morgan
Concert Secretary: John Evans
Social Secretary: Richard Bothams
Public Relations: David Bowden-Smith
Webmaster: David Gaen
Sharp Notes # Editor: John Ford
Associate Membership Coordinator:
Mike Morgan 01252 663674; [email protected]
www.hartmvc.org.uk
SharpNotes# Editor: John Ford
8 Argente Close, Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 2XY
Telephone: 01252 677972 or 07553 498498 E-mail: [email protected]
Top Tenors
Lawrence Anscombe
Peter Attwater
Norman Bartlett
Gilbert Black
Roger Head
Gordon Hyland
Roy Kirby
Brian Moody
Keith Owen
John Wise
Basses
John Brackenborough
John Craig
John Crayford
Ewart Dalton
David Gaen
Les Knipe
Richard Miles
Danny Mulhern
Peter Newman
Eamonn O'Rourke
Keith Reynolds
Jack Salway
Jeff Smith
David Willis
John Wilson
Second Tenors
Simon Cole
John Crane
John Ford
Jeremy Gray
Keith Hayward
Mark Honour
Bob Jury
Patrick Kelly
Graham Leach
Kevin Matthews
Andy McLaren
Mike Morgan
Gordon Peake
Sugi Sugunasingha
John Walters
Ted Wood
Baritones
Graham Ball
Richard Berry
Richard Bothams
David Bowden-Smith
Mike Cockhead
Jim Codling
Richard Collie
Mike Darling
Richard Earnshaw
John Evans
David Fitzpatrick
Derrick Gray
Alan Knight
Ryland Lee
Kerry Mann
Richard Nightingale
Hugh Nisbet
Les Parker
Martin Rickards
Martin Rogers
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Chairman's Report
Dear Hart Male Voice Choir,
Firstly, I want to thank you for your support this year and to give a special vote of thanks
to the Committee who have worked so tirelessly on all of the choir activities and have
already achieved so much. Also, to the many choir officers who perform the numerous
jobs essential to the smooth running of the choir. So, a big thank you for doing this work
quietly, in the back ground and largely unsung, it is very much appreciated. There is a
Chinese curse along the lines “May you live in interesting times”, well 2017 was certainly
never dull with Brexit, Donald Trump, North Korea and the NHS trying to keep up with
yet another annual winter flu epidemic. To name but a few. But who wants to live in
uninteresting times anyway? Living on the edge it may not be, but in its own way HMVC
has had an interesting year.
We had the sad news of John Wise, the enforced retirement of Margaret as MD and the
setup of a largely new Committee. We had the appointment of Kevin Jacot as our new
MD. We also have added a trial event of singing to Care Homes, which is a great idea as it
is so appreciated by the audiences. It will need reviewing and may need some tweaking,
but nothing ventured….. I would like to thank Margaret so much for all of her
achievements with the choir, fortunately she remains as our assistant MD. She is a hard act
to follow and Kevin Jacot is getting up to speed and has already brought in new songs and
arrangements.
The Christmas repertoire being a good example of this. He has also provided training aids
for some new songs for the 2018 workshop. 2017 was a good year for the choir and we
performed some memorable concerts. The Salesian College concert was excellent, as was
the Christmas concert in All Saints (certainly lessons to be learnt though). Our concert at
Christmas with Treloars was very special and we all improved our sign language
tremendously. It was good to sing with the Basingstoke Hospital Choir and our friend Dai
Ogborne.
Membership
Chairman's Update
Christmas Carols at
Farnborough Business Park
An Invitation…….
More Moments We Remember
More Hart Male Voice Choir History
Jokes Page
Advertisement
The Day Gardeners’ World
Filmed our Garden
Keep on Truckin’
The Singing Beekeeper Reports
Why I Joined The Choir (No. 2)
HMVC Technology update
(Website & Facebook page)
Three Choirs Raise £3,500 1
at Nepal Earthquake Appeal Concert
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We had a wonderful tour of Scotland with some great concerts there too, and helped our
charity customers raise funds for their good causes. This year saw the resurrection of “Hart
at Home”, a fantastic evening enjoyed by all. We also raised (helped with gift aid) £450.00
for Crisis at Christmas, just by not sending cards amongst the choir but instead donating
the cash equivalent. What a result. In fact the only real disappointment was the YSC
postponement due to lack of available effort to run this event at this time. Change can be a
good thing as it allows new ideas to come in and be tried and I think this Committee has
persevered to see what could be improved to help the choir. Some of these are small things
like the publishing of the Committee minutes via email. Others are major like the proposed
Constitution, the new members handbook and the EGM on Charity status. The Committee
also wanted to encourage more involvement in running the choir, and to help achieve this
goal MUSCOM and CONCOM sub groups were created to respectively assist the new
appointees with the music repertoire and concert programme/venues/feedback. 2018 is
going to be a really exciting time for the choir with a great deal to look forward to.
We have already had the EGM in January, where everyone cast their vote on the Charity
Status proposal which past with 92.5% majority in favour; we have the full day workshop
in February to help us improve our singing; A visit to Highgrove is planned in early
summer and in September we have a significant social event in the diary to go to the WW1
battles fields and to remember those who fought for us 100 years ago. We hope to stage a
mini concert in the village where we are staying and also to sing at the Menin Gate in
Ypres; we are reviewing existing social events to see if changes would freshen these up
and encourage better attendance; we also already have a number of concerts lined up, as
well as the return joint concert with the Basingstoke Hospital choir, which we will be
organising.
Of course, next year (as always) is not going to be without its challenges. The postponed
YSC, what is the best practical option - Is this what is wanted by schools, is this what we
want, do we have the volunteer support in the choir to run it, are there other ways we can
support singing in the community? These are questions to be thought through, and your
input on them is welcome. Everything is getting more expensive and we are not immune.
So we must review our costs to ensure the membership subscriptions remain good value
for money. We have the continual issue of recruitment and we have a push planned for
early spring to get our message across that singing is good for you and we are a great
choir, where being a member is something of real value and great fun. Lastly we want to
make more use of our website and add a secure members’ area where we can store all of
the things such as training aids, handbook, Constitution, Sharp Notes, Committee minutes
etc. This could also allow an associate members’ section which would be of benefit to our
loyal supporters. So, there is much to do.
Thanks to HMVC, the Committee and our excellent Professionals (Judith, Margaret and
Kevin) for their energy and commitment in making 2017 such a success. I am sure 2018 is
going to be an even better year for the choir, and all we have to do is to make it happen.
Yes, we truly do live in interesting (but exciting) times, but would we want it any
different?
Mark
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Kevin’s Korner
Welcome to my first contribution to Sharp Notes. I thought I would take this opportunity
to give you some background about myself, some thoughts about the repertoire and some
ideas on singing.
My first solo was the part of The Boy in Elijah when I was six years old. I remember
sitting in the front row of the audience, next to another child. When I got up out of my seat
to sing my couple of lines, the child next to me was somewhat concerned.
As a family, we spent two years out in Kenya where my father worked as an Agronomist. I
had lots of opportunity for singing and remember, aged 7, standing in for Oliver for the
rehearsals – and feeling a little disappointed not to be singing in the shows.
On returning to the UK I was put in for an audition at Kings College Cambridge and was
interviewed by David Willcocks. Although he liked what he heard, I was already too old at
9 to become a chorister at Kings. So he recommended St Michael’s Tenbury, where he
was a governor, as a suitable place for my musical education.
St Michaels was founded by an eccentric Victorian by the name of Sir Frederick Arthur
Gore Ousley. He had noticed that the standard of choral singing in the country was
lamentable and so, in the middle of the Hereford countryside, he built a choir school to
train future organists and singers. Sir John Stainer was a pupil there.
Ousley was also an avid collector of manuscripts and, held in the bomb-proof strong room
were manuscripts of choral music by Byrd, Tallis and many more. If you look in the front
of a Watkins Shaw edition of the Messiah, you will find a reference to the conducting
score that Handel used which was also part of the collection
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As a chorister, once a year, all these manuscripts were brought out, laid on the snooker
table for us to study. What joy it gave me to see the original hand of all those church
anthems I knew so well.
The New Repertoire
Amazing Grace
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Calon Lan in Welsh
Divine Brahma, from The Pearlfishers
Eli Jenkins Prayer
Finlandia
Jacob's Ladder Judith M’s arrangement
Kalinka
Llanfair
Let it Be Me
Pilgrim Chorus
Rest in Peace
Sloop John B
Song Of The Jolly Roger
Star of County Down
Swing Low and When the Saints
Take me Home Country Road
Working Man
This is the list of songs that will be new to 2018. Many will be new to me, but are a
selection of those put forward by you to be included in the repertoire for this year. Some,
of course, most of you will have sung before.
I would like to do a couple of pieces in their original language – “Speed Your Journey.”
This would only involve coming to grips with the Italian, as we already know the music.
“Calon Lan” – I think you would do this justice sung partly in Welsh and I will do an
arrangement for the choir at some point. “Amazing Grace” and “Swing Low & When The
Saints” have both been written for the training day in February. I hope you like them.
I was hoping to do Ashokan Farewell but, although this sounds like a traditional folk song,
it was written for a film in 1984 and there isn’t a TTBB version available. If you like this
piece and a talented poet would like to supply some words in a similar vein, I would be
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happy to write the music for a Hart Farewell. This could be sung around the audience – see
Holy, Holy, Holy (Schubert) - Messiah College Concert Choir - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C40foCNHulE
Kevin Jacot
Ryland’s World
Each issue, we will take a peek inside the mind of the genius that is.. Ryland Lee.
“Mrs Mary Salter rendered
three vocal solos and a
return to orchestral music
was greatly appreciated.”
Misprints
“Before Miss Jenkinson
concluded the concert by
singing” I’ll Walk Beside You”
she was prevented with a
bouquet of red roses.”
“A heavy pall of lust covered
two thirds of London last night
and was expected to drift
south east by morning.”
“The ladies of the Helping
Hands Society enjoyed a swap
social on Friday evening.
Everybody brought something
they didn’t need. Many of the
ladies were accompanied by
their husbands”
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Fond Memories of
Scotland –
from a proud Scot
Following the choir’s successful trip to Ireland in June 2016, I foolishly quipped to
Eamonn that the next tour could be to Scotland – so an adventure north of the border
beckoned in September.
Some background as to how it all came about:
I was born at Bridge of Allan in Airthrey Castle nursing home; in the 1970s this was
converted to an administration block for the new greenfield site of Stirling University built
in the shadow of the imposing edifice that is the Wallace Monument. Co-incidentally,
Kate Webb who joined us on tour was also born here and it was her first re-visit – there’s a
few years between us. It is a glorious location; I remember climbing the monument in my
relative youth and catching a glimpse of both coasts west and east. The university was
visited by Queen Elizabeth not long after it opened; I recall being ashamed of the
disrespectful attitude of some ‘rebellious’ students during her visit that was widely
reported in the press. Not all culprits were from north of the border!
Anyway I spent the first six years of my life living in a 1930s bungalow aptly known as
‘Windyridge’ at Cambusbarron, a village annexed to the town of Stirling. As its name
suggests, the property stood on a ridge with glorious uninterrupted views to the north with
Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument to the east proudly mounted on their respective
crags; the backdrop beyond featured the Grampians with snow covered peaks in winter. It
was a view to savour but of course I knew nothing else at that age.
A lesson in geology – glaciers split when encountering the relatively hard volcanic crags
that stand above the flat ‘carse’ of Stirling, which at one time was sea bed. Hence ‘tails’ to
the east of the town resulting in upward slope to the castle.
Stirling Castle as viewed from the
Carse
Wallace Monument
In 1959 the McLaren family moved to the Kings Park area of Stirling that was developed
in the 1800s to accommodate merchants and the like, many of whom would have travelled
through to Edinburgh and Glasgow on the excellent train service. We lived in a
substantial semi-detached stone built villa with 13 rooms plus basement in Victoria Square
overlooking the rectangular lawn that was at that time surrounded by railings and gated
with each resident having a key to the lock. The railings have since disappeared and the
area blighted by parked cars with associated ‘street furniture’. Street lighting comprised
ornate wrought iron gas lamps; I recall the day a JCB excavator was summoned to
carelessly knock over (destroy) the original lamps that were subsequently replaced with
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precast concrete posts – ah progress! In the 1960s residents were not permitted to park in
the street overnight – again I recall the local bobby knocking at the door late one night
asking our visitor to put his car away. As an aside, the visitor was my father’s cousin who
flew reconnaissance Spitfires taking photographs over enemy territory – but that’s another
story…
Both mum and dad were from farming stock. Sadly for us three boys, although the eldest
of five sons, dad decided not to take up farming in the depressed times between the wars.
However my elder brother John was totally focused on farming as a way of life and was
driving tractors at five years of age; I was a relatively late developer and did not take to the
wheel until seven.
Known as the ‘Gateway to the Highlands’, Stirling was a graceful market town with a
main street adorned with many traditional family run stores. I recall droving cattle and
sheep along the main street to market – but can’t remember any bull finding a china shop!
The town witnessed considerable development in the 1970s including the large Thistle
‘shopping centre’ which inevitably had a severe impact on older more peripheral parts of
the town that suffered badly; many original shops eventually closed as a result. The traffic
system was‘re-managed’ and some of you staying at the Golden Lion experienced the
tortuous route of finding a way from the front of the hotel to the car park at the rear!
This rambling is an introduction as to why Stirling was selected as our ‘base’ for the choir
tour. Its central location, good communication links and enhanced by history made it an
ideal choice.
Organisation was launched in January. Jane & I went round the larger hotels in Stirling
and met enthusiastic ‘group bookings consultants’. Despite assurances not one came back
to me with a quote for twenty rooms or more. I don’t begin to understand the logic but
they seem happier relying on bookings through intermediaries on the web and paying in
the order of 20% for the privilege. Anyway, despite all the shenanigans, the Golden Lion
was selected as HQ, and I hope those of you who stayed were reasonably happy with the
choice. Our group meetings and the Saturday night ceilidh all went well (certainly from
my perspective).
The aim was to have two good concerts with one ideally in Stirling. I met with David
Yorke of Stirling MVC who was very enthusiastic and had recently experienced a pre-
Christmas joint concert with West of Scotland Military Wives Choir in a local church.
The initial thought was to engage both choirs to have a major fund-raising concert. My
preference was the Stirling Albert Hall. David reckoned if the local Strathcarron Hospice
was involved (similar to Phyllis Tuckwell) we could fill the hall. The hospice gave a
positive response and agreed to handle marketing and ticket sales. Time marched on until
early May when I was informed due to ‘change of policy’ the hospice no longer supported
fund-raising events of this nature but would be pleased to receive the donation. Oh dear!
To cut a very long story short, David Yorke put me in touch with Kate Gow who runs a
fundraising organisation ‘Opening More Doors’ supporting elected charities of her choice.
The result we experienced on the Sunday afternoon with Stirling MVC and Hillfoots
Youth Orchestra (substituted for Military Wives - that’s another story!).
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Albert Hall, Stirling St Michaels Church, Linlithgow
St Michaels Church in Linlithgow was an obvious choice for the concert on the Friday
evening. I was extremely lucky to become acquainted with Chris Thomas of Linlithgow
Rugby Club Choir who headed up all publicity and ticket sales. Chris, born in Scunthorpe,
had been a member of the official Lions choir tour to NZ. The concert would never have
been the success it proved without his help for which I am deeply indebted. We were
lucky to also share the stage with Toccata Ladies Choir, most ably managed by Eleanor
Howet, sister of Nessie Black (wife to Gilbert Top Tenor). I visited their rehearsal on the
Tuesday preceding the tour and realised then we would be in for a very special treat.
Away from the main concerts, we had a fairly action-packed itinerary that included a trip
to Glasgow followed by a cruise on Loch Katrine in the picturesque Trossachs less than an
hour’s drive north of the metropolis. Loch Katrine became the main water source to the
industrial heartland in Victorian times enabled by an engineering feat of tunnels and
bridges.
Most took a trip to the Falkirk Wheel before our Linlithgow concert – I gather some were
surprised to experience the ‘lift’ from one canal to the other – again a truly marvellous feat
of relatively modern engineering.
Sir Walter Scott on Loch Katrine Falkirk Wheel
The coach trip to Pitlochry and House of Bruar was another busy day followed by the
Edinburgh experience including tour of the Royal Yacht and the Royal Mile.
In all honesty organising the trip was a major logistical exercise but ultimately enjoyable
and educational experience. The happy and appreciative audiences and general good
humour amongst the assembled company embellished by raising over £5,000 for the less
fortunate of the community made it all worthwhile – mission accomplished.
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I am grateful to all those who assisted before and during the tour. Making a list will
inevitably result in omissions to cause offence. Anyway – you know who you are – thank
you!
Andy McLaren
A look back at 2017
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If you have photos, please do send them to me for inclusion