ON Saturday 3rd October, approximately sixty Caldicot choristers made their way down the M4 to the dreamily spired, historic university city of Oxford to perform at Oxford town hall with Oxford Welsh Male Voice Choir.  

This is the third occasion that the choir has sung at this fabulous venue, the first being with Oxford Welsh in 1980 and the other two at the invitation of The Oxford Welsh Society. 

Oxford Welsh Male Voice Choir were the guest choir at Caldicot’s own Gala concert recently and so Caldicot were pleased to accept Oxford’s invitation to sing with them at their annual concert.

Following afternoon rehearsals, Caldicot took their place at the front in the escalating stage area to join in with Oxford in combined presentations, conducted by Siân Hatton and accompanied by Stephen Berry and John Nicholson. They performed a selection of Welsh favourites including ‘Rachie’, ’Yfory’ and ’Gwahoddiad’ not to mention finalising the set with a roof shaking Morte Criste: ‘When I survey the wond’rous cross.’

The concert was complemented by the appearance of guest duo, sopranos Sophie Pullen and Charlotte Tetley. They thrilled the audience of over 300 with excerpts from ‘Bacarolle’ from Offenbach’s tales of Hoffmann, ‘Habanera’ from Bizet’s ’Carmen’ and ‘Prendero fuel Brunettino’ from Mozart’s ‘Cosi fan tutte’.

Returning to the stage, Caldicot re-opened choral proceedings with their new renditions of ’A Miner’s Song’, ’California Dreamin’ and the famous all-time favourite Welsh hymn arranged by Mansell Thomas, ’Llef-o Iesu mawr’.

The two choirs then combined to sing a rousing rendition of ’O Gymru’ in which Oxford’s Bob Edwards sang the solo part.

Following the interval, the choirs exchanged places with Oxford at the front to sing their own pieces, conducted by Helen Swift and accompanied by Tim Croston of ‘Let all men sing’, ‘Unchained melody’ and ‘If we only have love’ before combining to sing ‘She’, made famous by Charles Aznavour.  

The finale consisted of the combined choirs thrilling the audience with ‘Anthem’ from ‘Chess’, the love song ’Let it be me’ made famous by the Everly Brothers and finally the foot tapping, almost tongue tripping ’Rhythm of Life’ from the musical Sweet Charity.

Following well deserved presentations to the musical directors and accompanists of both choirs, the proceedings closed with ’Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’, the Welsh national anthem.

The concert was arranged to help the Oxfordshire fund for music which aims to provide financial support to enable young musicians to have free instrument tuition.

Caldicot Male Voice Choir meets every Monday and Thursday from 7pm at the choir hall in Mill Lane, Caldicot and always welcomes visitors and potential new members. For more information visit www.caldicotmalevoicechoir.co.uk