Shifnal Chorale choir presented its popular summer afternoon concert with light and enjoyable songs in Shifnal's beautiful church, St.Andrews: the concert ended with a scrumptious strawberry and cream tea.  Once again, and this is for the fourth year running, the Good Lord looked kindly on this Sunday concert by giving us fine sunny weather, and once again the audience enjoyed their cream tea sitting in the church grounds bathed by warm sunshine.

This concert contains many favourite pieces of Baroque music. Tea or coffee was provided in the interval, with as a special treat, cakes from 'Queenies' of Ironbridge. 

This concert contains many Baroque music favourite pieces. As usual, tea or coffee and cakes was provided in the interval together with a raffle. 

Brahms ‘German Requiem’ 

Saturday, 6^th February 2016, starting 2.00pm - at Trinity Methodist Church, Victoria Road, Shifnal TF11 8AE

You are invited to Shifnal Chorale’s annual Choral Workshop, singing Brahms ‘German Requiem’, under the musical direction of Paul Kelly. The venue, as last year, is Trinity Methodist Church in Shifnal, and we are pleased to say that the heating has been refurbished so we will have a warm church! There is on-road parking near the church and a car park in the town centre a short walk away.

The workshop is from 2.00 till 4.00 pm, followed by a break for tea and cakes.

There will then be a sing through from around 5 pm, when friends and family are very welcome to come and listen.

The price of the workshop is £10, which includes refreshments and hire of music. To participate, please contact Angela Pitt before 1^st February: Angela's contact details are given below 

Angela Pitt, 1 Queens Drive, Newport, Shropshire TF10 7EU.

Tel: 01952 811444 or 07916 870839, or email pitt_angela@yahoo.co.uk.

Shifnal Chorale presented its ever popular Christmas concert at its home church, the delightful Methodist Church in Shifnal at 7:30 pm on Monday 14th December. And as usual we provided tea, coffee and mince pies at the end of the concert. The title of this concert was 'An Evening of Christmas Carols and Verse'

We sang traditional carols plus a few interesting newer ones, including one composed by our very talented President, Marcia Hall. 

And the Shifnal Chorale choir was complemented by the popular RAF Cosford Voluntary Brass Band, who played Christmas favourites.

The Website administrator must apologise for having previously described this marvellous band as the RAF Cosworth Voluntary Brass Band: he only managed to correct this spelling error on the day of the concert!

The Shifnal Chorale choir performed at this joint concert with the RAF Cosford Voluntary Band and the Cosford Military Wives Choir: the concert started at 7:30 pm on Saturday 19th September at St. Nicholas Church, Newport.

The Shifnal Chorale choir sang some international folk songs. plus favourites from the operetta "The Merry Widow" and the Broadway shows "Calamity Jane" and "West Side Story". 

Shifnal Chorale produced its popular summer afternoon concert with light and enjoyable songs.

As usual it started at 3 pm in Shifnal's beautiful church, St.Andrews and lasted just over an hour with a scrumptious cream tea at the end, with many people enjoying their cream tea and strawberries in the church grounds: the last three years the Good Lord has looked kindly on our concert by ensuring fine sunny weather!

Our tuneful songfest is shown below:

• Bernstein's famous "Tonight" of "West Side Story"
• Bob Chilcott's arrangement of an American spiritual "Ev'ry time I feel the Spirit"  
• Yulishka - a Hungarian folk song, arranged by Sabor
• Nicholas Hare's arrangement of "The Bare Necessities" 
• Sammy Fain's arrangement of "Keep it under your hat" from Calamity Jane
• Berty Rice's arrangement of "I'm beginnng to See the Light"
• Marianina - a traditional Italian folk song
• George Mitchell's arrangement of "Old McDonald had a farm"
• "Waltz Time" from Franz Lehar's "The Merry Widow" 
• C.E. Rowley's arrangement of Richard Genée's hilarious send up of Italian Opera "Italian Salad"
• George Posford's arrangement of "Goodnight Vienna"
• Hopefully we did not upset too many lovers of Handel's music in the audience, as we sang Peter Gritton's marvellous spoof rendition of his Messiah, the "Three-minute Messiah"!

This concert, held on Friday 1st May at Shifnal's St. Andrew's church, commemorated the life of Arthur Roberts (1889 - 1957) of Llanddulas, Denbighshire, who, in addition to being Organist & Choir Director at St. Andrew's church, founded the Shifnal Male Voice Choir, founded the Shifnal Orchestra, and also founded the Shifnal Choral Society, which later became the Shifnal Chorale.  This concert was a tribute to this remarkable man, and was given by the Shifnal Chorale, the Shifnal Male Voice choir, and the St. Andrew's Choir.

The concert evening opened with Paul Kelly, Shifnal Chorale's Director of Music, conducting the Shropshire Chamber Orchestra in playing Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite Op.40 

The Shifnal Chorale choir then sang the chorale of J.S. Bach's Cantate BWG 56, (or to quote its German title "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen"): the soloist singing the first 4 sections was the fine baritone Paul Mocroft. Our concert audience is always surprised when on reading the concert guide it finds out that Paul sings only for pleasure and earns his living as a medical consultant at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. Paul is an outstanding soloist who could indeed give up his day job!

The Shifnal Chorale choir then sang three psalms by Gjielo's Norwegian compatriot Edvard Grieg, namely "How Fair is Thy Face" (or to quote its Norwegian title 'Hvad est du dog skjon'!). "Jesus Christ Our Lord is Risen" and "In Heaven Above", with Paul singing the baritone solo on all three psalms. 

As usual at Shifnal Chorale's concerts, tea, coffee and a fine array of cakes was provided in the interval, with various prizes offered in a raffle.

Following the interval, the choir sang a new mass by the brilliant young Norwegian composer, Ola Gjeilo (surname pronounced Yaylo). Gjeileo was born only in 1978: he now lives in Manhattan, New York. This groundbreaking work was first performed in May 2012 by the Chorus and Orchestra of Bellevue's First Presbyterian Church, in the town of Bellevue, in America's west coast state of Washington.

This February, Shifnal Chorale hosted its annual Come and Sing at its rehearsal home, the Trinity Methodist church in Shifnal, where we all rehearsed the chorus parts of Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’. Whilst it may not have been the most polished performance at the end of the day, everyone had enjoyed themselves, and certainly learned a lot. And naturally after our practice session, everyone enjoyed cakes and cookies, tea and coffee!

Our ever popular Carol Concert took place at the Trinity Methodist Church in Victoria Road, Shifnal and started at 7:30 pm.

And naturally, during the mid-concert break, tea, coffee and mince pies were provided! 

Shifnal Chorale presents its Autumn concert at Broseley's beautiful 'All Saints' Victorian church where we will be singing some great songs, including:

"Finlandia", a hilarious spoof "The Three minute Messiah", and a great favourite with concert goers, "You raise me up", plus "Irish Blessing", also the song made famous by the Military Wives choir "Wherever You Are", the rousing "Buffalog Gals", "Let's Do It", the much loved Andrew Lloyd Weber song "Love Changes Everything", and that hilarious song "Old McDonald", plus many more. And of course, bearing in mind the concert title, we will be singing the song "Autumn Leaves".

  The concert starts at 7:30 pm, ticket price a snip at £7!

In June this year we had our ever popular Summer Concert with at its theme romatic music, featuring both classical and popular music, called "Songs of Celebration". And afterwards, the weather being kind, we all enjoyed a scrumptious summer afternoon tea out in the church gardens.

Shifnal Chorale hosted a 'Come and Sing' at the Methodist Church in Wellington on Saturday 15th February, 2014. We started at 2 pm and finished at 6 pm, with refreshments provided in the break.

Shifnal Chorale sang its annual concert of Christmas Carols at Shifnal's Methodist church in Victoria Road. The concert included traditional Christmas carols, with the audience joining in on some well known favourites. And, once again, we had more people attending this concert than the previous year.

This year for a change, we had tea or coffee with our mince pies after the concert, rather than in the middle of the concert

The Shifnal Chorale choir presented a concert at 7:30 pm on Saturday 9th November 2013 in Shifnal's Trinity Methodist Church in Victoria Road. The choir sang a light program of English music on a theme of love, including folk songs, with some popular show songs and chorus pieces interspersed by soloists from the choir. Our accompanist David Fisher played an organ piece. After the first half, we had our usual break for refreshments which included delicious home made cakes, tea, coffee and soft drinks.

As an example of the sort of music in this concert, we finishedt by singing the Andrew Lloyd-Weber song "Love changes everything" from the musical "Aspects of Love".

At 3 pm on Sunday 21st July, the Shifnal Chorale choir presented its summer concert in St. Andrews Church, Shifnal with a strawberry tea provided afterwards for everyone to enjoy. The music was lighter than our usual concert repertoire, and included two organ pieces, a duet sung by a soprano and alto, as well as the songs sung by the choir.

There was an excellent turnout with 92 people in the audience, and by all accounts the audience enjoyed the music. Even our English summer co-operated by ensuring it was not too hot to sit outside for our strawberry tea!

There is a video of the Shifnal Chorale choir singing the Carol "This child of God" which was recorded by Roy Cross in Shifnal's Trinity Methodist Church at this 2012 Christmas Carol concert in 2012.

To view this video, click anywhere on the concert programme, or this text and the video will start: you will have to wait a while before the video does start.

This video is shown by courtesy of Roy Cross, who has kindly made it available to visitors to the Shifnal Chorale website.

St. Michael's Church, Madeley.  Saturday 27th October

"Autumn Tones"  with  Shifnal Chorale and Random Brass
Director of Music       Paul Kelly

This was our second concert at Trinity Church, Newport.

Shifnal Chorale and Random Brass presented a concert of light music for a summer evening. Awful wet weather kept attendance low, but performance was most enjoyable.
 

The concert was held at St. Michael's Church, Madeley. We were joined once again by the Shropshire Chamber Orchestra.  The main choral work was Faure's Requiem, and also included the Cantique de Jean Racine.  The orchestral work was Schumann's 3rd Symphony.

Our Come and Sing this year featured a selection of Opera choruses.

Shifnal Chorale and the RAF Cosford Volunteer Band gave a varied programme of seasonal music at Trinity Methodist Church with the second half devoted to a selection of carols.

A charity concert at St Andrew's Church, Shifnal,  featuring the Shifnal Chorale, the Shifnal Male Voice Choir and the Wellington Band for the benefit of the Hope House children's hospice.A nice varied programme

We took part again in the Shifnal Festival at St Andrew's Church, Shifnal.  As last year the concert included  local choirs and was well attended. Each choir sang pieces from a particular period of sacred music, making for an interesting and enjoyable evening.

This performance of Handel's Messiah took place at St. Mary's Church, Albrighton.   The Shifnal Chorale were accompanied by the Shropshire Chamber Orchestra and included all the movements.  It is quite usual for some movements to be omitted so this was a notable performance and very satisfying to sing.

Our 'Come and Sing' on 12th February 2011 featured choruses from Verdi's Requiem. It was well supported and enjoyed by all.

The Shifnal Chorale performed at Trinity Methodist Church, Shifnal to mark the completion of the refurbishment of the church with a Celebration Concert.