Review
TITLE: Huddersfield Methodist Choir
VENUE: Huddersfield Town HallREVIEW: By David Lockwood
THERE were bags of Christmas cheer to keep the bleak midwinter at bay when Huddersfield Methodist Choir put together a heart-warming festive programme.
From the opening Christians Awake to the closing Hark the Herald there was enough to satisfy the reasonably-sized audience, not least from the excellent guests which the choir had invited to join them in the festive fun.
The Halifax Young Singers and the Innovate Skelmanthorpe Band were inspired choices to join the choir on stage and both received hearty applause for their respective individual spots.
The Young Singers were very impressive, not least in their performance of Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil’s Bethlehem from the hit musical Martin Guerre and Hallelujah, A Baby is Born, with some tight harmonies, rarely found to this high degree in junior choirs. Much credit has to go to their musical director, Lynn Hudson, who was also a very able and amusing compere.
Married to Colne Valley Male Voice Choir’s conductor Thom Meredith, Ms Hudson also caroused the audience into participating in the ‘energetic’ Twelve Days of Christmas, with the entire audience and choirs joining in the yuletide ‘aerobic work-out’.
The band, under the direction of musical director John Roberts, displayed some fine and intricate musicianship in the Sussex Mummer’s Carol and Santa Claustrophobia and a slightly jazzed-up version of Prokofiev’s Midnight Sleigh Ride.
Trombonist Steve Godson brought some seasonal pantomime to the stage with his interpretation of Frosty the Snowman while A Christmas Finale brought a stirring end to their second spot.
The choir, although short in numbers – particularly the men who numbered just 11 and could certainly benefit from a few more basses – were nevertheless enthusiastic in their delivery, opening with two numbers arranged by the late Sir Malcolm Sargent. These were Mary Had a Baby and De Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy.
Conducted and compèred by Alan Brierley the choir – now enjoying its 65th year – closed with Jingle Bells before joining the Halifax Young Singers in a Christmas Celebration, before the entire Town Hall joined together for the uplifting Hark the Herald Angels Sing to bring another Methodist Christmas Concert to a successful conclusion.
