Shropshire Star

Choir looks forward to a sing in the park event

The Cantiones Choir is preparing for a special musical day in Oswestry's Cae Glas Park.

Published
The Cantiones choir, Front L-R: Pam Parish and Val Baty. Back L-R: Gerry Howe, Eileen Limbrey, Liz Grayston, David Ward

The choir will hold a Sing in the Park event on June 21, it's first performance planned for 2020.

Cantiones, a mixed voice choir, began in 1982 and concentrated on sacred music. But its repertoire expanded to include secular music in the 1990s.

The coronavirus pandemic has curtailed much of the choir's ability to perform and even to rehearse over the past year, with limited outdoor rehearsals and an outdoor Christmas concert in Cae Glas Park in December.

Last month the choir members took advantage of the different rules between Wales and England when they moved to Black Park Chapel, Halton near Chirk for outdoor rehearsals.

The relaxation of lockdown rules in England on April 12 did not allow them to meet in groups larger than six.

But in Wales groups of up to 30 people could meet outdoors and so they began rehearsing for the first time since September 2020.

Throughout lockdown musical director Martin Bussey has been producing rehearsal videos for the choir on YouTube as well as leading whole-choir rehearsals on Zoom for nearly a year.

He said: “It was great to be able to rehearse in person again. We’ve been working hard in Zoom rehearsals but were excited to be able to rehearse together in a focused way once again, preparing to perform."

The choir, like many others across the country, has been lobbying the government to allow amateur music making to go ahead in a safe way.

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