Grosvenor Chorale Trustees’ Report 2024-2025
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At our AGM, held at Castlereagh Presbyterian Church, our rehearsal venue, on 15° September 2025 our Musical Director summarized the year.
Chairman's 2024-2025 Report
Our 2024-2025 season wasa little longer than usual and a very rewarding one. We were able to enjoy such a range of activities from taking part in various concerts to our annual carol service and working with students and professional musicians along the way. Being able to turn our hand to short-term projects like providing choral parts for the TV Series, Dalgleish, is good at opening doors to the interesting and unexpected. Once recordings are laid down, they could turn up anywhere and be heard across the world. They don't take long on our part to actually produce, but for something to serve longer than a live performance, which drifts into the ether once we leave the stage, recordings require sacrifice of time and the mental discipline for the moment to be worthy of capturing our prepared musical performances. I am keen to do more of this if we can. Thank you to Ballygowan Presbyterian Church who accommodated us for this at the last minute. A few days after this recording which took place in early August 2024, we were enjoying a sunny afternoon's travel to Armagh Cathedral to perform alongside international organist Thomas Trotter at the opening concert of the Charles Wood Festival of Music and Summer School. This was a really lovely event for all of us and the choir performed superbly at it, winning praise from many, including the maestro David Hill, who were hearing the choir for the first time. Our season began properly in September and a new challenge which sprang from our light entertainment slant of the previous six months was to approach Bob Chilcott’s “Little Jazz Mass”. The singers really put in a lot of effort over the course of September and October to learn this work to the point of being able to perform it for ourselves before our mid-term break in October. Here we sang along to a rather sprightly backing tracking on the stage of S.D. Bells followed by some pizza and time chatting further about various areas of choir life which we hope to develop.
The Christmas-Music season was upon us before we knew it and we enjoyed three very different occasions throughout advent. Returning to St Anne’s Cathedral is always a pleasure, if a little chilly, and we enjoyed performing to support the work of the Samaritans. We were also glad to be able to return to perform with Downshire Brass in their Christmas concert in Malone Presbyterian which is always a fun evening with lots of great music to perform and enjoy listening to. We are very grateful to Michael Alcorn and the band who have always welcomed us to be part of their annual programme.
Our Annual Festival of Nine Lessons with Carols is a seasonal anchor in most of our lives. Each year it is familiar, yet special and this year was certainly no exception as we paid a poignant tribute to our friend and supporter, John Anderson. Beginning the service at the West End of St Colmcille’s by performing John’s setting of Psalm 23 was deeply profound and only deepened
in the moment as Marie Anderson was seated beside us in the back pew. Also to have his son, Ben Anderson, read a lesson made this a very special evening. New music was also brought to the congregation through a variety of styles. From the plainchant inspired anthem “Drop Down Ye Heavens From Above” by Judith Weir to the light-hearted “Have You Seen The Tiny Little Baby” by Ruth Morris Gray then Stephen Jackson’s stunning setting of “Noél Nouvelet” as ever expertly accompanied on the organ by Stephen Hamill. Again it was a pleasure of perform a new carol by Roxanna Panufnik; “Glory Be To The Word” was written and performed in aid of The Refugee Council and it was a thrill that international artist Axel Scheffler, best known for his work on The Gruffalo and Snail and the Whale, gave us permission to print his illustration on our order of service. Singing in front of, and along with, a church filled with friends, family and others from the community brought 2024 to a memorable close for everyone.
The new year gave us another opportunity to engage with sixth form music students when we rehearsed sacred music from the current A-Level specification. Around 60 students from a dozen schools joined with us and everyone both benefitted from and enjoyed the evening together in Castlereagh’s Church Halls. Particular thanks to Darren Day, who accompanied us, and Sarah Bell and Susan Shepherd who performed solos on the night.
As winter turned to spring, we continued to perform alongside others as we were invited to perform in the Ulster Hall to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Grosvenor Grammar School. The choir gave a most moving performance of “The Way We Were” in front of a packed hall as well as joining with Renaissance Singers and the schoo! students to perform The Gaelic Blessing and a medley of pieces from Les Miserables. This date had been only a few days out for the choir when covid-19 saw everything cancelled and it was good to at last be able to do it 5 years on!
To round out the year we presented a concert in Killyleagh Parish Church on Friday 23 May. Drawing together a programme that will interest both the singers and the audience can be a challenge. We like to spend time on music that is worthwhile learning yet know we should perform music that is accessible to variety of listeners who may not wish to spend a summer evening where their ears are challenged too intensely! I think we did this with excellence this year: a blend of familiar and unfamiliar, serene and toe-tapping, ancient and modern, sacred and secular alongside young performers from Cedar Integrated Primary School. We are grateful to Kathryn Glover for her time and effort in preparing them and bringing them along. It was good too to have Lindsay Armstrong as our compére and a warm, supportive audience filling the church building as well as supplying a tasty supper and kind gifts. The choir’s highlight was, I’m sure, the time we spent rehearsing with and being accompanied by Ruth McGinley. I appreciate the time and interest that Ruth showed in learning not only the fabulous Chilcott Mass but also the other repertoire and of course performing Debussy’s exquisite “Clair de lune”. We are also grateful to A A Music for supplying a rather magnificent Yamaha U3 piano for the occasion. It was an evening where small details came together and one that will live long in my memory.
The support that Siobhan, George and I received from all of you when my dad passed away the following morning is so very much appreciated and of course your concern in the time leading up to this too. I couldn’t play my part in the choir without your support and I know many of you feel the same in your own unique situations. We have something in our music-making that is very unique and which binds us all together; from that a family has grown over the years, perhaps without us realizing it. Some of you are new to that and we trust that this relationship will continue to grow and some have moved on but the relationship continues. Lesson One of my Year 8 Religious Studies course includes the latin word “ligare” - to bind together and therefore religare to ‘bind again’ — to reconnect, to restore either with God or with each other;
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that is how strong Grosvenor Chorale is ... a little religion (with a very small ‘r’ of course!). Iam grateful for every one of you; that we share time, talent and teaching with each other to create | something beyond ourselves — that we may have very different backgrounds, beliefs, careers, | ideologies, politics, humour, skills and so on yet actually enjoy being together, connecting with one another and ultimately performing with unity.
I continue to be thankful for both Stephen Hamill and Darren Day who have accompanied us at various events and hope they know how appreciated their support and efforts always are.
Thank you to our committee: Rob Bell, Kaz Robinson, Grace Ross and Peter Turner. The work that they have done and support that they have given in the background, often unnoticed, is very much valued. Rob has served for two years and gets to take a year off and we are very much in his debt for allowing us to use S.D.Bells for a couple of gatherings over the past year and committee meetings too — always a great wee place for a tasty breakfast or quality cup of tea! An additional thank you to Peter Turner who maintains our requirements for the Charity Commission. Thank you too to Joanne McAuley who has served as Honorary Treasurer for more years that I can remember at the moment: her meticulous work in keeping ‘the books’ right is valued by all and I know she would appreciate timely payment of subs in the new season.
In place of our usual Annual General Meeting in June, which you kindly agreed to postpone until this evening, we agreed to elect our new committee and I am delighted that Kaz, Peter and Grace were elected and agreed to serve again.
Rebecca Thompson was also elected that evening and having agreed to serve this year I am very glad to have her as part of the team. Also on that evening, one of the teams presented an idea of how to move forward on refreshing our performance look. I really appreciate the amount of time and effort that some members have already gone to on this project and it certainly gave us much to think about and got the ball rolling. Hopefully over the summer you have had time to think further on ideas and for those wishing to take this forward over the next few months, I will propose a direction to the team later this evening. We had our first committee meeting on Tuesday 2nd September and together we have gotten our 33rd season off to a great start.
But as ever, most of my thanks must go to Siobhan who just keeps the show on the road allowing Grosvenor to still exist - especially for the weekly late Monday nights as my mind comes down from our rehearsals and sleep tends to elude me!
I am always keen to receive suggestions of new repertoire or reviving pieces from previous seasons; no one wants to turn up week after week to sing music that they don’t like. (Well, there'll always be some pieces I suppose, but they'll grow on you!!) I trust that we will continue to give of our best, keeping singing together as Grosvenor as one of our ‘topp’ priorities in life and am excited about what we can achieve by next summer!
Treasurer’s Report
Subscriptions remain stable again this year, although approximately one third of this year’s total are late payments from last year! We've had a quiet year for concerts with the Carol Service gathering £1000 for Shelter NI and also payments for the Dalgliesh TV programme and the Charles Wood Summer Festival in August 2024. Concerts with Downshire Brass and in Killyleagh earned a few pennies as well. There are no outstanding bills this year.
Trustee:
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EdWard Craig
Trustee: Slepin Gor
Stephen Glover
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Trustee: Jo C
Joanne McA .: -
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Peter Turner