{"id":1072,"date":"2025-04-09T11:44:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T10:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2025-04-09T11:56:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T10:56:02","slug":"witchert-chorale-in-the-cotswolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/?p=1072","title":{"rendered":"Witchert Chorale in the Cotswolds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It had been ten years since we last sang in Bledington, thanks to the lovely connection through Ann\u2019s parents, Sue and Tony, who live there. They\u2019d been hoping to bring the Witchert Chorale back for another performance, and we were more than happy to oblige. Our concert theme this time was ‘Motherhood’, which perfectly complemented the Mothering Sunday weekend.

The setup in the church was, let\u2019s say, \u2018snug\u2019 but with David\u2019s expert wrangling, we all managed to fit. After a solid afternoon rehearsal, our tired legs and parched throats were saved by a seriously top-tier spread of cakes and tea, laid out in the sun-filled room at The Old Vicarage. Total bliss.

Once we\u2019d changed into our concert gear, we lined up and made our way through Bledington\u2019s shadowy little back lanes\u2014very atmospheric!\u2014and popped out beside the church, which looked pretty magical all lit up against the twilight sky.

The audience rolled in and filled the place right up. We kicked things off with the ever-beautiful ‘Bogoroditse Devo’ by Rachmaninoff, then moved through a lovely selection of pieces celebrating the Virgin Mary, with Tony reading some thoughtful poetry in between. All that time we\u2019d spent practicing German and Czech definitely paid off!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the interval, there were drinks and some delicious canap\u00e9s (which we definitely appreciated). The second half leaned more into the sentimental\u2014exactly the kind of music you\u2019d hope to hear on Mother\u2019s Day. We wrapped things up with an encore of Billy Joel\u2019s \u2018Lullaby,\u2019 which went down an absolute treat with the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-concert, we headed back to The Old Vicarage for a relaxed supper and a few drinks, hosted so generously by Sue and Tony. And because we can\u2019t seem to go too long without singing, it wasn\u2019t long before music was being passed around and we were back at it again. John Rutter\u2019s pieces were a hit\u2014with us and Sully, the rescue dog, who added her own special touch with some surprisingly tuneful howls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The icing on the cake? We raised around \u00a31000 for charity. All in all, a really lovely day full of music, laughter, and that warm fuzzy feeling only singing (and motherhood) can bring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It had been ten years since we last sang in Bledington, thanks to the lovely connection through Ann\u2019s parents, Sue and Tony, who live there. They\u2019d been hoping to bring the Witchert Chorale back for another performance, and we were more than happy to oblige. Our concert theme this time was ‘Motherhood’, which perfectly complemented … Continue reading Witchert Chorale in the Cotswolds<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-and-reflections","with-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.witchert.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}