News Archives - March 2010

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Monday 22nd March 2010

Joseph in the Spring - March 19, 2010

Once again, on March 19, the Town Hall saw an almost capacity audience for the Spring concert of Wyre Forest Young Voices and Primary Chords. We were treated to some first-class performances, including a soprano solo, There’s a fine, fine line (Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx) by Natalie Evans and a French horn solo, the Romanze from Mozart’s concerto no. 3 in E flat, by Rachel Stone, for both of whom these were their first solo performances. The Young Voices began the proceedings with Les Raftsmen (traditional Quebecois, arr. Mark Sirett), Ose Shalom (John Leavitt) and Dry Bones (trad. Spiritual arr. Mark Hayes). The Young Voices Chorale – the senior and more experienced members of the group – contributed Geoff Weaver’s arrangement of Somewhere over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen) and the ever-popular Chatanooga Choo Choo (Harry Warren).

The 24 members of the youngest group in the KCS family, Primary Chords, sang two groups of songs in the first half of the concert. In the first group we heard two songs relating to Spring – Silver the River (Paulus and Browne) and Uno ballada amarilla (Bob Chilcott), followed by two songs from My Fair Lady – The Rain in Spain and I could have danced all night. In the second group any lingering inhibitions vanished as they rendered The Ugly Duckling and The King’s new Clothes, made famous by Danny Kaye in the Disney film, Hans Christian Andersen. Once again, we saw in the expertise, the range of expression and the confidence of this young group of singers ample evidence of the high quality of the training they receive from Carol Hill and Nicci Lane.

The second half of the concert consisted of a concert performance of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. For this the Young Voices were joined by a five-piece band – Carolyn Hiscock and Chris Gumbley (woodwind), Rob Willis (bass), David Howles (percussion) and Mike Elden (keyboard) – which contributed in no small measure to the kaleidoscope of rhythm and sound colour of this extremely varied work. The soloists were Nicole Stone (Joseph), Faith Newrick (Narrator), Christina Lloyd Hall (Reuben), Lydia Hiles (the Butler), Lizzie Field (the Baker) and, back from college in Manchester for one night only, Stuart Orme (Pharaoh). Faith was unfortunately suffering a touch of laryngitis, which muted her customary incisive tones, but more generally the soloists were hard pressed to make themselves heard above the band and the serried ranks of the chorus. Nonetheless, a solid performance full of variety and beautiful sound.

The concentration, discipline and self-confidence fostered by this activity of choral singing shines through every performance by the Young Voices, who evidently appreciate the great privilege that is theirs of working with professionals of the high standard of Geoff Weaver, Mike Elden and Suzzie Vango. The choir will have further opportunities to showcase their skills at a “Choirworks Showcase” for members of choral societies from around Worcestershire and Herefordshire, in May, a concert at Great Witley Parish Church in June, and on a tour to North-East England in July.

Ray Harrowing

Wednesday 17th March 2010

In Memoriam Renault Beakbane

Renault died peacefully on August 2, 2009.  He was 86, and had been in failing health, exacerbated by the death the previous January of his wife Joan, whom he had nursed through a distressing degenerative illness for some years. 

 Renault was a Quaker and his funeral at Stourbridge Crematorium on August 20, at which around ten of us from KCS were present, took the form of a Quaker meeting.  The silence was broken only by warm recollection and anecdotes from members of his family.  Finally a recording of Mozart’s Laudate Dominum was played – most noble, soaring music which seemed entirely fitting to the occasion.

 Renault was for many years a highly respected local businessman and a significant benefactor in the Kidderminster area.  In the 1880s his grandparents had set up a leather tannery business in Stourport.  After gaining a degree in chemistry at Leeds, Renault joined the family business, which at the time specialised in leather for garments.  He started making bellows from the off-cuts: the engineer in him realised there was enormous potential for bellows to protect moving parts in engines and other machinery – pistons, shock absorbers and so on.  Subsequently Renault founded Beakbane Ltd in 1954 to manufacture bellows, and the factory established at Oldington in 1960 continues to make bellows, covers and other machinery protection items – leather now entirely replaced by polymers, metals and composite materials.  It is a very specialised business and the company has a highly successful international presence.

 Renault joined KCS in the late 50s and served on the Committee for several years.  He and Joan hosted a number of gatherings at “Jacobs Ladder” for KCS – notably Christmas “At Homes” and summer parties.   As many will remember, Renault’s company for some years sponsored our concert programmes, with quirky cartoons by the illustrator Marc Vyvyan-Jones, and such captions as “…Sponsored by Beakbane….Purveyors of Music to the Cognoscenti and Bellows to the Masses”!  One memory of Renault was during rehearsal breaks when he would produce a tin of “Melloids”, offering them to the first basses and to selected altos!  When we were learning the Britten War Requiem – completely new to most of us – Renault issued an open invitation to KCS members to come to “Jacobs Ladder” to listen to his CD of the work.  I went on one of the appointed evenings, I was a little late, and the only one from KCS that night to call, but he and family members made me most welcome.

 In later years Renault kept horses and rode with the Ludlow Hunt - for the riding, he said. For a time he was Master of the Worshipful Company of Glovers which must have given him an entrée into some interesting, certainly esoteric aspects of London life!

 In the nicest possible way Renault was quite an eccentric man, and stories and anecdotes about him are legion.  He drove from South Africa to the UK in an early Land Rover, crossing the Sahara.  He built a 12ft dinghy at Kidderminster College of Further Education and sailed single-handed across the English Channel.  He arranged a Beakbane publicity stunt employing elephants from a travelling circus which was in town at the time.  He overcame exclusion from a trade exhibition at Olympia by pitching a caravan outside the hall.  He organised incredible outdoor children’s parties, one escapade involving scrambling down at night with torches into the head of Habberley Valley!

 He was a kind man, cheerful and considerate.  He certainly had a long, active and fulfilled life.

 Peter Knott

Wednesday 10th March 2010

Centre Stage

At Choral Society concerts in the Town Hall, even when the organ is not being played, its presence at the very centre of proceedings is unmistakeable.  That is how the builder, William Hill, meant it to be – a concert organ, taking pride of place in the Music Room of the then new Town Hall.  Completed in 1850, it was in fact one of the earliest concert organs, and it continues to be used in that way , despite the difficulties that are inevitable in a 160-year-old mechanism.

 Audience members and singers alike will know how much the organ contributes to our concerts, but it is also very well-known as a solo instrument. Over the years since it was last rebuilt in 1982, such leading organists as Francis Jackson, Nigel Ogden, Carlo Curley and Thomas Trotter have given concerts, and the group that is dedicated to publicising it – the Hill Organ Promotion Society – continues to arrange a number of lunchtime recitals during the year at which the organ can be heard to best advantage. In the Spring and Summer this year, concerts are as follows:

• April 8 – Tim Morris (Town Hall Organist)
• May 20 – Trevor Tipple (St. Martin’s Church, Worcester)
• June 10 – David Brookshaw (King’s School, Worcester)
• July 8 – John Wilderspin (Royal Grammar School, Worcester)

Recitals start at 1.10 p.m., and last for about an hour.

Later in the year, recitalists will include Birmingham Cathedral’s Marcus Huxley, who is well-known to Kidderminster Choral Society.

Full details of all the recitals can be found on www.Concert-Diary.com or www.organrecitals.com.

Ray Harrowing