Choir Concerts
2024 Concerts
Christmas Concert 15th December
The Swifts Celebrate
Christmas in style
Were
you there at Holy Trinity Church on Sunday 15th December when the
Swift Singers, ably supported by Take Note, put on a great concert for a highly appreciative audience? If you weren’t
you missed a treat. The choir performed a mixture of Christmas songs such as Christmas
Shopping Blues and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and others such as The Rose. Our
guests Take Note, a men’s a capella group, provided a real contrast singing
such great songs as Rave On, Flanders and Swan’s The Hippopotamus song and
finishing with a rousing Jingle Bell Rock all performed unaccompanied. The
audience had the opportunity to take part singing a Carol in the first half and
The Twelve Days of Christmas in the second. They all looked as though they were
having a great time.
Well
Christmas is over and we hope you had a great time and we look forward to
seeing you at a concert in 2025. It only remains for us to wish you a Happy New
Year!
35th Anniversary Concert
This concert took place on the 28th September at the SWF Holy Trinity Church. It was a great success and the choir really enjoyed the concert. We had a wonderful soloist and a very appreciative audience.
Summer Concerts
The Swift Singers have been busy over the last couple of months. We’ve had the pleasure of singing in three different venues – two of which were invitations to join other choirs. Back in June we joined Leigh Orpheus Male Voice Choir to sing in Hadleigh. We had added two new songs to our repertoire - ‘Cover Me In Sunshine’ by Pink and ‘We Grow Strong’, composed by Matthew Emery and of course some old favourites ‘Let The River Run’, words and music by Carly Simon along with ‘Scarborough Fair’, an English folk song arranged by Jay Althouse.
In contrast, at the beginning of July we took a coach to the village of Burwash, near Hastings - home of Rudyard Kipling for half of his life. A beautiful village, with a population of just under 1500, steeped in history. We were raising money for St. Bartholomew's Church. It coincided with the evening of England’s quarter final with Switzerland when it had extra time, then penalties. We started to worry if there would be an audience! Certainly we lost a few but we soon had our audience tapping their feet to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (Freddie Mercury), ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ (originally released by US band ‘Journey’) and ‘Viva La Vida’ (recorded by ‘Coldplay’). One 15 year old lad thought we were ‘awesome’! Others commented ‘how did you sing 17 songs with no paper copies’. Well we’ve always done that!
Mid-July saw us in Westcliff singing with The Orpheus Singers, a ladies choir who perform around the Southend area. Due mostly to holidays, we were missing a few choristers- but that didn’t affect the quality of our singing – a lovely concert with several of the audience asking ‘When can you come again?’. Two joint numbers with the Ladies ‘Irish Blessing’ (Bob Chilcott), and ‘For The Beauty Of The Earth’ (John Rutter) – we raised the roof!
No rest for us as we will be back performing for you at our home concert in the Holy Trinity Church, South Woodham at 7.30pm, Saturday 28th September. This Concert marks the Swift Singers’ 35th Anniversary so it will be extra special. Put the date in your diary now – you don’t want to miss it. We would love to see you there. If you have any questions about the Swifts or our Anniversary Concert, please phone Jean, our Concert Secretary on 07966 676794.
Our first concert of the year was at Shirley Methodist Church in Croydon with the Excellent Croydon Male Voice Choir. We have been sharing joint concerts with this choir for over 20 years. It was a pleasure to take part with them as always. Click on the link below to see a Video of the Quodlibet we performed together:- I Believe / Ave Maria
THE SWIFTS GET GOING ! Article from Focus on 29th March 2024
The Swift Singers Ladies Choir has recently held it’s AGM and is now ready to fly into Spring and Summer.
We have a few ‘away’ concerts arranged which we are so excited about and are busy learning new songs to perform.
The first of our away concerts is planned for April, when we’ll be travelling to Croydon to join with our friends The Croydon Male Voice Choir for an evening of singing and then possibly ‘a little bit of socialising’.
Two more ‘away’ concerts in July will follow – one in Burwash (a delightful village in East Sussex, home to Rudyard Kipling) and another concert closer to home in Southend where will be joining The Orpheus Singers.
Other concerts are planned later in the Autumn/Winter and more information on those will follow closer to the time. Watch this space!
If you think you would like to join us or perhaps come along one evening to see what we’re all about, please get in touch with Jean on 07966 676794. We meet in SW Village Hall on Tuesday evenings at 8.15. Hope to see you soon!
2023 Concerts
On the 28th October we had a brilliant joint concert with The Leigh Orpheus Male Voice Choir.
June also took us to Peterborough where we had been invited to participate in the Peterborough International Womens Choral Festival in Peterborough Cathedral. There was a combined concert on Saturday 17th June for all the choirs who took part. It was a wonderful event and we learned a lot
On 10th June we had a very sucessful concert with the Male Voice Choir Men2Sing in South Woodham Ferrers at the William de Ferrers Centre.
Our first concert of the year was locally at Maldon URC on the 22nd April starting at 7.30pm.
On the 20th May 2022 we gave a concert at Chelmsford Cathedral as part of their popular Lunchtime series
Our final concert for our 30th Anniversary year was also Clive's last performance with the Swift Singers. We welcomed the Leigh Orpheus Choir to South Woodham Ferrers for a combined Christmas concert- Gaudete. Both choirs performed a selection of traditional, modern and quirky christmas music, including Gaudete, This Little Babe, The First Nowell, Jingle Bells, Winter Solstice, A Guiding Star. Janet and Clive performed a wonderful duet and both choirs joined for a rousing performance of the Hallelujah Chorus. We were fundraising for Clive's chosen charity - Barrow Farm Riding for the Disabled, and were able to send them a sizable donation after the evening. At the end of the concert both choirs presented Clive with retirement gifts, including a photobook with memorable moments from the Swift Singers last 25 years! I think all agreed that the evening was a great success! Please see the picture gallery for a selection of photos of the evening.
Several videos from our trip to Spain 2019