Audlem Voices 10th Anniversary

Audlem Voices – Tenth Anniversary Spectacular!

On Saturday evening Audlem Voices gave the performance of their lives – and I should know as I have listened to every piece, every day, for the last four months as my husband is an AV member – for his sins!

For those of us who attended this 'Tenth Anniversary' performance, we can only appreciate the time and effort which must have gone into such a mesmerising evening, after all a perfect performance is a joy, something you really can't put into words.

We all felt hugely privileged to have been allowed to be a part of their celebrations – this may have been a 'tin' anniversary, but the performance was 'golden'.

Audlem Voices performed 'Requiem' by Gabriel Faure, 'O Rejoice that the Lord has Risen' by Mascagni and 'Magnificat' by John Rutter – Jenny Collis-Smith, Audlem Voices Musical Director, is a huge fan of John Rutter's pieces and he certainly has a knack of writing choral music that shows off voices to their best advantage.

Faure's Requiem is unique. The anguish, loss and horrors of Death and Judgement Day are left by the wayside. Faure concentrates on the true meaning of the word 'Requiem', or 'rest'. His Requiem is about peaceful acceptance and release, and the music is serene, elevating, comforting.

When you're singing in front of an audience, you put yourself into a very intimate and vulnerable state that's close to sex. You experience the same sort of emotions, which is possibly why Audlem Voices members appear to have so many smiles on their faces when they perform!

Now there are two golden rules for a choir, start together and finish together, because
in a live performance, it's a collaboration with the audience – you ride the ebb and flow of the crowd's energy and your final reward is silence, broken by loud and spontaneous audience applause, which is what Audlem Voices received on Saturday night.

Not only did they have a choir of over thirty members, Musical Director Jenny Collis-Smith, who was also Audlem Voices' founder and Naomi Newman as their accompanist, but they were fortunate enough to have Denise Leigh and Kevin Whitfield as soloists.

The world must be filled with unsuccessful singing careers like mine, and it's probably a good thing. We don't need a lot of bad singers filling the air with unnecessary sounds, after all some of the professionals are bad enough, however at this Audlem Voices concert the two soloists – Denise Leigh and Kevin Whitfield reigned supreme, adding an extra level of emotion to the choir's performance.

Denise Leigh ( Soprano ) has come from performing worldwide, singing in the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing and the London Paralympics, to finally reaching the even dizzier heights of performing as a soloist at the Audlem Voices 10th Anniversary Concert – an honour only bestowed on the few.

There is nothing ordinary about Denise. She is a visually impaired woman of amazing determination who has tackled life's challenges and whose singing bypasses the intellect and appeals directly to your soul.There is a vulnerability in her voice that's to do with her fast vibrato. It's not a small voice, but it possesses a fragility that is very affecting causing a tide of emotion to sweep through an audience.

At the end of the Mascagni, for the briefest moment, silence reigned as Denise hit and sustained a top B, mesmerising the audience, who gazed upwards to check that the roof was still on the church and the stained glass windows were still intact. Thankfully all was well as we may need to be fundraising for Green Lane Field soon and church roofs don't come cheap – fortunately Helen Chantry was on hand to ensure any culpability would be firmly placed on Audlem Voices members, who are nothing if not a generous group, judging from the wine and nibbles provided at the interval.

Kevin Whitfield is a local Bass singer with a rich and powerful voice which he uses to its maximum benefits. We are truly blessed to have such a local talent in our midst.

As this was a memorable performance, John Gunstone and his crew of motley men had been brought in to film and record this auspicious occasion, risking life and limb attaching cameras and audio equipment to the church columns, which means that for those sad and unfortunate people who couldn't struggle across from the Lord Combermere to see Audlem Voices 'highlight of the year', we have provided a link so you can see what you missed! Click here to watch

For those of you who haven't got the time to spend watching it all, skip to 34.48 minutes in and put on your ear protectors – when Denise hits that top B!

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.