We expected good, we got great! The occasion was Mousehole Male Voice Choir’s 90^th Summer Festival Concert. The concert was held in St Mary’s Church, Penzance in front of a large audience including Colonel Edward Bolitho OBE the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall and Councillor Will Elliott the Deputy Mayor of Penzance.

The choir under the direction of Musical Director Stephen Lawry and accompanied by Annette Turton sang their first piece as they walked into the church and took their places on the stage and it was “Come and Go With Me”. Stephen had been concerned that the spotlights behind him along the sides of the church might reduce him to a silhouette and difficult for the choir to see him properly but his choice of waistcoat made sure that didn’t happen!

We continued our first set with “Sound Celebration”, “As Long As I Have Music”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Dance With The Storm.

As Long As I Have Music was conducted by Assistant Musical Director David Williams.

The wonderful acoustics in the church were notable as our guest soloist Matthew Ioan Sims replaced the choir on stage. Matthew’s powerful voice took full advantage of the venue as he launched into his first piece “O Sole Mio”, then continued with “Caro Mio Ben” and “Some Enchanted Evening”. All of Matthew’s pieces were accompanied by David Caredig-Evans on piano.

David remained at the piano for the first piece of the choir’s second set “I Will Rise”. This piece also features three solo vocal parts by Top Tenor Charles Parke, Second Tenor Graham Warren and Baritone David Williams. Next, Annette returned to the piano to accompany the rest of the choir pieces which continued with “The Steady Light”, “Evergreen” (which was sponsored by the choir Ladies Committee) and the highly popular “Da Doo Ron Ron”.

Matthew Ioan Sims finished off the first half with “Bring Him Home” and “Stars”, both of which are taken from the musical “Les Miserables”.

The half time interval was a perfect opportunity for our President Kath Matthews to present a 20 year long service badge to baritone Richard Blewett. Congratulations Richard!

The choir returned to the stage to begin the second half with “There’s Nothing Like Pilchards”, “The Road Home” with the solo part sung by Second Tenor Stephen Sedgeman, “Cornwall My Home” and “On Newlyn Hill”.

Matthew Ioan Sims’ final set of “Hushabye Mountain”, Cilfay Y Coed and “I’ll Walk With God” got an immediate and well-deserved standing ovation.

The final set by the choir was “Thanks Be To God”, “Like A River In My Soul” and “All Hail The Power” before Matthew joined us to sing “Morte Christe”. After this piece the applause was such that an encore was clearly in order, so the choir finished the concert with “We Rise Again”. After this the choir also received a standing ovation!

This evening was the debut concert for two new choristers Des Johns and Martin Bailey. We welcome them to the ranks and hope they enjoyed their first outing and that they will continue to do so for many years to come.

Our sincere thanks go to St Mary’s Church for hosting us, to Matthew Ioan Sims for travelling all the way from Wales to sing with us (and we will definitely be seeing more of Matthew in the future), to our lovely Mousehole Male Voice Choir Ladies Committee for their unstinting support throughout the year as well as tonight, to our MD Stephen Lawry who has worked so hard to get us ready for this concert, to Deputy MD David Williams, to our two invaluable accompanists Annette Turton and David Caredig-Evans, to page turner June Stevens, to Ken Prouse for his floral arrangements and to Morrab Studio and King’s Arms in Paul for their help with ticket sales. We also thank the Bath Inn for hosting our “afterglow” where, after some refreshments, “social singing” continued into the late evening.