On Sunday 13^th October Mousehole Male Voice Choir (Keur Mebyon Porthenys), directed by Stephen Lawry and accompanied by Annette Turton,  were joined by some very special and most welcome guests to present a concert filled to overflowing with musical loveliness for Paul Feast in St. Pol de Leon Church.

The choir were delighted to welcome our good friends Celtic Male Ensemble under the leadership of Alastair Taylor as our special guests and another long-standing friend Hannah Pascoe who has been absent from our stage for far too long.

The skies were not on our side and the audience were rained on as they entered the church and took their seats but nothing dampened their enthusiasm as Celtic ME took the stage to open the concert with a medley of “We Shall Overcome” and “Lean On Me” followed by an arrangement of “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” written by MD Alistair Taylor in collaboration with Chairman Glen Graham and to end the set, “Stars” from Les Miserables.

Mousehole MVC then sang “Come And Go With Me” as they made their way onto the stage and followed that with “All Hail The Power Of Jesus’ Name”, “Thanks Be To God”, the traditional and always popular “Morte Christe” and finally “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in which we were joined by soprano Hannah Pascoe singing the solo part. It was lovely to see Hannah back with us again and we hope we do not have to wait too long for the next time.

Alastair introduced the next set by Celtic ME as “three new pieces – what could possibly go wrong?” but he need not have worried. This set was performed to the same high standard as we always see from this choir and was made up of “You Are the Reason”, “Who Wants to Live Forever” and a medley “Crazy ‘Bout Croonin’”

The first half ended with a hymn “And Can It Be?” which gave the audience a chance to stand and was accompanied by David Ceredig-Evans on the organ.

We then had a short break and photo opportunity for two of our new members who were making their debut this evening. Our youngest member, Lewis Harvey and the somewhat older but still youthful (in his mind anyway) Christian Semmens thoroughly enjoyed their first time on stage with us and we took a few snaps to remember the occasion by. MD Stephen Lawry said afterwards that he had been slightly concerned when the camera was turned sideways but this was only to get the whole choir into the frame and not anything at all to do with his waistline!

Mousehole started off the second half with a poem “On Newlyn Hill” and continued with “The Road Home” and “Dance With The Storm” before moving aside for Celtic to return to the stage for their last set consisting of “Fascinating Rhythm”, “Don’t Let Go”, “Soldier’s Farewell” (sung in recognition of the rapidly approaching time of remembrance) and ending with a very rousing version of “How Great Thou Art”.

The last set by Mousehole was “Bridge Over Troubled water”, “Evergreen” which was sponsored by our wonderful and hugely supportive Ladies Committee and lastly something to set the audience swaying in their seats, “Da Doo Ron Ron”.

To round off the official part of the evening Celtic joined us on stage for a joint performance of “We Rise Again”, conducted by Steve and accompanied by Alastair and which got the audience on their feet again as they gave us all an enthusiastic standing ovation.

This was the end of the concert but not of the singing as, after swiftly dismantling the staging, members of both choirs and some of the audience retired across the road to the King’s Arms for an “afterglow” and a good time was had by all.

The afterglow is a normal thing to follow not only all our concerts but all of our rehearsals too and so any new members will find us to be a very friendly and sociable bunch. We have welcomed four new members to the ranks in the last six Mondays, prompting chairman Brett Farmer to comment last night that “unusually, we had no new member to welcome”. The four have included one at 16 years of age and one of 19 years so you can see this is a choir open to men of all ages and a warm welcome will be extended to any who come along to Paul Church on Monday evenings between 7.30 and 9.30pm.

We give our thanks to our music team Stephen Lawry and Annette Turton, to our guest choir Celtic Male Ensemble under direction of (and accompanied by) Alistair Taylor, to guest soloist Hannah Pascoe, to David Ceredig-Evans who played the organ for the hymn, to Paul Church for their invitation on Sunday and for their hospitality every Monday evening, to King’s Arms in Paul for their help with ticket sales and their warm welcome when we go “over the road” for refreshments, to Morrab Studio for help with ticket sales, to Wild Associates for their creative poster and programme design and printing, to our lovely Ladies Committee, to all of the choir members who do so much behind the scenes to make the running of the choir and production of concerts such a success and last but by no means least, to our lovely audience who make all the hard work in rehearsal worthwhile.

Mousehole will be out again on 19^th October at St Andrews Church in Mevagissey as guests of Mevagissey MVC then on November 10^th at RBL Heamoor for a remembrance concert.

We especially look forwards to our Christmas concert in Paul Church on Friday 20^th December with our special guests Twin Harmony. Details of these and our other December engagements can be found on our website www.mouseholemalevoicechoir.com.