Community, Parish Council & Village
The West Bergholt Concert Band are heading to Tiptree next Saturday (15th July) where their theme is a Centenary of Music. Taking place in St Lukes Church the event is in support of the Friends of St Lukes who are raising money for repairs to the church extension. Continue reading “A Centenary of Music in Tiptree – Concert Band”
The Comrie Singers together with Jubilant Brass and The 3 Saxes (all amateur groups from Colchester), gave a concert in St Mary’s Old Church on Sunday 25th June. The audience were entertained with a varied and beautiful programme of music ranging from Continue reading “Comrie Singers at Old Church”
Music at Flatford MillThe West Bergholt Concert Band are performing in a free concert at Flatford next Sunday 11th June between 2pm – 4pm.
Flatford lies in the heart of the beautiful Dedham Vale. This charming hamlet was the inspiration for some of John Constable’s most Continue reading “Music by the Mill – Concert Band at Flatford”
£200 to go! Keep the Bell RingingThe Friends of St Mary’s Old Church latest ‘Keep the Bell Ringing’ event, Maytime Melodies, was a great success. Taking place on Saturday 13th May it was a wonderful melange of music sung by Tom Cogan, Elizabeth Cobb and accompanied by Penny Marsden. They entertained us with Continue reading “£200 to go! Keep the Bell Ringing”
Nearing Target – Keep The Bell Ringing AppealNearing target, the appeal total now stands at £9,480.22, so it is quite possible that you can help it top the £10,000 over the next 2 weeks. The next event, in a series of events, is a Maytime Melodies concert. The concert programme includes Continue reading “Nearing Target – Keep The Bell Ringing Appeal”
Bach to the Beach BoysGraham Wilson reports on the Concert Band’s activities:
The band are well into rehearsals for our first concert of the year. This will again be raising money for St Helena Hospice at Clacton’s West Cliff Theatre. This year’s concert features music from “Bach to the Beach Boys”, ranging from Vaughan-Williams, Henry Mancini and Waldteufel to South Pacific, Glenn Miller and the Beatles…so come along for a great afternoon of music on Sunday 12th March at 3pm. Tickets are just Continue reading “Bach to the Beach Boys with Concert Band”
The West Bergholt Concert Band’s next outing is to the church of St Peter ad Vincula, Coggeshall. Starting at 7:30pm on Saturday 10th December they promise to give a “Christmas Cracker of a concert, full of Christmas favourites, old & new”.
Music will include: Continue reading “Christmas Cracker Concert at Coggeshall”
1966 And All That1966 was a memorable year for many things, most notably England winning the World Cup after the Cup was lost but then found by Pickles. But locally music made a name for itself as the Radio Caroline pirate radio ship MV Mi Amigo ran aground on the beach at Frinton. With Pirate Radio pulsing on the airwaves everybody was in to the latest music and West Bergholt Concert Band aim to bring that all back to life in their special concert for Children In Need.
The Concert Band will be playing a selection of music both from and inspired by the revolutionary year that was 1966; it will include:
The concert takes place in the Church of St Mary the Virgin on Saturday 19th November from 7:30pm. Tickets are available on the door, £5 for adults, under-18s free.
The band have already been very busy around the village this autumn, holding an open rehearsal at Heathlands in September and a primary school workshop (again at Heathlands) in October. Coming up as well we have a concert in the Church of St Mary in November, and of course we’ll be playing for the village Remembrance Service.
Surprisingly the workshop was the first one we’ve held at Heathlands, as historically the school musicians were encouraged to join the band by its founder Sid Cooper who taught music there. These days our approach to maintaining a wide range of ages in the band is to hold regular primary school workshops, which have proven to be an incredibly popular and fun way for us to encourage tomorrow’s musicians. We were delighted to see so many players from Heathlands join us for the workshop and perform a wonderful “mini concert” at the end of it, and to see such enthusiasm for music at the school. The final word goes to somebody at the workshop…
The band made everyone feel very welcome indeed – what a fun afternoon!
At the time of writing this, we’re looking forward to performing our “1966 And All That” concert in the village. This will be our first concert on home turf for a couple of years. This time we’ll be raising money for Children In Need to add to the £35,000 that we’ve raised for local & national charities since we started recording the amounts a dozen years ago. That amount includes:
As always we’ll end the year with a concert featuring the wonderful music of Christmas. This year we are at the beautiful St Peter ad Vincula Church in Coggeshall again on Saturday 10th December at 7:30pm. The concert will include music from Vaughan-Williams, Irving Berlin, Leroy Anderson (Sleigh Ride), The Beach Boys (Little Saint Nick) and many others. We’ll also be performing a selection of carols, some to sing to, and some beautiful arrangements that are perfect for listening to. We hope you’ll join us for a lovely evening of festive music in a lovely setting.
As always, details on all of our events are available on the band website www.wbcb.org. New players of any age are always welcome to come along on Friday evenings at Heathlands School, or our next Open Rehearsal on 20th January. We look forward to seeing you at our Christmas Concert, and we wish you a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year.
The Friends of St Mary’s have two upcoming events that might prove of interest, one a visit from an expert on church history and the other an afternoon concert:
On Wednesday, 29 June, respected historian John Vigar will be including St Mary’s Old Church on his Tour of Historic Churches. The coach tour will arrive to look around and at about 2.30pm John will give Continue reading “St Mary’s Old Church – History & Concert”