Our repertoire of music
The choir's repertoire is extensive, and ranges from the sixteenth century to the present day. Much of its concert programme is drawn from the traditional male voice choir repertoire but there are many other types of music that Bolsterstone Male Voice Choir can perform.
Our extensive repertoire includes:
- Rock and pop classics such as Love is All Around (Troggs), American Trilogy (Elvis Presley), Angels (Robbie Williams) and Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen).
- Pieces from popular classical composers like Schubert, Janacek, Handel and Dvorak who wrote music specifically for the male chorus. We also sing little-known masterpieces from composers, not well known for male choral music, like Elgar, Copeland, Rachmaninov and Bruckner.
- Religious music provides some choir classics. Hymns like Llanfair, and the Ave Maria are part of our current repertoire. Gwahoddiad might not be well known outside of Wales but the finale makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
- Songs from operas and musicals provide a rich choice of choral material. We sing choruses from operas by Wagner, Puccini, and Verdi and songs from popular shows like Les Miserables, West Side Story and Phantom Of The Opera.
- Popular songs, old and new, feature in our concerts. The Victorian classic 'The Lost Chord' by Sir Arthur Sullivan is a choir favourite and the beautiful setting of the English folk song, 'Linden Lea' by Ralph Vaughan Williams is also very popular in both competitions and concerts. We also sing modern classics like 'Cavatina' and 'Portrait of my love' as well as medleys from the work of Cole Porter, the Beatles and Ebb and Kandor.
- No male voice choir could possibly ignore the great spirituals and in our concert programme the choir includes many American spirituals and folk songs.
- A South African compilation by Gwyn Arch called African Trilogy has been a very successful addition to our programme and necessitates the choir stamping their feet all at just the right time.
- Christmas carols are a high point of our musical year. As well as the well known traditional Christmas hymns we also sing carols from the Yorkshire tradition like 'Stannington' and 'Oughtibridge' and, of course, the "Bolsterstone anthem", 'Hail Smiling Morn'.
The choir has sung in a number of languages, including Czech, Italian, French, German, Latin and Welsh. This willingness to take on the difficult challenges posed by other languages is also reflected in the Choir's commitment to new music.
For instance, Bolsterstone MVC has commissioned new pieces of music several times and recent examples are several settings by our former Musical Director, Christopher Wiltshire. The first and most successful was 'What May This Mean', which uses the words from Shakespeare's Hamlet, where the young Prince sees the ghost of his father on the battlements of Elsinore Castle.
The choir normally sings accompanied by a piano/clavinova or 'a capella', but it has sung with the Band of HM Royal Marines and with the Band of the Welsh Guards. It has also sung with symphony orchestras and with magnificent pipe organs and has sung as a part of massed choir concerts. The choir has been honoured to appear with great brass bands, famous singers and fine instrumentalists.
Since late 1998, the Choir has been fortunate to have its own mobile staging and clavinova, which were both bought with funds provided by the National Lottery. The staging ensures that every chorister can be seen by the audience and (importantly) that they can all see the conductor! Furthermore, the arrangement improves the Choir's sound because the individual parts can be positioned to best advantage.
We have also been able to buy sound equipment that has been of great value in venues without their own sound system. The most obvious lottery purchase, however, is our trailer for the equipment that we take to various venues because it has a giant Choir logo on the side!