My Advent Calendar – 11 Dec – A free choir concert

When I talked about our last choir rehearsal, I kept a secret from you – that we had a little concert planned at the Wellington Museum. That was my fun activity for today. We didn’t sing Christmas songs, though, our theme was peace and freedom.

Here’s a picture of the Wellington Museum, down on the waterfront, with a picture of our new flag overlaid on it. It’s housed in a heritage building built in 1892. Their website says that it was originally:

known as the Bond Store, where it was a bonded cargo warehouse holding goods

In 1972, it became the Wellington Harbour Board Maritime Museum. Then in 1999, it:

became the Museum of Wellington City & Sea with a mission to preserve, present and promote Wellington’s social, cultural and maritime heritage.

If you want to learn more about it, visit the website here

Here’s the actual flag, outside the museum entrance.

There were maybe 40 of us, out of the more than 100 members that typically turn up each week for rehearsal. Sadly, again no videos, but there are a couple of photos. Here’s just over half of the sopranos, then the tenors and a few of the basses. More basses and altos to your right, and more sops to your left. The very bright one is me.

And here’s all of the sops. Such a good look, all with our mouths open, isn’t it?

So what did we sing? A lot of the songs we’ve been doing recently have been from a couple of books of songs written or arranged by choir leaders from around the world. So that means you won’t know most of them. But I’ll give you the words and you can imagine the lovely harmonies.

Our opening medley started with “All shall be well” which we performed in a round.

All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Next up was “Twist in the Air” by Alison Burns.

There’s a twist in the air and the scent of summer on the rain (4x), and trust me when I tell you, I’ve waited such a long, long time, for a twist in the air and the scent of summer on the rain

Then “Lay Down your Sword and Shield”

There are some similarities in the words to “Down by the Riverside” but completely different tune. This one really is lovely. The sopranos and altos sing:

Lay down your sword and shield, lay your weapons down, lay down your guns, by the river side

While the men sing:

Ain’t gonna study war, ain’t gonna study war, lay down your guns, lay down your guns, by the river side

I’m Standing on that Rocky land

Now this one I managed to find on Youtube, performed by another New Zealand community group – the Napier Gospel Choir

I Can Hear A Train A Comin

Ooh, ooh, I found this on Youtube too, by an English Community Choir

And we finished with Love One Another

Love one another and you will be happy, it’s as simple and difficult as that, there is no other way, there is no other way

This one we performed with sign language movements.

And one last photo of us.

One day, hopefully, I’ll get to share videos of US singing!

• Day 1 – Carol singing with the NZ Symphony Orchestra
• Day 2 – Kilbirnie Santa Parade
• Day 3 – Posting overseas Xmas cards & a Xmas themed exercise class
• Day 4 – Last minute book buying
• Day 5 – Last choir rehearsal for the year
• Day 6 – Choosing gifts for the Xmas game
• Day 7 – Xmas lunch with my exercise class
• Day 8 – Xmas spiced nuts
• Day 9 – Xmas tree time
• Day 10 – Last arthritis class for the year, and a sugar free brownie recipe

See you tomorrow!

Thanks for reading & listening

Photos from the choir Facebook page. Videos from Youtube.

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