Alton Choral Society gave its annual Music for an Autumn Afternoon concert at St Mary’s Church in Bentworth on October 26.
The concert was part of a series of events held to celebrate the recent refurbishment of St Mary’s which includes a new kitchen, toilets, lighting and wooden flooring.
The choir, directed by Wendy Busby and accompanied by Jane Palmer, delighted a large audience with a choral medley from Les Miserables by Claude Michel Schonberg and a collection of West End hits by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
There were also solo performances, by soprano Alison Crow - singing Here amongst the Shady Woods by Handel and By Strauss by Gershwin - and alto Nancy Buck, who sang a second Handel aria, How Beautiful are the Feet, from The Messiah.
In keeping with the autumn theme, bass David Sheraton sang Vaughan Williams’ arrangement of Linden Lea. Pianist Patrick Busby followed this with Franz Liszt’s Concert Paraphrase on Rigoletto which is a stunning reinvention of the tune to the Verdi aria Bella filglia dell’amore.
More than £700 was raised through a raffle and ticket sales. Some of the proceeds from the concert will be given to the charity Dementia-friendly Alton.
Alton Choral Society’s next concert will be The Wonder of Christmas in the Alton Maltings Centre at 7pm on December 7, in aid of Home-Start.
The choir will be joined by the excellent Alton Concert Band and the Ancora female voice choir for what promises to be a great and lively musical start to the Christmas period.