…And Relax

Phew! Well, it was alright on the night after all. I arrived at the church at about 6:30pm so I had a couple of hours to wait and hope that we would have a good turn out. The fact that the risers for the choir to stand on were being hastily hammered together around the back of the church at 7pm added an extra element of tension but I had pretty much decided by then to just chill and enjoy the singing.

At 7:30pm people began to arrive and we had a steady stream until 8pm. By the time everyone was in and the concert started I could breathe a sigh of relief. We didn’t pack the house, but it felt full enough to be respectable. I never managed to do an exact headcount but I reckon we had about eighty to ninety people. We had closed off the balcony so everyone would fill up the main part of the church and with the wind whipping up outside the atmosphere inside was just right. As for the concert itself…it was amazing. They started off with some classic hymns and southern spirituals that raised the hair on the back of my head. I think a lot of people had come just to support Barretstown…they didn’t really know what this choir was going to sound like but they figured it was for a good cause. I got the impression that people were a little bit stunned because they were so good. Good enough for a venue far grander than a little church in Dalkey. But the choir sang as if they were in the National Concert Hall, it didn’t seem to matter to them where they were or how small our numbers were, the singing and passion was just the same.

After a short interval they sang some more secular songs; folksongs and classics from around the world including a few numbers from Ireland. I don’t usually like Danny Boy, but their rendtion of it, complete with voices reproducing the droning of pipes, was beautiful. One of the favourites of the evening was Flight of the Bumblebee which raised a laugh because of some clever bee-swatting choreography. Their last piece was quite an emotional one; their conductor explained that this was the last concert of their tour and they would be returning to Arkansas the next day. Since many of the members would be graduating and leaving Harding that meant that this song would be the last one they would perform together as this particular group. So, there were a few tearful faces in the choir as they sang The Lord Bless You And Keep You. It was impossible not to be sucked in by it all.

So, I think it was a successful evening. Those who came had a wonderful night and I heard many comments along the lines of “If I’d known they were going to be this good, I would have invited more people…”
As well as that we raised over €1000 for Barretstown which is the most important thing.