Smarden Church and Biddenden Church: choir

Choir at St Michael Smarden and All Saints Biddenden

GENERAL INFORMATION

We take music in the parish very seriously and are fortunate to have some very good musicians and voices. We welcome your participation and support. We believe music is a crucial feature in our worship, but also that singing is:

• spiritually enlivening
• fun
• great excercise.

We offer everybody the opportunity to have the fun, enjoyment and challenge of learning to sing. Currently we have an age range in the choir of 9 to 89!

The Choir, which includes children, is a joint choir for All Saints Biddenden and St Michael Smarden, with members generally singing in their “home” church on Sundays but joining together for festivals such as Christmas, as well as weddings and funerals. The Choir also has close ties with the choirs of High Halden and Bethersden, with whom we sing regularly.

The choir is led by a professional musician and singer, and therefore offers high standards of tuition and a good foundation in singing well. We are following the Royal School of Church Music programme “Voice for Life”. The first of the first blue ribbons and medals were awarded shortly after Easter 2009.

We are ably supported by our organist and by our occasional music group of guitars and recorders. We aim to sing all styles and periods of music, from traditional hymns, psalms and carols right up to modern choruses and pieces written specifically for us.

Singing is not only spiritually important, it also is a great aerobic workout; it exercises virtually your whole body and your mind. It and is good for co-ordination, helps keep you fit and promotes good lung development and general health as well as being a good emotional outlet.

REHEARSALS VENUE

This alternates between as detailed below and can be checked by clicking on the diary page:

• All Saints Biddenden: most Thursdays in the month, and
• St. Michael Smarden: the Thursday preceding a first Sunday in the month when Matins is sung at Smarden — this is usually, but not always, the first Thursday in the month.

Lifts can be arranged and are encouraged.

CONTACT

If you want to know more about choir, please speak to Sophie Williams on 01580 291669.

CHILD PROTECTION

Biddenden Church and Smarden Church take the protection and supervision of children very seriously, and in accordance with general Church of England policy all regular adult choir members are required to have CRB clearance (we will arrange this for you).

FESTIVAL CHOIR

Each year extra members are invited to join the regular choir and form the Festival Choir, which attends rehearsals in the run-up to Christmas.

This year (2009), the Festival Choir sang the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah during the carol services of both villages. The Biddenden version was recorded and submitted to the BBC as part of the broadcaster's initiative encouraging amateur choirs to sing the famous chorus.

The recording can be either played using the play buttons below, or downloaded as an mp3 file via the clickable icon beneath the buttons, follow the instructions.

Play Hallelujah (if the buttons haven't appeared, check for a message at the top of your screen):

To download Hallelujah, right-click on the mp3 icon below and choose "Save target as" from the pop-up menu. This enables you to choose a place on your hard disk to store the file.

...And for a bit of light relief have a look at this video:

PIED BEAUTY

The poem "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins was put to music by our organist Bob Barnes (see words below). To listen to the first rendition by the choir, use the buttons below (if the buttons don't appear, check for a message at the top of your screen). Pied Beauty, by Bob Barnes, was first sung at Saint Michael Smarden Festival Evensong for Harvest, 10th October 2010.

To download Pied Beauty, right-click on the mp3 icon below and choose "Save target as" from the pop-up menu. This enables you to choose a place on your hard disk to store the file.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things —
  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
   For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
  Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
   And all trades, their gear and tackle trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
   With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
    Praise him.

Gerard Manley-Hopkins (1844-89)