. . our on the street newshound . . Helen "Bumnote" Burtt

PLEASE LET IT BE SPRING!

The weather has been so cold, grey and wet. The first few crocuses and snowdrops have been very brave but look rather lonely. Happily, our songs have become very colourful this term, with the addition of further levels of harmony. Verity seems confident that we can cope readily with three parts now and has upped to five parts this term for some songs. The added depth really gives another dimension to our music, but also entails a lot more concentration, so quite challenging for our recently joined members (and the rest of us!) Our first concert for this year is at our base, King’s Langley School, at the end of March, a chance to show off some of the new repertoire.

HOW BONA TO VADA YOUR DOLLY OLD EEK

We had a tease in the group about lallies (the background lyrics for the song about the pearl, and a bit of a tongue work-out). Rather than referring to the chest, the word is actually Polari for legs, and the above translates into “how good to see your nice/pleasant old face”, and was popularly used in Round the Horne by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams. Polari is slang derived from Romany and was widely used in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties among the theatrical/gay community. The word “naff” also dates from this era and originally stood for “not available for (sex!)”

GOOD COMPANY

A quick trawl of the web revealed the figure of approximately 25,000 choirs in the UK in 2006. This figure appeared in a Guardian article by conductor Ivor Setterfield, who featured in the Singing Estate, a TV series running the same year as Gareth Malone’s first choir series. Locally there are at least five more choirs started since then, including our own, so the national figure is substantially higher by now. That’s a crowd of people making, hopefully, a great noise, and shows how important music is to us. Seems like a lot of people still not singing though, but guess they are our BOS (bums on seats, folks) and get to enjoy their music a different way.

SINGING OFF THE SAME HYMN SHEET

Let’s hope those mellow vibes are weaving a spell of good feeling amongst all and we are riding on a wave to world peace. Need to get those world leaders chewing a few toffees and singing a few lallies. Barrack and Gordon, tenors or basses? British Parliament would be a chorus of castrati, I suspect…

2009 was KLCC’s first full year and what a year it was!

From the humble beginnings of having only 18 members, by the close of 2009 the choir had grown to over 50 members.

Here are some of the highlights of the year:

• Kings Langley Senior School concert
• Music on the Moor Festival in Hemel Hempstead
• Our own concert at the Clarendon Muse (Watford Boys Grammar School) with ticket buying public (over 100 turned up to hear us)
• BBC Radio 3 asked us to perform with 3 other choirs at Watford Grammar School to record us as a part of the 250th year celebration of death of Handel.
• We performed alongside two Barber shop / A Cappella groups at the  Berkhamsted Girls School in aid of St Francis Hospice in Berkhamsted which raised over £2,700
• We were asked to perform at Kings Langley’s annual Christmas Streetlight switching on event (with no less than three encores!).
• And to cap the year’s events we were approached by The Grove Hotel to perform on Christmas eve to all the guests at the hotel which was a really lovely event to be a part of.

KLCC has come of age and now we are starting to field enquiries from a number of people to go perform for their events. KLCC will this May perform at the Kings Langley Methodists Chapel in celebration of their 75 years in Kings Langley.

We have been informed that we are likely to be asked to perform at the House of Commons no less!

With other events on the calendar KLCC is very likely to get better known even more than we already are.

Verity Standen is the extremely talented Musical Director of KLCC – shortly before Christmas the choir was contacted by a Community Choir in New Jersey asking if they might use one of Verity’s arrangements for their Christmas events over there! Naturally we agreed and now we have occasional contact with the New Jersey choir exchanging ideas on music – who knows how that partnership might progress!

KLCC Needs Sponsors

The choir is looking for local business support – any business in the region for just a £100 sponsorship will be able to advertise on KLCC’s website as a choir sponsor.  www.klcc.co.uk which is a very busy website, getting over 100 unique hits every week. Not only will you be helping this great venture you will in return be able to advertise your business – so please email Brian on advertising@klcc.co.uk who will arrange for your advert to be created. This income will help keep the choir costs covered and come year end any excess in sponsorship will be given to KLCC’s nominated charity: Kings Langley Waterside Project – a centre for adults with learning difficulties. Become a

Onwards and upwards! Become a sponsor click here

After a couple of appearances at King's Langley school itself, we have branched out to Music on the Moor (that was so exciting, a proper festival venue on a lovely day and an enormous crowd, amongst some very prestigious local performers), our own concert at the Clarendon Muse (alias Watford School of Music at its new venue in front of Watford Boy's Grammar) which was a bit more knee knocking as it was just us, folks, on that night. And our last outing was at the Berkhamsted Collegiate School with the very polished Knights of Harmony and the ladies Amersham Acappella, who really made us up our game. we like to think we added our own little bit of sparkle to the evening.

Photo of the handing over of the cheque for £2,700 raised on October 10 for the Songs for Life Concert for The Hospice of St Francis - picture shows from right to left: Fiona Lines, Pippa Brush, Dick May, Sue Meehan