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In
1993 a group of “rookie” male voice choir singers met in St James
Barn, the residence of one of the singers, to make music together.They had just discovered the pleasure of singing in a male voice
choir and wanted to explore the distinctive repertoire.So was born St James
Singers.
As
our tenth birthday passes into history, we have certainly come a long
way from those early days, securing an enviable reputation throughout
Oxfordshire and beyond as a small and talented a
capella male voice ensemble.
We
have given over 120 concerts drawing on an eclectic repertoire
covering 12 centuries of sacred and secular vocal music. This
includes plainchant, medieval songs, renaissance motets,
madrigals,Victorian
parlour songs, glees, West Gallery music, early American
psalms, folksongs, Welsh hymns, part-songs, spirituals and evenspecially
written arrangements of modern ‘pop’ songs and our own commissioned
work.
Being
small in number, St James Singers often performs at functions where
space is limited. However, the group aspires to provide high quality
musical entertainment for all tastes, occasions and situations whether
meeting room or concert platform. Past engagements have ranged from
private parties, weddings and business functions to fund-raising events
for local and national charities and churches; from Christmas concerts
and Women’s Institute parties to recitals at music festivals.Concerts typically include a wide variety of music, usually
themed to the venue or occasion and with our unusual all male line-up
and diverse repertoire, demand for our singing is growing rapidly.
To
mark our 10th anniversary, we recorded our first commercial
CD entitled
“Wantage Bells” and the 21 tracks include a representative
sample of our performance repertoire, both ancient and modern.
The
CD costs just £10 and is on sale at all our concerts. |