Albion

Chance, Miscast and Musicals… who would have thought Sweet Transvestite would end up like this?

Go and get it!

Recital of Art Songs by two soloist in Sheffield with piano accompianment! Choose to listen!

“One of my favourite songs is ‘Jerusalem’. This was one of the first six songs of Albion’s repertoire, and it is one of very few that have remained completely unchanged in the last four years. So often this is sung as a triumphant hymn, stomped out in church halls around the country, and the Albion arrangement gives that warm sense of patriotism, whilst challenging the singer listener to think about what it is the words are saying. It is a timeless and wonderful example of Albion in action.” - Benedict Rowe

“’Ding Dong Merrily on High’ is one of my favourite pieces to sing with Albion. It’s so jazzy and unlike anything else that Albion sing. I love the element of surprise and the pleasure it brings both us and the audience.” - Amy Wright

For this concert, we performed a Vaughn Williams suite, which was made up of our arrangements of some of the folk songs he collected. This included pieces such as Greensleeves, I Heard The Voice, Linden Lea, Bonny Boy and Oliver Cromwell. 

Not only was this Jeremy’s first “Albion weekend” (wherever possible, we try to have concerts on consecutive days), but his first ever concert was in All Saints Church, Northampton, where Tilly spent 10 years as a chorister. Albion have been on lots of adventures around the country, and we have especially enjoyed visiting the hometowns of our singers. 

Once upon a time, there were a group of singers who sang deep under a hillside in Derbyshire (have I mentioned that we sang in a cave?). This involved them scrabbling up slippery rocks, and finding their way through dark passages. They decided that the best way to guide themselves and others through the darkness would be to use lanterns. These lanterns travelled with them wherever they went, providing an extra bit of twinkle and an extra bit of magic to every performance. (They also helped keep their hands nice and toasty warm in especially cold venues)

“I love the “Invocation” because – Quaker or not – the words share important truths for living life well. Each time I sing them I feel challenged to live them out.” - Philippa Wilson

“I love the “Invocation” because – Quaker or not – the words share important truths for living life well. Each time I sing them I feel challenged to live them out.” - Philippa Wilson

“One of my favourite memories of Albion was having to run (carefully!) from the Devil’s Staircase to scramble up the side of the great cave in order to access the hidden corridor in time to regain my breath” - Martha Hayward

In 2015, we recorded a few tracks for Sheffield People’s Theatre’s production of ‘Camelot’. This was a fantastic performance, which started in the Crucible theatre. The audience were then taken out into Tudor Square, with headphones on, where the action continued, and later the Peace Gardens. There were explosives, arguments, synchronised dramatic movements, flaming swords and occasionally in the background, occasionally the foreground, the sound of Albion through the headphones. We sang a number of pieces composed especially for the project by Heather Fenoughty.

CONGRATULATIONS BECKY AND TOM! Today is their wedding day, and we are all very very very excited about it! 

Here we are singing our “theme tune” in the Sheffield Millennium Galleries just before the Choral Celebration in Spring 2014

This was a wonderful gig to be part of – we got to perform to new audiences, and it was totally unlike anything we had done before. But then, we are rather fond of stepping out of our comfort zone.

Holy Trinity has been our home for many years, with our first concert there in Summer 2012. It is were we had the majority of our rehearsals, and recorded much of our three CD’s. Whenever we perform at Holy Trinity, we are hit with an overwhelming sense of support, and love for what we do. 

(This is an image that improves with age. Really take your time to study each face individually. You will not regret it. Every time I look at it, I seem to enjoy it even more - Jenny)