A Beautiful Performance

People streamed into the parish hall. A hum of voices and the scraping of plastic chairs on the wooden floor filled the room. From my place in the audience I could just see the choir moving into position in front of the audience and finding their pages in their books. If I lent a little to the right I could just see Imogen sitting in the choir but Dad and Callum were hidden by old ladies.

The conductor stepped up onto a little table so that the whole of the choir could see her. One of the singers sat at a keyboard and started the soft accompaniment. At the wave of the conductor's hands the choir burst into song. I don't know how they understand the strange language of waving hands and sticks but somehow singers do.

Imogen's high voice was clearly noticeable among the slightly lower voices of the other sopranos. I could hear her through the whole performance but especially on the high notes. Imogen has the highest voice in the choir and is the only one comfortable on the highest notes.

If I listened carefully I could make out Dad and Callum's voices rumbling away in the bass section. Even when they were being trains and chuffing along it sounded brilliant. I don't see why any choir would want to pretend to be trains but still they did it wonderfully.

The choir sang heaps of songs, broken up by a few solo performances. One of the singers sang two solo pieces. One of them had the audience chuckling and whispering to each other. The other was much sadder and the audience sat hushed through it all. Another time the conductor's husband played 'Over the Rainbow' on the keyboard.

The whole performance lasted an hour and half but it didn't feel half so long. It didn't feel like I had been sitting there for that long when Dad, Imogen and Callum came to collect me.

In our parish there is a group of ladies who are famous for their sandwich making abilities. We always hope when there is an event in the parish that they will be organizing the food. Thankfully they were at this event and had brought heaps of their sandwiches along with loads of scones, cupcakes and biscuits. Gratefully we dug in.

I loved listening to the performance and hope that I can go to more. I've been to two performances by the Berrima Singers now and loved them both.