St. Giles' Church, Great Orton

St. Giles' Church, Great Orton, hosted a superb evening's entertainment with the ever popular Dalston Male Voice Choir and special guest Andrew Johnston.

The rousing 'Non Nobis Domine' with its powerful tune by Roger Quilter provided instant impact to start the evening in the right vein; the follow up of Verdi's 'Speed your Journey' was sung with such precision and feeling that the audience immediately knew that they were in for a treat.

The programme was varied and included such stalwart male voice pieces as the tragic 'Go tell Aunt Rhody (the old grey goose is dead)' and, inevitably, 'The Drinking Song'. There was, too, a fair share of romance with standards such as 'It's now or never' and 'All the Things You Are' being superbly crafted by a choir which clearly enjoyed singing together and, incidentally, exploited the rather good acoustics of the building very well.

Lorraine Gash accompanied with her usual calm efficiency and outstanding technique whilst choir director Hilary Hodgson excelled herself by teaching the audience to sing 'Shalom' as a round; her enthusiasm was infectious as the audience lapped it up!

'Close Shave' (a quartet within the choir) sang four typical close harmony songs with great feeling and exquisite blend; their tuning too was impeccable.

Andrew, accompanied by John Bromley, used his developing baritone voice to great effect with four pieces. In particular he sang the Recitative and Aria 'The Trumpet Shall Sound' from Messiah with impressive authority whilst Gerald Finzi's quite challenging tune to 'Rollicum Rorum' (Thomas Hardy's 'Sergeant's song') was sung with vigour and clearly much enjoyment – for both singer and audience! Andrew clearly has a wonderful musical future in prospect.