The Music Appreciation Group

Leader:  Mike Stow - musicapp@ashbyu3a.co.uk - 01530 469152

7th January

We met at Mike’s house this month and seemed to be in a choral/classical mood with several members choosing such music. But Neil started us of with one of the most famous pieces by the late Chris Rea who died just before Christmas. Rather than choose ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ he chose ‘The Road to Hell’.

We followed with Sue’s choice of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Have a talk with God’ and Nev’s Annie Lennox and ‘Mood Indigo’. Andy started the choral mood with Cantus choir singing ‘Stars’ by Eriks Esenvalds and Sallie played us Freddie Kempf’s piano rendition of ‘Winter Wind’ by Chopin. Dorothy chose ‘Southampton’ a piece from the Titanic movie and Brenda also chose a movie piece – ‘Do You Hear The People Sing’ from Les Miserables.

Mike returned to rock/jazz with Sting and ‘Englishman in new York’ featuring some lovely jazz saxophone playing and Sue offered Roberta Flack’s moving ‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’

Nev had found an interesting video of two young singers Nathan Pacheco and Clara Hurtado Lee performing ‘One Hand, One Heart’ from West side Story. Very talented.

There were more choral pieces in the form of Andy’s choice of Voces8 singing a lovely acapella version of ‘Homeward Bound’ and Kiri Te Kanawa with the Coventry Cathedral choir singing ‘In the Bleak Mid Winter’ chosen by Sallie.