Hallelujah, the Messiah arrives in town
In the beginning was the word. And the word was “Can you play the Hallelujah Chorus?”
And the word was with The Band Committee. And the word was “Yes - we’re doing all of it.”
Thus it was in early July 2010 that after weeks of rehearsals of a choir recruited specially for the event and separate rehearsals for the band, Messiah was performed in church. Four singers from the Birmingham Conservatoire had key parts: £2,000 was spent for the record breaking event.
Later named The Mercia Singers, including some church members, the combination was the first time a choir had performed with the town band. Only top flight band Black Dyke and the Huddersfield Society had performed it previously.
These images were among dozens on a disk compiled as a souvenir of the event, together with a recording of the actual performance. The east window slowly darkened as the evening wore on.
The birth of the Messiah 2,000 years before prompted a search for the disks, eventually traced on Boxing Day to the bottom of the Don’t-Know-What-To-Do-With-This filing tray.
The following day saw a Messiah Singalong before transferring to Christchurch, Lichfield, where choir musical director Peter Elliott was musical director.
Images above show the then musical director Stephen Fagg rehearsing the band, then taking control of the ensemble.