On Wings Of Song

Will the Kildartie Singers outshine their competitors at the music festival?

THE day of the Sillowburn Music Festival dawned bright and sunny, which caused some grumbling among some choir members.

“I’d rather be in the garden if it’s going to be a good day,” one said.

“There will be other good days,” Lizzie said. “It’s only June, after all.”

As Lizzie knew, that didn’t mean that the rest of the summer would be brilliant, but why set off on an enterprise like this in a downbeat frame of mind? They’d never sung at a festival before. This had the potential to be very enjoyable.

Sillowburn was larger than Kildartie, but had the small-town feel about it. The festival was to take place in their high school, which lent itself to the enterprise by having lots of rooms for the different categories of performance.

As the Kildartie Singers walked through the school, they could hear youngsters singing and playing instruments with varying degrees of success.

Rodney was feeling a lot more nervous than he showed. His confident manner concealed his worry that the choir might not shine as well as he hoped.

Provided they didn’t come completely apart, they would be OK, but the competition might well be severe.

There were five choirs in the contest, which the Sillowburn organisers were pleased about. They were all invited into the school hall, and sat in their separate groups while Bob Mcnair, the brains behind the whole thing, spoke to them from the school stage.

“For a first attempt at this category,” he said, “we’re delighted so many choirs have responded. Not everyone can be a winner, of course.” He smiled to soften the blow. “But the main idea is for everyone to enjoy the event. Then at the end we might all sing something together. If you’re all in agreement.”

Rodney found himself nodding. This had been mentioned as a possibility during the conversations he had already had with Bob.

In the interests of fairness, the choirs were to perform in alphabetical order, which put Kildartie smack in the middle.

The hall filled up with the parents of some of the children, people who had already performed and interested members of the public. So the choirs would be singing to a full audience.

The first choir, Lizzie thought, were good, but not as good as Kildartie. Other choir members seemed to feel the same thing, which was encouraging.

Then along came choir number two, the Danesbury Singers, and they were something else entirely. Kildartie hearts sank as their rivals sang difficult arrangements, splitting into eight parts to do it. The Kildartie choir really did have a hard act to follow.

They filed on to the stage after the Danesbury lot, and got into position. Rodney looked at them all as if to say, “You can do it!”, and raised his baton.

Considering how they felt when they started, the choir did really well. They sang a Mozart piece, which was straightforward but difficult to sing. Rodney reckoned they had cracked it.

Their second piece was faster, and more likely to go wrong. It did hold together, but didn’t sparkle as well as they had in rehearsal. But on the whole, Rodney was pleased.

As expected, the Danesbury choir outshone everyone else, and were awarded first place. Everyone in the hall agreed with the decision, and the applause was heartfelt.

“They were terrific, weren’t they?” Lizzie said in an aside to Madge. Madge nodded. “Gives us something to aim for. I just hope we’re not bottom.”

As Rodney had calculated, the Kildartie Singers came third, being awarded a handsome certificate.

“I’ll get it framed,” he said to Charles, laughing.

Then came a great deal of shuffling as the choirs mingled, the different sections sitting together. Lizzie was next to one of the altos from Danesbury, and there was much smiling and good feeling as they prepared to sing together.

This time, Bob Mcnair conducted, rallying the troops in a splendid rendering of “When The Saints Go Marching In”, an arrangement the Kildartie Singers knew inside out.

It was on the bus on the way home that Rodney spoke to them all.

“You were brilliant! We’re definitely going to do this again.”

More next week.