21
July
St John The Baptist Church, Cardiff
Sunday 16 December 2018 at 4pm
Cardiff Polyphonic Choir
Conductor: David Young
Organist: David Geoffrey Thomas
**Thank you to everyone who attended this concert – we were delighted to raise £720 for Bloodwise. We received a lovely thank you letter from the Cardiff branch of Bloodwise:
“This sum will help us in our fight to find cures for all blood cancers. We feel sure we will make it one day as tremendous efforts are made by the research workers, especially here in Cardiff……..Events like yours are the best way to raise funds as so many people enjoyed the afternoon. So thank you to all the choristers, David Young and David Geoffrey Thomas.” **
A free Sunday afternoon concert of favourite Christmas carols and music sung by the Polys. Join us in St John the Baptist Church in the bustling heart of Cardiff, as Wales’ capital gets ready to celebrate Christmas.
Directed by the choir’s conductor David Young, with accompanist David Geoffrey Thomas, we’ll be singing carols in both English and in Welsh. And there’ll be opportunities to join in!
We’ll be exploring the rich tradition of the Christmas carol, a musical form going back to mediaeval times but which has flourished over the centuries and is still going strong. As well as some old favourites, our programme includes some of the excellent carols being written by contemporary English and Welsh composers.
Singing in St John’s will have a special poignancy for the choir. As we sing, we’ll be remembering one of our choristers, Pauline Grainger, who sadly died in July this year. Pauline was a keen, and much-loved, member of many choirs in Cardiff over the years, including the BBC National Chorus of Wales, Oriana, and the Welsh Camerata, as well as the Polys. She was also highly active in Cardiff life, especially in Llandaff but also in this church of St John the Baptist. It was her church, where she sang in the choir, served on the PCC and as a churchwarden, helped run the tearoom, and much else besides. She is much missed.
The concert is free, but there’ll be a retiring collection for Bloodwise, the blood cancer research charity of which Pauline was a keen supporter. All the money given will go to support the charity’s work. Bloodwise raises money to help beat blood cancer, which takes more lives each year than breast or prostate cancer. If you’d like to know more about the charity’s vital work, you can find out at www.bloodwise.org.uk
Do come along, enjoy, and make it part of your Christmas preparations!
