Harmony Belles raises money for Marlow Age Concern and Marlow FM New Home

As our supporters will know, Harmony Belles is foremost about singing together for joy but running a very close second is performing in concerts and raising money for our chosen charities. After a flurry of nominations for different charities from our choir members and a vote, we chose two local charities, Marlow FM Build a New Home and Marlow Age Concern.

The evening was a great success as we sang our way through a selection of songs from around the world. We sang songs by musicians from Ireland, Canada, the USA, and Great Britain as well singing a traditional Zulu Folk Song from South Africa. We sang two beautiful songs from France’s ‘Les Misérables’ and two ABBA songs. One of our small groups gave us a truly stunning rendition of ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ and another took us to George Ezra’s ‘Budapest’. To add to the challenge, we also sang ‘Tintinnabatalum’ by Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins and ‘Vuelie’ the opening song of Disney’s Frozen.  The instrumental backing track for ‘Tintinnabulum’ was made specially for us by a colleague of our Music Director, Anne Fairbrother, and included over 13,000 individual notes.

There were moments of soaring voices and passion with ‘Stars’ from Les Misérables and ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ as well as introspection and love with ‘Falling Slowly’ (from the Irish film ‘Once’) and ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ by Keane. We closed the show with Canadian Shania Twain’s song ‘Man I Feel Like a Woman’ which was so much fun for all of us. Judging by the clapping and smiling audience, it was popular with them too!

And so another year of singing together concluded and we now turn our direction to the Autumn term and our Christmas Concert on Saturday 2nd of December 2023. We hope to see you there.

Here's a little bit about the charities:

Marlow FM has been at the heart of the Marlow community for many years. Their studio at Longridge is due to be demolished later in the year and they are moving to a new location in an old caretaker’s garage at Great Marlow School. However, it will take a lot of work to convert the garage to a studio and Marlow FM have launched their biggest ever fundraising campaign so they can create a studio to be proud of with much needed new equipment and a place to call home for many years to come.

Marlow Age Concern was established over 30 years ago and their main aim is to help older residents in the Greater Marlow area, particularly those confined to their homes by age or infirmity. They offer information and advice to friends, neighbours and family members seeking to support older people. They also provide a Day Centre which gives elderly people the opportunity to meet socially once a week, providing them with a hot lunch and transport.

‍

‍