AFTER just seven months of singing together, Malmesbury Community Choir produced a performance before Christmas worthy of many more established groups.

Something of a family affair, the Choirs at Christmas concert in the hall at Malmesbury School was a joint performance between the Malmesbury Community Choir, directed by Laurie Jones, and the Welcome Choir from Bath, also a community choir, directed by Laurie’s distinguished father Grenville Jones.

Jones senior has been musical director of many a celebrated choir, including the Bath Male Voice Choir, while for Jones junior Malmesbury is his first venture into musical direction.

The judgement of the audience, admittedly largely from Malmesbury, was that had the performance been a competition Malmesbury Community Choir would have won hands down.

The evening started with a song by all members of both choirs. The Malmesbury contingent then filed off and the Welcome Choir sang three numbers, including Chattanooga Choo Choo, that were fun but not polished.

The introductions to each number by Grenville Jones took almost as long as the songs themselves and could have been shortened to the greater enjoyment of all and might perhaps have made time for one more song.

The Malmesbury Community Choir then took to the stage and the contrast was considerable. The Malmesbury singers, all dressed in black with a splash of either red or green, not only looked more professional but were also streets ahead of the Bath visitors in the quality of their performance.

They all smiled broadly, were confident of their harmonies and produced a very sweet sound indeed, with some great voices amongst the sopranos.

After the interval there were again separate performances by the two choirs and again Malmesbury Community Choir outshone the visitors. Christmas Pipes, which involved much percussion, including bongo drum accompaniment by the conductor, was a particular treat.

I do not wish to give the impression that the Welcome Choir was entirely without merit – it was not. It was just that the Malmesbury singers were astonishingly good for a group that has been together for such a short time and they, and their musical director, can be justifiably proud of themselves.

There will be three Malmesbury Community Choir concerts this year, two in the Abbey, and I recommend that you book early.

Skip Walker