Our annual Christmas concert at Mooroolbark Community Centre maintained its reputation as a sell-out event and both the choir and the audience had a great time.

Unfortunately, our guest artist, the lovely soprano – Catherine Bolzonello – who wowed us at rehearsal earlier in the week, was taken ill at the last moment and could not appear, but her omission from the program was ably covered by solos our conductor, David Ashton-Smith (who is also her father) and accompanist Simon Walters and were very well received.

As our readers may be aware, because of the size of the hall at the Community Centre, the choir performs two concerts in the one day, the first being at 11:00 a.m. and the second at 3:00 p.m.

The concerts include audience participation items, with community carols, directed by our music director and with the choir providing support from their seats at the rear of the stage.

One of the best received items in the program was the wartime medley “Till the boys come home” which, as our compere – Ray Kitto stated, had nothing to do with Christmas except that the war was supposed to be over by Christmas!

Despite the limitations associated with fitting a choir of our size onto the relatively small stage, we love our traditional Christmas concerts at this charming intimate venue and look forward to a return engagement next year.