Our Repertoire
Where and what we sing
We meet each Wednesday evening at the Kendal United Reformed Church, 106 Highgate, Kendal at 6.00pm .
We practise through to 8.15pm and afterwards those that want to, enjoy a drink together.
We aim to learn two or three new songs each ‘ term’ and have built up a repertoire of around 25 songs that we are comfortable singing to performance standard.
Emily teaches us by ear and repetition and so whilst we use musical scores it is not essential to read music. Likewise, we do not audition members, though we do request that people joining us attend the majority of our practices and commit to learning their parts at home, using audio files that can be played on smart phones.
We plan three formal concerts each year. One is a festive event in December and the other two held in March and June in beautiful churches in our area.
We are sometimes asked to sing at less formal events and many of us like to sing Fellas songs on these occasions but when doing so perform as The Handsome Strangers – a nod to our favourite bar in Kendal.
We sing a wide range of song types .
From the beautiful and sacred ‘Dona Nobis Pacem ‘, and ‘Crossing the Bar’ to bawdy folk songs like ‘Little Eyes’ and ‘Lamorna’. These songs bookend some beautiful love songs like ‘He Ain’t Heavy’ , ‘This Boy’ and our old favourite ‘The Book of Love’.
We also aim to stir things up with some rousing songs of the people. ‘Sing John Ball’ and ‘Jack Ironside’ are in this category.
We perform songs with humour, songs from musicals and operettas and pop tunes. These will either be sung a capella or alongside simple instrumentation.
There are lots more and the You Tube videos of our performances show our full range.
We aim to sing our songs in our own distinctive way and so prepare to be pleasantly surprised when you either join us or come to see us.
For more video clips, click on Gallery under Our Repertoire.
