Eighteen Adult Choirs at Whitby Pavilion

Whitby Spa Theatre and Pavilion will be bursting at the seams on Saturday 7^th April when eighteen adult choirs arrive to participate in the National Choir Day. This is the final event of the Eskdale Festival of the Arts 2018 season and it should be a musical feast. “It’s like having our own Eisteddfod!” said chairman Dave Bradley. “We’ve never attracted so many choirs before and there’s a lovely mixture of male voice, small and large choirs, female choirs and some mixed groups.”

Choirs are coming from Accrington, York, Horbury, Denby Dale, Gateshead, Penistone, Malton, Saddleworth, Middlesbrough, Stockport, Leeds and the Scarborough and Whitby areas to sing a range of pieces including:- “Songs from the Shows”, “Sacred Music”, “Christmas in April” and “Choir Recitals” where each choir has to perform two or three contrasting pieces. This year the classes will be judged by Jacqueline Edwards (a descendant of Dame Clara Butt) who studied at the Royal College of Music and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and Sam Dunkley who studied at Huddersfield University and went on to sing for Opera North.

To accommodate the number of choirs two venues will be used on Saturday afternoon – the Spa Theatre for smaller choirs and the Northern Lights Suite for larger choirs. In the evening all the choirs will be performing in the Northern Lights Suite. The afternoon sessions begin at 1.00pm and the evening session begins at 6.00pm. Tickets are available on the day at the information desk (in the café area) at £5 per session.