Ridley Hall Gospel Choir performs in Whaddon

Clare Byatt, secretary of St Mary’s Parochial Church Council, describes the event

I got to hear about Ridley Hall’s Gospel Choir a year ago, in a Lent Study group, sitting next to Lisa Jackson, who was then a second-year student at Ridley Hall, Cambridge’s famous theological college. St Mary’s Church, Whaddon had held a couple of successful concerts to raise funds and I was intrigued to find out more about the Choir.

 Happily for us, Lisa, leader of the Gospel Choir, has been placed for her training with Bassingbourn and Whaddon churches under our priest-in-charge, Rev Dr Donald McFadyen. I learnt that the Choir was formed in October 2005 when a group of students, staff and spouses had met together to take a break from the regular academic workload to ‘sing Gospel’ and have fun. Their aim, they state is a simple one: to celebrate God through music and have fun doing it! Hard work features too and they were sufficiently rehearsed to make their debut at the Christmas Service at Ridley that year. Their reputation grew from there.

However, Lisa was cautious about how easy it would be to carry on at the beginning of the next academic year with new recruits, having lost those students who had graduated in the summer. So I was delighted in October 2006 to learn that Lisa’s fears were unfounded. More people had caught the Gospel music ‘bug’ and the Choir was going from strength to strength. We agreed the date 10 March 2007 for the Whaddon Concert.

 As the Choir members filed into the church to rehearse that day, in their striking purple T-shirts, it was obvious that the Choir was up to full strength. The building had not been filled with so much sound in all its 650 years! Once the audience arrived the atmosphere was perfect and the evening got underway with I’m gonna wait on the Lord. The enjoyment the choir got out of singing was obvious but the importance of the message was not overlooked. Each item was individually introduced by a choir member for whom that song had special meaning.

 The audience played its part too! Lisa had the church grouped, in up to three parts on more than one occasion, each singing its own line. The concert did not just feature voices. The choir took a well-earned break and we were all treated to some brilliant instrumental playing from Sax’n Keys: Jo Luckhurst on saxophones and Catherine Vaughan on keyboard. The one who never rested was Catherine, who has been accompanying the choir this year, and they have benefited greatly from her skill and expertise. Her husband Andrew, another Ridley ordinand, added an exciting extra dimension by supporting the choir on drums.

 Lisa is an expert choirmaster and the result was an exceptional evening of music for us in Whaddon. She will hand over the conductor’s baton to Mark James who, together with Catherine McBride, will lead the choir next year. Even under different leadership, I’m sure the Ridley Hall Gospel Choir will never look back.

The evening had the aim of raising funds for the restoration of the Church Organ. Click here to learn more about the organ and why we need the funds!