U3A Choir: by Eric Taylor

The Choir was one of those groups that we were anxious to form following the first meeting of the Caldicot U3A. There was a good response from members but we lacked that essential for any choir i.e. an accompanist.

After a search of some months Eileen Chesworth of Portskewett volunteered for the task. She was an excellent musician, with lots of experience in this field. John Michaels volunteered to conduct. He also had considerable experience in this type of work. Many of our singers had experience of local operatic groups while others came from different backgrounds.

Initially, our equipment was lent by the convenor, but we now have the fruits of a successful lottery bid to the Arts Council of Wales, our own keyboard and associated sound reinforcement equipment.

The Portskewett Recreation Hall became the base for our activities, a clean welcoming facility with good acoustics and adequate car parking at a fee that we could afford. Our first concert was to the U3A Christmas party in 1995 and, from that time, we have gone on to give concerts to various groups, particularly St. Lawrence Hospital Social Club, Archway Club Chepstow, Bulwark Senior Citizen's Club, Portskewett Good Companions and other groups in Risca, Beaufort, Newport, Cwmbran and performing at the South Wales & Severnside Network meeting in Caldicot. We have a number of invitations for the coming year including the Millennium celebration concert to be held in Caldicot.

We sing in three parts, soprano, alto and bass, an eclectic repertoire ranging from songs from the shows, popular classics, Welsh folk songs, carols from many lands and currently a medieval song with a Latin chorus. Our future direction is in the hands of our members, new singers are always welcome as are suggestions for the repertoire.

There have been changes in personnel, Eileen Chesworth has gone to live in Scotland and Beth Davenport from Newport is now our accompanist. John Michaels has had to bow to his other many varied commitments and so the convenor is also the 'conductor'. The core of the choir is much the same as at the start, we do attract singers but we also suffer from other less demanding counter attractions. We have twenty singers currently on our register.