Boston-Based Men’s Chorus to Sing in London, Cardiff

The Boston Saengerfest Men’s Chorus will make its own “Brentrance” to the UK Oct. 9-16 to perform three concerts. Tom Berryman is the group’s director.

First is a joint appearance in Wales on Oct. 11 with the Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir at St. John the Baptist Church, joint numbers to be led by Haydn James, widely known in UK choral circles.

On Oct. 15 the 40 singers will perform solo at London’s 11th Century Southwark Cathedral and the following day take part in London’s 25th biennial Welsh Male Voice Choir festival at the storied Royal Albert Hall.

The 2016 Festival will be a musical feast—13 choirs, more than 800 voices, from Hong Kong, Ireland, the United States of America, England and, of course, Wales, plus the London Welsh Male Voice Choir will form the Festival Choir, Edward-Rhys Harry conductor, with the The Symphony Orchestra of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. The Albert Hall’s 6,000 seats were sold out by summer’s end.

The Boston Saengerfest group was formed in 1991 when a member of a century-old quarterly singing aggregation was invited to bring some Boston singers to the 1992 Royal Albert Hall Festival; the 2016-17 season and this 2016 appearance mark the group’s 25th year.

In its regular performances, the group reflects its Welsh choral origins—it sings a wide variety of works, from American classics, folk, spiritual, and sacred works to Broadway and the Great American Songbook. It employs a concert Compere (an MC) and it usually includes at least one Welsh-language work.

The group rehearses each Monday night in Weston and performs four or five regional concerts annually, plus it regularly offers the National Anthem at select Faneuil Hall Naturalization Ceremonies. It has performed with other Welsh-tradition groups throughout Canada, in Carnegie Hall, and elsewhere. This is Saengerfest’s 6thappearance at London’s biennial Welsh Choral Festival.

For more information about the chorus and its Dec. 18 Blue-Grass Christmas concert at Weston’s Regis College, please consult www.saengerfest.org.