From the back row of the choir, the first performance at Dent on Saturday was a terrific experience. Georgina Boyes' script provided the setting for the traditional singers and their songs. She and Jim Boyes, Fi Fraser and Barry Coope and Janet Russell performed them with great sensitivity. One highlight was Barry singing A Sprig of Thyme. Even the choir applauded! The choir was in good voice too, and revelled in Jim and Barry's arrangements, including two local carols.
There's another chance to see it on next Saturday, 18 November at the Mart Theatre in Skipton. Do catch it if you can. Tickets are £7.50 and £5 for concessions, available from Yorkshire Dales Workshops. Telephone 01535-631166 or e-mail office@ydw.org.uk - tickets may also be available on the door.
Frank Kidson said, 'Melody is not exclusive to the trained musician, but is a God-sent gift of which the possessor might well be proud. And the toilers at the plough and spinners by the fire have all contributed to the world's store of it.' Enthusiasts such as Kidson from Leeds and Sydney Addy from Sheffield, as well as the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger, travelled through Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire to collect and preserve traditional songs.
The Toilers' Gift combines the beautiful and little known songs of agricultural labourers and dock workers, cooks and carol singers with the stories of their lives and music, giving a new insight into local history and the people who made it. It also provides a fascinating background to an important stage in the development of English music, when leading composers came to lanes and byways to hear the songs of gypsy travellers and navvies and turn them into symphonies.
Yorkshire Dales Workshops present a concert of songs of agricultural labourers, dock workers, cooks and carol singers. Written with great respect for the original singers by Georgina Boyes, arranged with care by Jim Boyes and Barry Coope and sung with affection by Jim and Georgina Boyes, Fi Fraser and Barry Coope and Janet Russell, plus the enthusiasm and power of the 60 singers in the Roses and Thorns Choir.