2002, Bumford's Beyond that of any Man

2002 started with a cantata written by John Bumford, who ran the Euroa Little Theatre Choristers and Euroa Singers. John was to come down from Seymour to conduct rehearsals. DVS had performed Beyond That of Any Man before, but not with the combined choir. With Merry England being a big show, it was decided to share rehearsal time for this period to bring the chorus up to speed with the show.

Performances were to be at Melton, Seymour, Diamond Creek, Strathmore and Euroa. Singers were asked which performances they would be attending, and only at Euroa would all the basses be attending, where we would have only one soprano and no tenors from Diamond Valley! It was hoped the other choirs would be there in force.

There was a good attendance at the Melton performance, where they had asked for the Cantata. However, we found the second-rate piano worked better than the organ, so we sang to that. We had another good audience in Seymour with the small orchestra John had organized; however we sang to a very small group at Diamond Creek. It seemed to go better there with just the organ.

We performed at Strathmore on a Tuesday night with the orchestra and had an audience of around forty-five, which looked a bit sparse in the large Catholic Church. The orchestra did well, though the organ had to play the cello part as the cellist had an accident that day. Next day we were in Euroa for the last performance, and the Hammond organ in the Catholic Church was pretty ordinary. Only five of our members turned up, with others being at rehearsal in Diamond Creek, but it seemed to go well with forty-five in the audience in a smaller church.

These history notes have been kindly provided by our long-term artistic director and co-founder, Graham Ford.