August Revels

Here are our offerings for August. If you have a suggestion, please let us know and we will add it to the list.

July/August, 7:30pm - Chester Open Air Theatre

This year the open air theatre is performing two Shakespeare plays - "Macbeth" and "Comedy of Errors," and an adaption of "The Secret Garden." There is also Moonlight Flicks in the Roman Garden to enjoy. Simon is going to see several performances, so please  book your tickets for the following dates, then contact Simon to meet at the venue. If you plan to go to any performances other than those listed below, please send the details to Jacqui to add to this list:

• July 25th, Vertigo, Moonlight Flicks
• August 1st, Comedy of Errors

August 20th, 12:30 - Annual Lunch, Royal Oak, Kinnerton 

As you know, we do not have a coffee morning for our August meeting, but instead meet for lunch. This year we have a table for 10 booked at the Royal Oak. Please let Barbara George know by Friday 15th August as to whether you will be joining us.

July Offerings

Here are our offerings for July. If you have a suggestion, please let us know and we will add it to the list.

July 6th, 12:30 - Sunday Lunch at Chester Golf Club

Why not enjoy the summer by spending a lovely few hours with Newcomers over Sunday Lunch? Those who have been before will know that the Golf Club food is excellent and the setting just gorgeous. The booking has been made initially for 10 people, and we will meet at 12-30pm for a 1-00pm meal. Please do bring guests if you have someone visiting you. You can have either 2 or 3 courses with coffee....£10:95 for 2 courses or £11:95 for 3 courses, and can decide when you get there. I hope that we can get a good number able to come as it is always nice to have a good get together and catch-up. Please let Barbara George know by Friday 4th July as to whether you will be joining us.

July 19th, 8:00pm - Chester Cathedral

You are warmly invited to a very special concert, the final act of this year’s Music Festival in Chester Cathedral. This will be one hundred years to the day after Austria took the fateful decision to invade Serbia, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand three weeks earlier. Over the following weeks these fateful happenings led to the outbreak of the First World War, bringing Russia, Germany, France and Britain into a conflict whose momentous events still shape our world.
In one of the most important concerts in the region this year the Chester Festival Chorus will combine with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of the rising young conductor, James Burton, and the wonderful soloists Judith Howarth and William Dazeley, to perform pieces of music by two of Britain’s finest composers, Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
The programme comprises:

• Elgar – Sospiri 
• Elgar – Spirit of England 
• Vaughan Williams – Dona Nobis Pacem 

Elgar’s Spirit of England, written in 1915, is a setting of three poems by Laurence Binyon which include ‘For the Fallen’ with its words ‘...at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them’. Ralph Vaughan Williams, who served on the Western Front, wrote ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ in 1936 and it paints a picture of war and a prayer for peace.
The concert will begin with Elgar’s ‘Sospiri’. You’ll find booking details on the website http://chesterfestivalchorus.org.uk/ under ‘This year’ but David Pawson could buy tickets for you at a performers’ discount of 15%.

July 21st, 7:30 - Nantwich Civic Hall

Tim and Lui have tickets to see Sue Townsend's Bazaar and Rummage performed by The Nantwich Players on the 21st. If anyone would like to join them, their seats are G3 and G4. The play is directed by Jo McDonald. In 'Bazaar and Rummage' Sue Townsend takes an hilarious view at the politics of self-help groups.... Tickets are available from Nantwich Civic Hall from 9am or ring 01270 600 727. 

June Jewels

Here are our offerings for June. If you have a suggestion, please let us know and we will add it to the list.

June 26, June 28 - Music Exchange Concerts

Len and Betty are members of People to People International, which promotes cross-cultural communication within and across nations. They are currently hosting the student who is on the Music Exchange Scholarship within the program. She is a talented violinist and will be giving performances in the Chester area in June and July. The dates are:
June 26, Nantwich Church at 12:30
June 28, Wesley Chapel, Chester, 12:45
July 1st, Eaton Hall, 7pm. Tickets for this event are £10 and must be purchased beforehand from Betty)

Other items of interest 

You may enjoy attending one of these other events that have been suggested by our members:

• May 31  - June 15, Chester Music Festival, Chester Racecourse. Created and staged by the performers themselves and uniquely billed as the ‘musicians’ festival’, the MBNA Chester Music Festival sees the city sing to the tune of some of the world’s greatest music. This year’s festival will mark the centenary of the start of WW1 and the loss of our ‘Age of Innocence’ with a series of themed concerts; world-class tenor James Gilchrist will perform Vaughan Williams’ rarely-heard On Wenlock Edge with Chester’s own Ensemble Deva before paying tribute to composer George Butterworth with his setting of A Shropshire Lad. The Ensemble will also play a haunting version of Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time, a piece that truly embodies the transcendent power of great music Check their website for all the details.

May Moments

Here are our offerings for May. If you have a suggestion, please let us know and we will add it to the list.

May 22 - 7pm Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, Vue Cinema, Cheshire Oaks

Mark Haddon’s celebrated, multi-award-winning novel is beautifully and imaginatively adapted into a stage play for the first time. Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears’ dead dog, Wellington. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in his book to solve the mystery. He has an extraordinary brain, exceptional at maths but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world. Go to the website to book your seat, then meet in the Foyer at 6:45pm.