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A match made in Bury St Edmunds

On Saturday 21 October the Bury Bach Choir will perform a concert in aid of the Samaritans.  The Choir will sing Fauré’s beautiful and ever-popular Requiem, and a selection of short pieces including John Tavener’s The Lamb and Song for Athene, Mozart’s Ave Verum, Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium and three ethereal Bruckner motets.

Former Chairman Graham Todd, who set up the concert, says ‘Our usual November concert wasn’t scheduled this year, which gave us the opportunity to perform a concert in October for charity.  We were very pleased to select the Bury St Edmunds branch of the Samaritans as our beneficiary’.

The concert will be at St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds, with soloists Fae Evelyn and Tom Asher, who are performing for no fee.  It will be conducted by Philip Reed and the accompanist will be James Recknell.  All profits from the concert will go to the Samaritans, who do such great work in the Bury area.

Claire, from the Samaritans, says ‘When one of our volunteers said that Bury Bach Choir were looking to hold a concert for a local charity, we jumped at the chance of teaming up with them.  As luck would have it, this is the year of “Sing for Samaritans” as a flagship fundraising campaign - what could be better?’

Bury St Edmunds Samaritans has been running for over 40 years, providing a day and night telephone and email listening service for the local community and further afield.  They have 100 volunteers and in 2017 answered over 30,000 calls.  They have a talks team, do outreach work, visit Highpoint prison to train and support prisoner listeners, fundraise, recruit and train volunteers, and run their centre, with opening hours for visitors too. 

Samaritans passionately believe in supporting callers when they are in distress.  They are all volunteers, and need to raise over £30,000 each year to keep the branch open, through grants and local fundraising.

Claire says ‘It has been wonderful to work with the choir team towards putting on this concert; we are excited about Saturday evening as we love having fun and socialising while raising money! Listening to callers is what Samaritans do and thank you to Bury Bach Choir for supporting us’.

 The choir is very happy to Sing for Samaritans.  As Graham says, ‘We are singing a selection of our favourite pieces and are greatly looking forward to what I am sure will be a very successful evening’.

Tickets, £15 each, may be bought through the choir's website or from the Apex, and will also be available at St Mary's Church on Saturday evening when the doors open at 6.45pm .  The concert starts at 7.30pm and there is free seating throughout the church - there are no reserved seats.

 To find out about joining the choir or coming to our concerts visit burybachchoir.co.uk



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