Refugee Support Devon ‘overwhelmed’ by support at Carol concerts

Refugee Support Devon ‘overwhelmed’ by support at Carol concerts
Type of post: Choir news item
Sub-type: Choir News
Posted By: Jenny Lloyd
Status: Current
Date Posted: Mon, 8 Jan 2024
Our Carols in the Cathedral concerts on 13 and 14 December 2023 produced two happy evenings of Christmas music and continued our proud tradition of raising funds for local charities.

This year the concerts raised £3,634.29 for Refugee Support Devon, who were overwhelmed by the generosity of our audiences and deeply grateful for being chosen as our charity.  They never imagined raising such a large sum, which will have a significant impact on their work.

In a packed Cathedral, under the baton of director of music Howard Ionascu, the choir performed an exciting and varied programme, including a new carol, Nova! Nova! by associate director of music Stephen Tanner. The audiences each night joined in heartily with well-known favourites, while guest artist Julian Poore on trumpet and Stephen Tanner on organ and piano thrilled everyone with their virtuoso playing. The programme was introduced by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry with fascinating information about each carol.

Response from the audiences was very enthusiastic, one member even describing the concert as the ‘best performance’ she had heard from EPC, with ‘a lovely balance of old favourites and new music’.