On Sunday 16th August more than 70 singers gathered at Walpole Old Chapel for a wonderful day of Free Singing, led by Brendan Taaffe and John Harrison from the USA.
The event was organised by Clare Pastorious, Director of the South Norfolk Community Choir. Clare persuaded Brendan and John to take an East Anglian detour on their way to a week-long singing festival in Scotland. Walpole’s box pews and benches were filled with clusters of sopranos, altos, tenors or bases. Over the day, singers were taught challenging 3- and 4-part harmonies for a variety of unaccompanied songs, composed and arranged by Brendan and John.
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The Chapel was filled with music inspired by gospel, bluegrass, Appalachian and shape note songs, known as the ‘American Vernacular’. It seemed fitting, not least to those choir members who had crossed the Atlantic for the singing festivals, given Walpole’s importance in the history of Puritanism in the UK, Canada and the East coast States of the USA.
