Ken's musical interests

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After semi-retirement from bodily-contact sport, I joined a number of amateur choirs, most recently:

Cantemus - visit our official website at

The choir visited Worcester recently, when we took part in the Elgar Festival. Didn't win, but had an enjoyable time watching and listening to other choirs, eating, drinking, ... Fortunately, this was before The Floods - we wish the citizens of Worcester (and elsewhere) a speedy drying-out and cleaning-up. NEW !

and
the Staffordshire County Chorus (go to Staffordshire Education Curriculum Services and search for 'Performing Arts').

Messiah was our last major performance, Verdi's Requiem is coming next ....
Thanks also go to friends and associates at Stafford & District Choral Society, Stone Choral Society and Katharine House Choir.

Of course, female choir members are considerably more attractive than my former rugby team-mates, though we don't get a communal shower afterwards ...

Other musical interests include listening (on record or at concerts) to:

popular, like Joni Mitchell, Beatles, Ian Dury, Joan Armatrading, Simon & Garfunkel, Gloria Estefan, Charlie Dore, Cherish the Ladies, ...

Recently, we attended a great gig by The Manfreds at the Victoria Hall, Stoke. These guys have to be seen & heard to be believed ...

NEW !

folk, like Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Albion Band, (all of whom have gigged at Stafford's Gatehouse Theatre) ...
classical, from plainchant, Byrd & Tallis through Handel & Bach to Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Britten and Rutter, ...
humorous - like Tom Lehrer's "unfettered muse" ...

I'm very partial to Renaissance polyphony, especially by English Tudor composers such as Byrd, Tallis, Taverner, ... Even if you're not, I strongly suggest that you listen to a concert or two by The Cardinall's Musick, a superb 16-strong group of a cappella singers, and I hope that you caught at least one of the year 2000's Choral Pilgrimage concerts by The Sixteen at some of England's greatest cathedrals.

Just in case you didn't realise that musicians were a bunch of humorists (?), visit Choral Jokes and related sites.

And I did meet my fiancée Chris through singing. She's a better singer than I am, singing not only with Cantemus but with the Royal School of Church Music's Cathedral Singers, and doing alto & mezzo solos all over the place.

She also sings regularly with the choir of St. Mary's Collegiate Church, Stafford .
However, I try to spake better English than shay does, 'er bein' a Potter an' ow'.

It's debatable as to who is the better mathematician - she teaches it, at St. Peter's High School, Penkhull, and I am lucky enough to be paid to work with computers all day long. However, she's a member of Mensa!

Here she's switched-off and lazing in the shade on the Isle of Wight ...
... and here we are about to do a Stone Choral Society concert in Ealing.

So - try British Choirs on the Net for marriage bureaux in your area!