Enchant had a wonderful night singing at St Paul’s Church on June 16th. The service was to celebrate all the music connected with the Church and it was only right that Enchant, as very close friends of the Church, were involved. We sang a brand new choral arrangement by John Barber called ‘Inside’ to open the service, a new setting of Psalm 121 by John Barber as anthem, four hymns, Magnificat and to finish ‘Peace Thoughts’, which you will find on our new album. We thank St Paul’s for the invitation and hope to maintain our close relationship with them in the future.

We had another lovely evening at St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter, performing a special concert for the Birmingham Book Group. The group has been in existence since the eighteenth century, so is a real part of Birmingham’s history. We performed music including the madrigal ‘Fair Phyllis’, Purcell’s setting of ‘If Music Be the Food of Love’, Vaughan Williams’ ‘Linden Lea’ and brought things up-to-date with our own John Barber’s arrangements of ‘Rule the World’ and ‘We Have All the Time in the World’.

We had a great evening at Great Barr Methodist Church, where we had been invited back after a concert there 2 years ago. We were joined by baritone Martin Evans and barbershop group The Harmonics. It was great to perform with them again, and particularly to do some joint pieces – Gwahoddiad and You Raise Me Up.

We tested out a few new pieces – Rule the World and Who Wants to Live Forever? which seemed to go down well. I think they will become popular items in repertoire. Now, all systems go for the wedding on Saturday, at which we will be singing 4 pieces, all new this year, and 3 specially arranged for us by John Barber.

We’ve got a busy few weeks coming up, with concerts on 9th and 27th July, as well as singing at a wedding, and a booking from the Birmingham Book Society. Details of the concerts are on the gigs page.

This means learning a lot of new repertoire, including several new arrangements by our conductor, John Barber. We really like them; hope you will too!

Enchant are going to be performing at Artsfest this year. You can see us at 6pm in the Industrial Gallery of Birmingham Art Gallery, performing some of our favourite pieces.

Artsfest is Birmingham’s annual arts festival, and it’s all free!  http://www.artsfest.org.uk/