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The “Les Soirées” Music Group is a mixed group led by Peter V.

The group will meet every first Monday at 2.00pm when we will practice to perform songs we might remember from our younger days; songs such as Blue Moon of Kentucky, Cotton Fields, Sixteen Tons, and Bee Bop A Lula, etc., and to have occasional soirées of cocktails and canapés to have a hootenanny. We will practice in premises offered to us by group members. These include Retirement Village facilities, Church Halls, private homes and a music shop practice room. We are looking for people who would like to sing or play instruments for fun, the emphasis being on fun rather than on musical expertise.

 

REFER TO CALENDAR PAGE FOR UPCOMING EVENTS

 

 

* 3 April, 2023 –

Les Soirées will be practicing at the Anglican Retirement Village at View Street
The Ponds for One hour from 2.00 pm with tea until 4.00pm in the Lakes Room
Please RSVP to Peter if you are interested in joining and he will give more
information about the planned format for the RSVP – Peter V. 31/03/23

 

 * Report for March 2023

While some of our members were absent and sailing on the sea, fifteen of us braved the extreme heat and turned up at the Lakes Room at the Ponds for our monthly warble. Thank you very much to Carmel for having the air con running so we were comfortable. It is a lovely meeting space for us.

With our group leader away, we tried something different this month and sang along to various oldies via cds from my extensive collection. Brian was happy to not have to drag in his keyboard! The songs provided moments to play our air guitars during interludes and to dance along to the beats as we remembered our misspent youth. Everyone did an excellent job following along even when the singers went a bit fast for us all, or when Barbara forgot to hand out the second page of some lyrics.  We especially shone when singing Diana, Save the Last Dance for Me and With a Little Help From my Friends.

After all that hard work, we enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea prepared by Carmel, Peter K and Helen. Thank you everyone for another fun Les Soirees.

 

* Report for February 2023

We had a full house of 17 participants for our sing-along on Monday 6th February 2023. This included four new members to our average turnout of about a dozen singers. We assume this interest has arisen from our Christmas party presentation which seems to have been received with appreciation.

At this our first session of the year we went down memory lane and reminiscently sang songs that we presented at our Christmas party held just before Covid in December 2021. We also tried a few songs accompanied by ukulele and it may be that ukuleles will become a regular feature of our sessions.

Our practice room is only big enough for limited capacity of participants and we have now reached that capacity, so it is with regret that we have to close further membership. However, we will keep a "Wait List" to record names of any interested parties. 

 

* Report for December 2022

We met on the 5th December for our final practice before our Christmas party and polished up on final loose ends for that event.

All went well and hopefully evidence of that will manifest itself at our celebration.

Peter V


* Report for November 2022

Our practice on the 7th November was our second last practice in preparation for our recital planned for our Christmas party in mid December at the Rydges Hotel in Baulkham Hills. We have selected songs voted as being most favoured by most of our members.
So, being our most favoured songs, our practice came across with great zest and enthusiasm. We have no doubt that this will auger well for our actual performance.  
Peter V

 

 * Report for October 2022

Our practice on the third of October was the first aimed at preparation for our special event. We spent time sorting out a song list voted to be the most favoured by the group and started practice in earnest.

We also set up a microphone and loudspeaker system that worked fairly well, except the microphones that came with the equipment were designed for individual speakers rather than for group singing. We will research and troubleshoot this  issue over the next few weeks and see what we can sort out.

We then rehearsed the selected songs and ironed out a few problems with a view to polished performance.

And of course we then sat down to a wonderful tea provided by Carmel assisted by Paddy 

 

* Report for September  2022

We practiced at least 10 songs from our existing repertoire and had a go at a new song which collapsed into humorous cacophony but only because it was a bit complicated and unfamiliar to some of us. This led to a discussion about song preferences and we have since arrived at a set of standards that will be easier for us to comprehend when choosing material that can be enjoyed by all members.

As usual we had our sing-song for an hour and then tucked in to superb tucker presented by wonderful providers.

Cheers, Peter V


* Report for August 2022

Our practice buzzed with the exuberance of a full room of happy voices. We welcomed new visitor Maria and our song list agenda was conducted by Peter R who took over from Peter V who apologised for non-attendance.

Thank you Brian for your keyboard mastery and Dieter and Barbara for assisting with leading a number of songs and for keeping everyone on line and in time.
A couple of songs which have caused members interpretive difficulties due to complexity of timing and chord positioning will be removed from our repertoire, but during post-practice discussion, many new songs (of the 60's 70's and 80's era) were proposed and we will definitely be including these in our song-lists over the next few months.

However, we also have to bear in mind that we may be able to perform our art somewhere, sometime and to that end we need to concentrate on polishing up on happy songs that we, as a group, already love and feel comfortable about performing.

Peter V

 

* Report for July 2022

We had a near full-house of participants at our practice on 4th July despite the torrential rains; but with Brian on keyboard
and two ukuleles as accompaniments our voices drowned the rain out with gusto.

We polished up on songs already known to the group and were introduced to two new songs, “Put A Little Love In Your Heart” and “Puff The Magic Dragon”. And of course, the tea was special, as per usual, and for which we give great thanks.

 

* Report for June 2022

We had our "usual" sing-a-long on the 7th June to practice some songs on our repertoire list. But it became unusual because Barbara brought along her ukulele and she introduced us to the art of accompaniment with that instrument. She handed out the music for "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight' which we all sang with gusto accompanied by Barbara strumming with polished performance.

Our meeting happened to fall on D-Day, and Dieter presented us with wonderful talk in memory of that event. His talk was followed by a duet sung by Dieter & Peter with Brian on keyboard. They presented the war-time song "Lily Marlene" in memory of the period following D-Day. After that the whole group sang that song in tribute to those times.

So it was all good, even the "usual" bits.

Peter V.

 

* Report for May 2022

We had a capacity attendance at our Les Soirees music session on Monday 2nd May and vocal enthusiasm was high as was music standard. We had a zipididoodah time followed by tea provided by supporters Marlies, Paddy and Colleen. Thank you so much for your support. 

NOTE: Regrettably no new members can be accommodated because our practice room is not big enough for more.