President Alan Moore celebrates his 90th Birthday

On Friday 14th February Cwmbran Baroque Singers' President, Alan Moore, celebrated his 90th birthday. Happy birthday and many congratulations to you, Alan!

On Saturday 15th February many of the people who have benefitted from Alan's work and musical expertise during his professional and personal career came together to create a special tribute concert. His family were the prime movers of this uplifting event, which was the most fitting birthday present any of us could have wished to give him.

Alan's friends and family gathered in the beautiful church, nicknamed, The Cathedral in the Forest for this big event.

There were choral performances by The St Julian's Ensemble, who are a group of ex-St Julian's Grammar School pupils, conducted by Martyn Jones, and Cwmbran Baroque Singers, conducted by Carol Williams.

Soloists were Jeff Davies (tenor), Deena Partington and Alyson Jones (sopranos), Anne Price-Jones (soprano) and Ceri Williams (trumpet), Tim Ford (tenor), and Martyn Ridge (organ).

Two of Alan's best known past students are professional opera singers Hilary Summers (contralto) and Neal Davies (bass). They delighted us with solo performances and a duet.

Cwmbran Baroque's accompanist, Gaynor Smith, played beautifully, as too did fellow Cwmbran Baroque Singers chorister, Martyn Jones, who also accompanied the soloists.

The whole afternoon was a great musical treat...

... but as if that was not enough... After the concert the large gathering was treated to beautiful buffet food, as is so often the case at an event hosted by Sandra Moore. The birthday cake she had made for Alan was far too lovely to cut into pieces, but cut it she did and we all had slivers and slices of light, tasty chocolate sandwich cake.

We'll leave you with some assorted photos, capturing some aspects of this happy afternoon.