Cathedral Christmas concert wows crowds

Hundreds filled Ripon Cathedral on Saturday for the city's much-loved Christmas Spectacular concert.
Christmas spectacular.Christmas spectacular.
Christmas spectacular.

With performances from Ripon City Band, Ripon City Training Band, the Rock Up and Sing! choir, and three of Ripon’s primary schools, there was an abundance of festive spirit and rapturous applause.

At the interval the audience were already commenting on the quality of the performances they had seen so far.

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Tony and Joan Wimbush were among those keen to share their thoughts.

Tony said: “It is excellent, I particularly like the brass band, and the acoustics in the cathedral. It just gives the concert a completely different feel.”

Joan said: “It is nice to see such a big choir, we have never seen one like it before, there are 200 people here singing, it’s fantastic. I also thought the children did really well from the schools. It’s nice to see them getting involved in the concert.”

Also in the audience enjoying the concert was Sarah Jennings.

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She said: “It starts Christmas for a lot of people this does. I helped with the school choir in the first half, and we only had one rehearsal with all of the different groups together this afternoon, so it’s nice to see that it’s all come together.”

Compère for the evening, Mark Sidwell, said: “The concert is massively important to the community, and that’s why I wanted to involve the Holy Trinity School, Cathedral School, and Moorside.”

Kadrian Jennings said: “The concert really brings everybody together, it’s a great event and it’s nice to see people representing all the different groups.”