Our purpose is to make music to entertain and raise funds for charities and churches. We number about 35 ladies plus our Music Director (Chris Young) and our pianist (Paul Craggs). The type of music we perform ranges from the light classical through to pop tunes and West End musicals. A Brief History of Cantata
Towards the end of 1991 the four remaining members of The Lewsey Singers, Marilyn O'Del
l, Anne Jephcott, Kath Woodbine and Margaret Edgeworth asked Mike Miller to help them prepare for a Christmas Concert at a local community centre. Little did any of them know that this was to be the start of something quite special. They were soon joined by June Gascoigne who encouraged some of her friends to come along and they gave their first concert in November 1992 to a capacity audience at St.Martin's Infants School in Pastures Way, Luton. Others soon heard of this new ladies' choir and as the word spread so the choir grew and soon attracted a good number of former members of the famous Luton Girls Choir. In 1993 it was decided to change the name to Cantata to represent new aspects of the repertoire and membership and the fact that this was a new choir, and was going to make itself known among the many musical groups in the town. Soon they were giving regular concerts and helping to raise funds for local churches and charities. Between 1995 and 1997 Cantata gave some memorable concerts at Luton Hoo. This splendid venue attracted a larger audience, people who had never heard of us and tickets were always sold out in no time at all. Year by year the choir goes from strength to strength. As in all choirs and choral groups, as each year passes we lose some members and gain others. The demise of the Putteridge Singers, although sad for them, brought us a number of good voices and helped us to achieve a fuller and more balanced sound. Our Present MD
Chris was born in Witney in Oxfordshire at the end of 1960, but at a very early age his parents moved to Dunstable, so although not Dunstable born and bred, he considers it to be his home town. He really became interested in music in his early teens and started learning the piano. Formal music education went as far as grade 8 on the piano and a music O level, but realising he was never going to be good enough to be a professional, he happily settled on another career and kept music as his hobby. He played in various groups at school (the school folk group, the school choir and the Bedfordshire County Youth Choir) and then at about the same time as choosing his A level subjects, he joined the Dunstable Amateur Operatic Society (DAOS) and discovered the world of operetta and musicals. It was like a whole new world had suddenly opened up! After A levels it was off to Southampton University to read for a geography degree but whilst there he was a stalwart member of the university Light Opera Society and took part in four of their Gilbert & Sullivan productions, and was also a member of the university choir. After Southampton, it was back to Dunstable to start his working life as a geography teacher whilst at the same time rejoining DAOS to take part in many of their shows. Four years of teaching later he realised it was not the career for him so he left and joined a computer company as one of their trainers, and it is in computing that he has remained to this day. Always, however, the thing in his life which has kept him sane (?) is music. With DAOS he slowly got more and more involved with the music and production side of things and found out that he really enjoyed conducting. So much so that in 2002 he signed up for an amateur conductors course at the Royal Academy of Music in London. So, when Cantata were looking for a new MD and they approached him, he had to say Yes, and the rest, as they say, is history!
