Life-enhancing concert is an Inspiration to us all

There are few more life-enhancing musical experiences than Inspiration’s twice-yearly concerts at Leeds Town Hall.

Three hundred singers make up this awesome Leeds-based community choir, and every one of them is infused with an enjoyment of singing, which reaches the hearts of their devoted followers. The roar of the audience is akin to a football match, whilst the evangelical fervour of the performers on stage makes the concert seem like a quasi-religious event.

Sunday’s programme – entitled Here’s to the Heroes – was sombre in tone, acknowledging the ultimate sacrifice made by those compelled to fight in wars both past and present. De Maio’s Army of the Dead and The Crown and the Ring, Karl Jenkins’s For the Fallen, John Williams’s Hymn to the Fallen, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Amazing Grace and Lovland’s You Raise Me Up all made an indelible impression. They were sung with touching nobility by the massed voices with the Orchestra of Opera North, conducted by Inspiration’s guiding light Gary Griffiths, and bolstered by the thunderous tones of the magnificent organ of Leeds Town Hall, played by Inspiration’s accompanist Andy Booth.

Traditional anthems included Men of Harlech, Scotland the Brave, Danny Boy and Jerusalem (always guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye). The first live performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gary Barlow’s Sing, composed as the official Queen’s Diamond Jubilee song, was a highlight. So too was the bell-like clarity of Handel’s See, the Conquering Hero Comes. Liz Green’s narrations rang round the auditorium; her reading of a letter from a soldier penned from the battlefields of the American Civil War to his sweetheart was almost unbearably moving.