An absolute Box of Delights greeted the audience on Saturday night at the URC when St Helens Sinfonietta presented a romantic evening of ‘Music for St Valentine!’ to a hugely appreciative audience.

The quartet of local professional musicians showed the breadth and depth of their talents with a thoughtfully chosen programme which alternated vocal and instrumental gems, from Beethoven to Ewan McColl and music theatre classics.
The opening ‘Moonlight Sonata’ (first movement) with Alan on piano, set a relaxing tone for an hour or so of familiar and not-so-familiar tunes.

Colin Ashton-Hunt, on violin, played virtually every piece as if it were his all-time favourite, showed his talent on piano with a little Chopin, and also shared a piano duet with Alan.
Alan Free’s opening Beethoven was followed later by Chopin and Debussy, and he was a sympathetic accompanist to Colin’s violin, with the pair of them rarely unoccupied.
Catherine Follin’s soprano voice soared to the heavens in Puccini’s ‘Chi’il bel sorno’, reminding us, if need be, of her operatic skills, but also gave us a tender rendering of ‘My love is like a red, red rose’.
Andrew Follin was on excellent form in ‘Annie Laurie’ and got a tremendous response to ‘The first time ever I saw your face’.
And the couple gave us three lovely duets, ‘O love, true love’, ‘A Heart Full of Love’ (which had several of the audience close to tears) and the tremendous finale, ‘Time to say Goodbye’.

With wine and nibbles to follow after all this, there was time to sit and compare notes and catch up with friends, making it more of a soiree than a recital, so reluctant were some of the audience to leave.

More like this please!