stalbanslife

We all know that Christmas is a magical time of year, everyone is more relaxed and full of good cheer. Well there are lots of things to see and do in St. Albans, so there’s no excuse not to get out and enjoy a bit of stalbanslife!

1) Wednesday 9th December 8pm

St Albans Ghost Walk, meet outside the Town Hall.
Tel; 01727 864511 (tickets £3 per adult, half price for children)
www.stalbanstourguides.co.uk

2) Saturday 12th December 3pm

Annual Family Carol Concert in St Albans Cathedral (St Albans Bach Choir and Alberti Brass). Tickets £10 per adult or £5 concession, sold at door. Highly recommendable!
Tel; 01727 890 256 or www.stalbansbachchoir.org.uk/concerts

3) Saturday 12th December (daily until 3rd January 10)

Family Pantomine ‘The Little Mermaid’ at the Alban Arena. Civic Centre.
Tel; 01727 844488 or www.albanarena.co.uk

4) Monday 14th December, 4pm

Mayor’s Carol Concert outside the Alban Arena and refreshments afterwards in the Council Chamber. A fun evening for the community! Tel; 01727 819544

5) Wednesday 16th – Sunday 27th December, various times

‘Treasure Island’ performed at the Abbey Theatre, St Albans. Very good value for money!
Tel; 01727 857861 Tickets £5 – £9.50 or www.abbeytheatre2.org.uk

6) Saturday 19th December, 11am – 4pm

Carols performed every hour at St Albans Abbey Cathedral; 11am, 12 noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm and 4pm. Free and festive, this is worth attending.
Tel; 01727 890256

7) Saturday 19th – 23rd December, 2pm every day

Family Christmas Show ‘Giraffes Cant Dance’ by the Blunderbus Theatre Company at Trestle Arts Theatre Base, Russet Drive, St Albans. Lovely setting and affordable fun.
Tel; 01727 850950 Tickets £8 per adult, Concs £6, Family £25
www.trestle.org.uk

Monday 28th December, 11am

St Albans City Walks ‘Historic St Albans’ covers 1200 years of people, buildings and events in the city. Meet outside the Old Town Hall, Market Place, St Albans. Not to be missed! Tel; 01727 864511 Tickets £1 -£3 www.stalbanstourguides.co.uk

Alban is a two act community opera involving over 150 performers which has been commissioned by the St. Albans Cathedral Music Trust. It will be given five performances (including a matinee) in St. Albans Cathedral between May 20-24 2009, bringing together a wealth of local talent. Singers, actors, dancers and musicians of all ages drawn principally, though not exclusively, from parish and school choirs across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire will join a core of experienced professional performers. Like all large-scale community ventures it will offer many their first experience of taking part in a professionally-staged theatrical production.

This exciting project will build on the Music Trust’s previous success in staging Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, a major community undertaking which made imaginative use of the cathedral’s setting. Alban will be even more immediate as it has been composed with this particular building in mind. From the start it has been a site-specific enterprise with composer Tom Wiggall and librettist John Mole taking into consideration all the possibilities for music and movement, drama and ritual offered by the cathedral’s architectural design.

Composer and librettist have imagined the last week of Alban’s life – a family man, a successful doctor with a wife and two young children, and the opera will be staged through a combination of intimate domestic drama, and events in the public arena – the former exploring the psychological impact on Alban’s family of his new-found capacity for Christian belief, and the latter dramatising the inevitable consequence of his decision to sacrifice himself in place of the priest to whom he has offered sanctuary.

Alban has been designed to encourage engagement at all levels of musical ability and it involves many different kinds of music ranging from market cries and exclamatory mob interventions through to a closing hymn in which the audience joins with the performers.

The Cathedral Music Trust is working to ensure that Alban will be a high profile event, a celebration of the city’s patron saint and a moving experience for everyone involved, whether as a participant or as a member of the audience.

In this current climate of recession, residents of St Albans were happy to have the opportunity to visit the top attractions for free! There were numerous themed guided walks / tours available e.g. Ghost walk, Crime and Punishment walk and the Cathedral Tower Tours. The Abbey also held an exhibition of the vestments. Here you had the opportunity to see the amazing handwork close up as well as speak to the ladies who were responsible for some of them.

Those who were at the Abbey around Saturday lunchtime would have been fortunate enough to encounter the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, St Albans Choir and soloists rehearsing for their evening concert.

Restaurants took part by offering discounts or free wine and desserts with meals. Attractions such as Redbournbury Water Mill, The Roman Theatre and The Clock Tower were free to enter.

This weekend was well worth the visit, even if it’s to sit by the clock tower, watch the people in droves walk around our historic city and listen to the music of the buskers.