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# REVIEW: Resound and Rebelles – ‘Beat the Bleak Midwinter’
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/review-resound-and-rebelles-beat-the-bleak-midwinter/
- Published: 2022-12-15T10:04:57.000Z
- Updated: 2022-12-15T10:04:57.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler is blown away by two Brighton choirs
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Arts, LGBTQ Choirs, Reviews, Brighton, Christmas, Kate Bush, Rebelles, Resound Male Voices

**Resound Male Voices** and its sister female group **Rebelles** gave us a quirky, exciting and at times mesmerising intro to the Christmas season.

Directed by **Sam Barton**, they staged their show at that hidden Brighton gem, **St Paul’s** in West Street. Singing unseen behind the high altar screen, they then processed to take their places. *Lux Nova* was classy, smooth and with Rebelles’ top notes, a perfect harmonious start.

The repetitive rhythms of *Non Nobis Domine* (**Powell**) built to something quite extraordinary, signalling this is no humdrum carol concert. *Voice Of the Bard* and *Visions Of Gideon*, which they earlier for **World AIDS Day**, were mystical, dramatic and atmospheric.

*Ut A Golfio* is a dancing song they had learned from the visiting Icelandic men’s choir **ESJA**, and they gave it a mighty belt. *Tanstulaul* was also a dancing song, this time from Estonia – and again a joy to hear and watch.

Rebelles gave us a delightful, moody medley by the **Gershwins** and *Two Songs From The Sea*, which were sad, haunting and packed with the emotion of a seafaring community. *Weeping*, a banned anthem sung under apartheid by the **ANC**, was stirring and gripping and *When Thunder Comes*, a US civil rights anthem, was defiant, honest and moving.

The second half gave us some Christmas favourites – *Carol of the Bells*, *White Christmas* and *Jingle Bells*, but again it was some more unusual items that made my night. *Catch A Falling Star*, not the Perry Como schmaltz-fest, but a setting of a **John Donne** poem, was simply sung and hauntingly beautiful. **Britten**’s *Balulalow* – set for children’s voices – was rendered in a pitch perfect version by the nine members of Rebelles, and the evening ended unusually with **Kate Bush**‘s *Running Up That Hill*.

A great musical treat of a night.