Jane Amies is a member of the Summertown Choral Society

Thursday night choir rehearsals are a highlight of my week. Even if it’s a cold and wet evening outside, once inside St Andrew’s Church, where we rehearse, there are always friendly people to chat to and plenty of singing to be done.

It’s also a wonderful distraction if my week hasn’t been going quite as planned.

I joined Summertown Choral Society about 10 years ago, but despite having sung in many choirs as a young woman, had neglected that particular hobby for almost 30 years and suspected my voice had sunk from the heights of first soprano to the depths of a bass, so feeling more than a little tremulous, decided to start off in a rather cowardly fashion with the altos.

However, one Christmas I found myself automatically singing the descants to the carols I had learnt so long ago as a child, so at the first rehearsal of the new term I took the plunge to sing soprano again and haven’t looked back.

One of the great things I love about this choir is that everyone is welcome and appreciated whether they have wonderful voice or not, whether they can read music or not.

Our conductor, Duncan, gets the best from us all regardless of how much effort that takes from him (and that’s sometimes a lot). I suspect his thinning hair line is testament to the stress we put him under... He was once heard to mutter: “At least we know what to practise next week.”

However, Duncan’s stress levels are generally repaid when we perform well at the concerts and almost always achieve full houses, on one occasion so much so that our extremely efficient concert manager was seen rushing around offering hapless late-comers a child’s chair, a narrow pew or even floor space.

I should say that two of the reasons we manage to produce such good quality concerts are the conductor and pianist. We feel extremely lucky to have Duncan encouraging us with his baton and Julian, the keyboard whizz, helping us with the notes. Without them we would be nothing.

We are an all-comers’ choir of about 120 members, producing two concerts each year. In the winter we tend to sing something ‘big’ like Handel’s Messiah, Monteverdi Vespers or some Brahms or Mozart and in the summer something lighter.

Last summer the programme focused on Vaughan Williams songs; next summer it will be the Mozart Coronation Mass and some rousing choruses by Handel and Verdi. All great fun and it is such a rewarding experience to sing in the concerts in front of family, friends, local residents and tourists.

We try to make a real effort to be a friendly choir and have several socials every year. The main events are the Christmas party, when we indulge in the usual festive treats of wine and mince pies and join in with carols, sung as lustily as we please.

And in the summer we get together for a pot-luck supper party in a member’s garden when the highlight after finishing the wine is singing on the lawn, much to the amusement of the neighbours.

Summertown Choral Society puts on Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle on February 7 at 8pm St Andrew’s Church, Linton Road. Tickets from ticketsoxford.co.uk or summertownchoral.org.uk