Story:Vivien Urwodhi & John Mellor Photos: Vivien Urwodhi
St Peter's Ellesmere welcomed Roger Jones on Saturday 12th March to present his new musical 'Two Sisters and a Funeral'. Roger comes from Birmingham and brought a talented team of soloists and instrumentalists with him – all volunteers of professional standard.
The musical is based on the moving story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. When Lazarus dies, the two sisters send for Jesus, who brings Lazarus back to life. The musical continues with subsequent events leading to the trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, central historical events of the Christian story. The leading role of Lazarus was taken by Devon Brown whose rich bass voice and keen sense of humour were a highlight of the performance.
Roger has been writing Christian musicals since the 1970s when he taught music in an inner city comprehensive school in Birmingham. The enthusiastic response to these led to the setting up of Christian Music Ministries which has supported Roger’s prolific musical output since 1984. He has previously visited various venues in Sheffield with some of his earlier musicals, as part of national and international tours, including ‘Angel Voices’, ‘Wildfire’, ‘Pharisee’, ‘Jail Break’ and ‘Rock’.
A 60-strong choir from different parts of Sheffield arrived at 11am to start rehearsing the musical, under Roger's direction, with a public performance at 5pm to a capacity audience who greatly appreciated the special quality of the music. Comments included:
“Wonderful, amazing, quite stunning!”
“It brought the story to life in a very refreshing way.”
The event was the highlight of St Peter’s 30th anniversary celebrations.
There are plans to have a short video of the day on the Burngreave Messenger website shortly.
Two Sisters and a Funeral Photos: Pictures from the final Musical In A Day performance.