Award winning singer returns to home town for Poppy Appeal concert
An award-winning singer from Ellesmere is looking forward to returning home at the weekend to take part in the town’s traditional Poppy Concert.
The concert is one of a number of ways the town is marking Remembrance.
Seren Devismes, who is planning a professional career in classical singing, will be joining members of the Porthywaen Silver Band and the Ellesmere Amateur Dramatic Society in a fund-raising evening of entertainment on Saturday (12) the eve of Remembrance Sunday.
The 22-year-old soprano is in her final year at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, one of the country’s leading institutions for the study of music and drama.
She was encouraged to become a student there by its former principal, the cellist and conductor Julian Lloyd Webber, younger brother of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. He adjudicated her when she was runner up in the national Woodard Musician of the Year competition in 2017 while a sixth form student at Ellesmere College.
Seren, who was previously a student at the town’s Lakelands Academy, was also runner-up in the Rotary organisation’s Singer of the Year competition and is a past winner at the Oswestry Music Festival.
The annual poppy concert, first held more than 40 years ago, takes place at Ellesmere Comrades Club on Saturday, November 12, starting at 7.30 pm. It will include a short service of remembrance conducted by the vicar of Ellesmere, the Rev Pat Hawkins. Admission £5 – pay at the door.
Organiser Ian Williams, president of the local branch of the Royal British Legion, said: Seren is a very talented singer and we are very grateful to her and everyone else taking part for supporting this year’s poppy appeal.”
The Royal British Legion has been selling poppies and other items for the Poppy Appeal at events and a stall in the town and will be part of two ceremonies the two minute silence on Friday at 11am in the town centre and in the parade from the Town Hall to St Mary's Church for a service of remembrance after the 11am silence at the War Memorial in the church grounds.
