March News round up

• Turtle Bay Chester are on the hunt for a team of superstars to join their family. Although roles are available across front and back of house, Turtle Bay are especially on the hunt for chefs, so kitchen heroes who want to cook up a Caribbean storm are encouraged to sign up and find out more about their fantastic culinary career opportunities.  To recruit for the new restaurant, Turtle Bay will be interviewing hospitality hopefuls in an audition event on 14th March at the Crowne Plaza on Trinity Street.

Candidates will be invited to an in-person session, which will include a short online assessment and face to face interview.  The recruitment process sets out to be a fun, interactive experience in a warm and welcoming atmosphere where applicants can get a real taste of what it’s like to work at Turtle Bay. As a company, Turtle Bay is all about allowing their team to shine by offering flexibility, support and celebrating team members as individuals (plus there’s plenty of other company perks, including lots of team socials and parties, great pay, and a 70% discount on food!).  The auditions are the perfect opportunity for candidates to get to know their future employer, whilst the Turtle Bay team will be able to learn more about their personalities and abilities too. With 38 jobs available across both front and back of house, including bar tenders, chefs, and waiting staff, new recruits will become part of an exciting new team and learn everything there is to know about Turtle Bay. From tasting 30 different types of rum to learning the secrets of Turtle Bay’s incredible jerk pit BBQ, successful candidates will get to become part of an exciting and diverse new Turtle team that’s about to take Chester by storm.  Positions are available across all levels, plus Turtle Bay offers the chance to develop and grow within the company. Training is provided and junior team members regularly go onto become managers in a short space of time. 

Adam Peel the General Manager from Turtle Bay Chester said:

“We are so happy to be opening our first Cheshire restaurant in Northgate in a city as exciting as Chester! Working at Turtle Bay is fast-paced and fun, and we’re confident we will find some amazing new recruits in the Chester community wanting to kickstart or develop their career in hospitality. It’s a great opportunity and we’re all about nurturing fresh talent so we’re looking for people to come on this exciting journey with us. 

To attend a recruitment day, please head to the Turtle Bay Recruitment site.  Bookings will open soon. In the meantime, jerk fans can sign up on the Turtle Bay website (https://turtlebay.co.uk/restaurants/chester) for a chance to win tickets to the opening events and exclusive access to updates, offers and advance bookings ahead of the new opening

• Steppin with Friends return for a fundraising party on April 1st in aid of Kidsbank Chester.

Tickets are still just £8 and any profit made goes directly to KidsBank Chester, who do some outstanding work supporting vulnerable children and families in poverty throughout the local community in Chester.

“We are SUPER excited to be bringing Dharma Collective to Chester for the first time ever!! These guys have been on our radar for many a year now, so we’re very glad to be bringing them to headline their first show here in Chester, bringing a unique globe-spanning and quintessentially danceable sound to The Walled City!

“Deep-digging DJ duo & long-standing Melodic Distraction radio hosts James Sims & Kole Akeju – AKA Dharma Collective – began spinning together in 2015 at legendary Liverpool venue The Magnet.

“They’ve held residencies at many of Liverpool’s other important music institutions, supporting the likes of Gilles Peterson, Dan Shake, Antal, Mafalda, Crazy P, Joe Goddard, Cody Currie & many more.

“Their sound spans everything from deep jazzy house, broken-beat, latin, disco, Afrobeat, boogie, hip-hop and other outer-worldly rhythms, showcasing their expansive knowledge through their eclectic radio shows, DJ sets & back catalogue of remixes & edits.

The event takes place on the intimate second floor of Bonobo Bar on April 1st.

Grab tickets & donate at https://steppinwithfriends.dance/

• Following on from the success of recent concerts, Chester Music Society Choir is set to stage a concert celebrating some of the best-known works by German composer Johannes Brahms. 

Entitled “An Evening With Brahms”, the concert will take place in the historic surroundings of Chester Cathedral on Saturday 25th March at 7.30pm when Chester Music Society Choir will be joined by Soprano Linda Richardson, Baritone Damian O’ Keeffe and Liverpool Sinfonia, with musical direction by conductor Graham Jordan Ellis. The concert will feature Brahms’ “German Requiem” together with “Tragic Overture” and “A Song of Destiny”. The concert will begin with Brahms “Tragic Overture”, an overture for orchestra written during the summer of 1880. Brahms chose the title “Tragic” to emphasize the turbulent, tormented character of the piece, in essence a free-standing symphonic movement. Despite its name, the Tragic Overture does not follow any specific dramatic programme. Brahms summed up the effective character of the overture when he declared “it cries.”

“A German Requiem”, by Johannes Brahms, is a large-scale work for chorus and orchestra, with soprano and baritone soloists. It comprises seven movements, making this work Brahms’s longest composition. A German Requiem is sacred but non-liturgical, being based on texts from the Lutheran Bible, unlike the long traditions of the Latin Requiem. As its title states, “A German Requiem” is sung in German.

“The Song of Destiny” (Schicksalslied) is an orchestrally accompanied chorale and is one of several major choral works written by Brahms. Schicksalslied is considered to be one of his best choral works, along with the German Requiem. It is one of the shortest of Brahms’s major choral works.

Joining Chester Music Society Choir and Liverpool Sinfonia will be Soprano Linda Richardson and Baritone Damian O’Keefe under the Direction of Graham Jordan Ellis. Linda’s extensive career spans over forty operatic roles for major companies in the UK and abroad.  Her performance as Annie in Jonathan Dove’s debut TV opera When She Died (in memory of Princess Diana) on Channel 4 was watched by 900,000 viewers, a record viewership for a contemporary opera broadcast.

Baritone Damian O’Keefe has sung with a range of Early Music ensembles including the Cardinall’s Musick, King’s Consort, Binchois Consort and Henry’s Eight, singing in venues across Europe and America including, Lufthansa Festival, Spitalfields Festival, The Purcell Room, BBC Proms, Cadogan Hall and the Bath Festival, Princeton and Columbia Universities, Rutgers, Amsterdam, Turin and Milan.

Conductor Graham Jordan Ellis has held the position of Director of Music to the Chester Music Society Choir since 1996. Born on the Wirral, Graham has been associated with the musical life of Merseyside for many years and has achieved a considerable reputation as an experienced conductor of both choral and orchestral music, working with many choral and operatic societies, with amateur, youth and professional orchestras. Tickets available at https://www.chestermusicsociety.org.uk/

• Green pedal power added to Council’s StreetCare fleet

Cheshire West and Chester Council’s StreetCare Service has added two e-cargo bikes to its fleet, so city centre-based staff can now use pedal power while keeping Chester looking its best.

The e-cargo bikes mean staff can travel short distances quickly and easily to carry out their day-to-day tasks, without using vans in the centre of Chester.

They have a container at the front to transport any equipment they need and an electric motor to assist with pedalling.

The Council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Strategic Transport, Councillor Karen Shore said: “The e-cargo bikes have many positive benefits, including the reduction in air and noise pollution, as well as being more efficient and a lot cleaner than using vans around the city centre.

“E-cargo bikes are becoming increasingly popular for short journeys, especially in cities and this new way of working will help us reduce our CO₂ emissions in a cost-effective manner.  I’m delighted our teams are now able to use pedal power to cut carbon emissions while they look after the borough.

“So far, the use of the e-cargo bikes has proved to be a popular option for our staff in the city centre.  They say they can get around much faster and enjoy using them.  Please give them a wave if you see them out and about.”

See the e-cargo bikes in action on the Council’s YouTube channel. This supports the Council’s Climate Emergency agenda and its target for the borough to be carbon neutral by 2045.