Good rehearsal last week, thanks for your effort.

It was nice to welcome Lynn into the altos ; the section is now sounding very strong and means that there is less pressure on Vicky and Marguerite. I’m looking forward to this Friday when we should have most of us there.

Here is the music list for Friday:

We haven’t found the set of copies of Love, peace and music so it is here for you to print off – I’ll bring a few for those whose printers are on the bllink (or non-existent!)

Here are the translations of the Bruch and Nordqvist carols; many thanks to John H. for the German. As far as I know we haven’t any Swedish speakers in the choir (Säg till om du kan svenska!) so here is a clear recording to learn the pronounciation. This male voice choir version is worth listening to.

From last week:

A Great and mighty wonder – in Engish. We will do the first two verses and the last.

My Lord has come – this must be accurate and well tuned. If you have facility please work on this; if not this performance by Voces 8 might help.

Looking forward to our first meeting of the season on Friday.

We welcome Sue Burgin to join the altos and hope that she enjoys singing with us.

On Friday we will start working towards the Christmas concert on 16th December.

The repertoire is on the accompanying email and can be viewed here.

Thanks to the suggestions of choir members and some recent discoveries the programme is interestingly diverse. There are quite a few new pieces to get to grips with including one of my father’s that Mary reminded me of last year, one of Tony Glover’s (Ellie’s father) and some fresh from my computer.

Max Bruch is a composer that is not well known for his choral work but the three short carols will make a nice group. Hopefully we will manage the Norwegian pronounciation of the Nordqvist because it is a lovely tune. We know two of the Todd pieces already and My Lord has Come is an unaccompanied contrast. We have work to do but it will be worth it.

The books that you will need are Carols for Choirs 1, 2, 3 and 5 and Christmas in Blue. There are choir spares of some of them for new members, we will sort them out on Friday. There are six peices attached to the email for you to print off for Friday. If you are unable to print off yourself let me know by Friday lunch time and I will print for you (10p per side!).

On Friday we will look at the six pieces attached plus O come Emmanuel and The Night he was born.

Let’s have a good sing!

Masters in this Hall

Mary, did you know

In der Christnacht

Weinachtsliedchen

Wiegenlied der Hirten

Jul, Jul, Stralande Jul

I hope that you all had a good Summer and looking forward to getting back singing.

Below is a list of dates for the rest of the  year; they are  more or less as given out earlier but there are a couple of changes at the end of October/beginning of November. I have also put them onto a printable sheet so you can put them on your fridge door or wherever you put your reminders.

Friday rehearsals 7:45-9:30 at Woodborough Institute:

22nd September

6th October

13th October (changed from 20th)

3rd November (additional)

10th November – AGM

24th November

1st December

8th December

15th December

Thanks to those who have sent Christmas programme ideas. 20 items have so far been put forward so there is room for more.

Please submit suggestions by the end of this week so that I can devise a programme before 22nd.

Firstly, a big thank you for your efforts at Upton.  It was a good concert, well received by the audience. I have had several favourable comments on the quality of the singing, the variety of the programme and integration of Ciaran and Ewan with our singing.

We meet this Friday, 7th July. Everyone is welcome, whether singing at Patchings or not. There may a potential conductor attending as an observer.

Arrangements for Patchings:

We are singing two 20 minute sets between 11:00 and 12:00. Please arrive by 10:45. Details of where to park, dress etc. will be discussed on Friday. There are 20 admission tickets available for us; feel free to bring parters or friends along. I will distribute tickets on Friday.

Repertoire will be selected from:

We will rehearse anything not on the Upton programme on Friday. (Steve and Simon – some of this will be unfamiliar but you will pick most of it up on Friday). There won’t be time for everything on this list so anything that doesn’t work on Friday will be omitted.

We resume on 22nd September after the Summer break.

Have a good Summer if I don’t see you before.

Hope that everyone is well. The weather is looking good for Friday evening so we should be able to go ahead as planned.

The music will be:

You have received an email form Rhoda about music so please act on it. The music that is especially important is that for the Upton concert, please refer to the programme here.

As we had to cancel last week’s rehearsal there is a Muzodo coming out to ascertain interest for next week (24th March); it wasn’t on the original list because I know that some of us have concerts that weekend.

On Friday we will have a short discussion about date and venue for a Christmas Concert. Please consider the following dates: 9th, 10th, 16th and 17th December.

A very good rehearsal last week, thanks.

Please ignore the Muzodo I sent regarding 20th May; Steve contacted me after I’d sent it to say that it won’t be that date. As soon as we get further news you’ll be updated. I am also contacting Patchings Art Centre about possibly singing at their Festival during the day on either 13th or 14th July, I will keep you posted.

We are also looking into the Christmas Concert. We have a provisional date for 17th December but may find it easier to book a venue for 16th. I’ll ask on Friday how that might affect availability.

Rhoda has done a very good job sorting the music and with Vicky and Mary’s help has produced a list of music that you should have Here is it is, please check what you have and let us know if anything is missing; Rhoda will explain further on Friday.

Here is the provisional programme for 17th June at Upton – please check that you have all the music. I have asked Andrew and Kristin McIntosh whether one or both of their talented boys would provide the instrumental items.

We managed to further prune the library by sending some out of date sets to recycling. Here is a list of music that we are unlikely to use but is too good to throw away. If you know anyone who might make use of them let me know and they can have them.

This week’s rehearsal will include the following:

This week is the A.G.M. The evening will run as follows:

I have now devised a programme for 10th December. It is here.

In our Singing this week we will rehearse Part 1.

Flyers and posters will be available to take away and display tomorrow evening. Here is a version that you may print, but it may not look very good unless you use good quality paper.

Tickets will also be available. There is a lot of competition on December 10th so we need to be aggressive with our marketing.

We have cancelled the Newstead Abbey event on 18th December but please keep the date free as an alternative may be arranged.

On 2nd December three of you (and me) will be absent because of the Southwell Choral Society the following day. There are four alternatives as far as I can see:

1. the rehearsal goes ahead as normal with John H. leading (there are plenty of unaccompanied items)
2. we cancel the rehearsal
3. we rehearse on Sunday, 4th in the afternoon (assuming that we can find a venue)
4. rehearse on Friday and Sunday – we’ll discuss on Friday

Well done last week coping with my efforts on the bass line; we did lots of good work in spite of that. There was some very good sight reading and we sounded pretty good on the whole.

I have now managed to get a list of pieces that I would like to be on the Christmas programme. You can view and download it from here. It is in order of book page numbers and alphabetically if not. There is a little bit of doubt over one or two items; I will publish a performing order soon.

As we are not using the instrumentalists this year there are not very many accompanied pieces which will have to be piano accompanied (Nancy has very kindly agreed to play for us). The audience carols have not been chosen yet. You should have With wondering awe and Sussex Carol lurking somewhere in your music pile; please search them out for 4th November. If not you can print them out from these links:

With wondering awe

Sussex Carol

Here is the music list for this week:

Eleanor Hodgson is interested in possibly taking over from me and wants to come to observe the rehearsal on 4th November.

I visited St. Martin’s Church on Monday afternoon and had very a positive conversation with one of the clergy which I will feed back to you on Friday.

A reminder that there is no rehearsal on 28th October.

A good start on Christmas last week. Well done to John P. and Vicky on their own.

This week you will need Carols for Choirs 1 (Green) and 2 (Orange) and the New Oxford Book of Carols (big blue) in addition to the sheets given out last week.

Music required for Friday:

I will bring a couple spares of Carols for Choirs and copies of In the bleak midwinter for new people who might not have the books.

Your committee met this week and is working hard on trying to finalise December events and searching for a new conductor.

There is a promising candidate who we will invite to come to observe a rehearsal and if she enjoys that then to lead part of one. The committee agreed that any appointment should be on a trial period leading to a concert. Someone may be good in rehearsal and not so good in performance. We have had a couple of offers from established conductors to help out but not take the job permanently. The vacancy has been adverstised on the Association of British Choral Directors website and on the Gerontius website. Let’s all keep our eyes and ears open.

Thanks for last Friday there were some very good moments. Special mention to Renwick and John who were on their own on their respective part. I especially enjoyed working on Justorum animae which is one of those masterful little gems that Byrd often came up with.

This week we are going all Romantic as most of last week’s absentees will be back with us.

Music for Friday from Oxford Tudor Anthems, European Sacred Music and English Romantic Partsongs 

Rhoda has sent you all the advert for the new musical director – keep spreading the word.

We have not yet resolved Christmas so assume that we are at St. Martin’s on 10th December and Newstead on 18th December. Come what may I want to get a programme under way. As yet I have received only one request, please submit any more by Wednesday next week. Dig your Carol Books out for next Friday.