mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

It seems like just a couple of weeks since Messiah, yet it's now only a fortnight until Christmas and I haven't written an update for weeks.

I'm very pleased to say that the Messiah was a great concert. We had the audience numbers we hoped for, and all the soloists, Martha, Rachel, David and Donald were brilliant. It goes without saying that Alex Woodrow was fantastic, once again getting round more notes than you'd think was possible. Several audience members reported how much they had enjoyed hearing the music again (and in some cases for the first time).

Choirs are always in demand at Christmas, and the Chorale has already done 2 lots of carol singing. Last weekend we leant our support to Marie Curie, singing outside ACW Garden Centre. Thankfully the rain held off and though cold, we had a good sing. On Wednesday, we also entertained the members of staff attending the Morrisons Christmas dinner. It was hard work, singing for such a long period of time, but many members of staff thanked us, or gave us a wave as they left, so I think it was appreciated. We're also off to Haworth this afternoon to take part in the Torchlight Parade - I'm just hoping the weather's better than yesterday!

We're now only a week away from the Christmas concert, all the details are below. I've had to miss a couple of rehearsals due to work commitments, so I'm feeling a little behind on the less well known pieces - I've also got a reading to master for the concert, so I've plenty to be practicing!

Tonight, Tonight

I  had a bit of a mishap on Tuesday in our rehearsal in the Cathedral - I kept turning over 2 pages at once, completely throwing me off kilter. I can't bear the idea of folding down pages in books, so I spend some time last night going through my score and paperclipping all the solo pieces, so that if it happens during the concert, I only have a couple of pages to flip through at a time. Fingers crossed!

 

 
Tickets for tonight will be available on the door - Bradford Cathedral, doors open at 6:30. Hope to see you there!

Slipping through my fingers...

Time seems to be running away from me at the moment - I realised this weekend that there's just over two weeks (and two Tuesday rehearsals) left till the concert! Rehearsals are going well, and I'm really looking forward to getting into the cathedral to hear the score on the organ.
Tickets are available, details can be found on the poster below:

Hello, Is it me you're looking for?

It was great to welcome a few new faces to rehearsal on Tuesday, hopefully they like us (and our music) enough to keep coming back!

We started looking at the Bach St Luke Passion, and once again, the problem of languages showed up. Languages, along with IT, are not a strong suit for me, but I just don't get why singing in German (and French, because we've done that too) is so much harder than singing in Latin. I've studied both French and German, yet somehow, Latin 'fits' in my brain much better than the others. I got so fixated on trying to get the words right at one point, that I ended up singing a third above the rest of the sopranos!

One saving grace is that all the ends of the lines rhyme, which does help a bit. But I think it's going to take a lot more practise before I can start humming these ones!

Do you want to be in our gang?

Tomorrow night is the open rehearsal for any singers out there who want to come and see what we're about, and what kind of stuff we do. Details below:

Getting back in the groove....

It's been so nice to get back to choir on Tuesdays. The majority of choir members are very familiar with the Messiah, having sung it a number of times in various choirs over the years, so for the first couple of rehearsals, we've been sounding pretty good. Even though I've sung Messiah before myself, I'm still having moments of looking at the page and thinking 'No, no idea how this goes' and trying to sing on sight (always a worry for me).

We've also got an open rehearsal coming up on the 6th October for our big Spring Concert of Bach's St Luke Passion. I understand (being something of a classical music numpty) that the St Luke isn't performed as often as some of Bach's other choral works, so it'll be great to get our teeth into this in a couple of weeks. Singers of any part are welcome to come along and get a taste of what we do,  7.30, Northcliffe Methodist Church, Shipley.

In old familiar places...

I'm so pleased that choir starts back tonight with rehearsals for Messiah - as always, new members are more than welcome. 7:30, Northcliffe Church, Shipley.