Friday, 25 November 2016

and the kiddies rush home with their presents.....

The Bradford Chorale will be holding their Autumn Fair tomorrow morning at Shipley Baptist Church. Doors open at 10.30. Lots of goodies available - would be nice to see you!

Thursday, 17 November 2016

Life is a rollercoaster, just gotta ride it....

Saturday was a bit of a mixed bag.

It was lovely to see Alex Woodrow again, and even better to hear him work magic on the cathedral organ.

Thankfully, the concert went better than rehearsal, the Mozart sounded musically confident and rhythmically together, and some of the Cathedral choir felt it went so well, they decided to join us for the Faure as well. The audience seemed to enjoy both pieces very much, and it was great to see so many people coming to join us for the first concert in our 40th anniversary season.

Onwards to Christmas! (only 4 weeks to go!)

Thursday, 10 November 2016

Close your eyes and count to ten...

The Chorale has a busy weekend ahead.

On Friday, we celebrate our 40th anniversary with a choir meal, welcoming back some former (and some founder) members to celebrate our years of music making.
Saturday afternoon sees a final rehearsal with the Cathedral choir, our returning singers and Mr Woodrow back on the Bradford Cathedral organ, before the concert in the evening.

Tickets will be available on the door, hope you see you there!

Friday, 28 October 2016

so time waits for no man

and no choir either.

Sorry, for the delay, we've had a couple of unsettled weeks at choir, with Jon unfortunately missing the last two rehearsals due to illness and a cathedral tour.

Thankfully, we have an excellent assistant director of music in Ian, so we've continued to get ready for the November concert,(now only 2 weeks away, eek!)

We've been putting up posters all over Shipley, Saltaire and Bradford, so keep an eye out for them. Alternatively, ticket details can also be found on the Chorale website http://bradfordchorale.org.uk/

Sunday, 2 October 2016

You say Potato, I say Potahto....

Vowel sounds have become something of an issue over the last couple of weeks. There are a number of proud Yorkshire accents within the choir, but for the concert, a more unified (and slightly more RP) sound is being aspired to. Jon has us doing a range of exercises to try to unify the sound, and we're trying to listen more to each other. We'll get there.

In other news, I'm attempting to track down a recording of the Mozart to listen to during the week. All the ones on YouTube that I've found so far are taking stately to a new level, and I'm longing for a tempo dial to speed things up a bit! Any recommendations - let me know!

Sunday, 25 September 2016

Easy as 1, 2, 3...

it's 3, 2, 1 that I was having problems with last week.

Jon had us doing a warm up which involved singing up a scale note by note, going up by one, then coming down, while singing the corresponding numbers. Sounds more complicated than it was, but I discovered that I can concentrate on getting the notes right, or getting the numbers right, but doing both was beyond me.

The Faure is coming on well, but I have to admit I'm a bit worried about the Mozart. There's simply so many notes, and there's so many runs in different places, that I'm struggling to get hold of which bit goes where. We have some time though, and I'm sure that there's a plan.

As they say in these parts,

Be Reet!

Friday, 16 September 2016

Thunderbolt and lightening...

.... very, very frightening. Or disconcerting at any rate.

Although the Chorale technically started rehearsals last week, this Tuesday was my first rehearsal of the new term. The weather certainly added an extra dimension to proceedings with powerful lightening strikes lighting up the windows, and thundering rain of biblical proportions sounding on the roof. I have to admit, it was a bit distracting, and my attention wandered a little.

Holidays are still playing a part on numbers, so parts weren't quite up to full volume, but we managed to make some decent sounding notes. As ever with first rehearsals there's a lot of work to do - especially with ironing out some of our Yorkshire vowels, which are proving a little problematic, let's say.

Also very pleased to discover that Alex Woodrow will be returning to the Chorale to play for the November concert. Our accompaniment is in safe hands!