Dear Sheen Gate Choir
Thank you for a highly enjoyable rehearsal last night and for your warm welcome.
It was a big sing, but I thought you did very well indeed and you are on a great trajectory for the concert. In the concert there will be of course lots of solos to break things up, so the Haydn won’t feel quite so relentless, or at least not for you.
Chris said he was making notes on things to work on. Things that come to mind are:
- getting the volume down for the quiet passages
- crescendos starting off quietly enough so that there is somewhere to go
- word endings – which were getting pretty slick most of the time
- pronunciation of certain words – we discussed ewig, ihr and ihn
- putting energy into lower notes so that the high notes that follow don’t appear out of place.
- watching a bit more – some voice parts were rather more likely than others to have a few if not many people looking when I conducted an entry. I know standing up will help with this but avoid getting buried in the score
- rhythmic precision – e.g. the Verdi is a comparatively easy sing, but don’t get too relaxed and lose the dotted rhythms
I think you make a great sound and are doing a great job with the Haydn. Congratulations to you, to Robert for some fine accompaniment and of course to Chris for getting you to this point.
I am very excited about the prospect of conducting you in the concert.
Cheers
Stephen