Author: Siobhan Jones

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas break and are looking forward to re-starting rehearsals.

Our first rehearsal will be next Tuesday 11^th January 2022, at Christchurch, 19:45 (SHARP!!!!) – 21:30.

This term’s rehearsal schedule will be as follows:

First rehearsal –                 Tuesday 11^th January 2022

Half term –                          Tuesday 15h February 2022

Last rehearsal –                  Tuesday 22^nd March 2022

The repertoire we will be rehearsing this term will be for the performance at the end of the summer term (date to be advised). Dave has asked us all to bring several pieces of music to the first rehearsal if possible. Pieces listed below with links:

Score for Vivaldi’s Gloria (if you have one, if not they are available from musicroom.com – https://www.musicroom.com/antonio-vivaldi-gloria-rv-589-pa-mixed-choir-and-ba7515 )

3 Pieces by Mendelssohn (2022 is the 175th anniversary of his death). All pieces available online:

Kyrie setting – https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/3/33/Mendelssohn-Kyrie.pdf

Heilig (Sanctus setting in German) – https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/4/40/Ws-mend-003.pdf

Psalm 100 in German (Jauchzet dem Herrn) – https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/94/Ws-mend-jau.pdf

2 pieces by Vaughan Williams (2022 is the 150th anniversary of his birth) All pieces available online:

Festival Te Deum – https://petruccimusiclibrary.ca/files/imglnks/caimg/6/63/IMSLP129160-PMLP252274-Vaughan_Williams_-_Festival_Te_Deum_(vocal).pdf

Antiphonal from 5 Mystical Songs (we did this in November 2019) – https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/f/f8/IMSLP31943-PMLP60778-fivemysticalsong00vaug_bw.pdf (this is the full score, Antiphonal is no.5)

Dear All

I hope everyone is looking forward to Tuesday.

As a reminder the timetable for the evening is as follows:

18:45 Meet at Christchurch to prepare altar area for choir (please arrive promptly as it will need all of us to get this done in 15 minutes)

19:00 Short rehearsal

19:30 guests arrive

20:00 performance starts – running time about an hour

Please could everyone bring a bottle and a couple of glasses to enjoy together at the end of the evening –  perhaps ask your guests to do the same.

Running order is as follows:

Once in Royal David’s City (vs 1,2,3,6)

Linden Lea

Turtle Dove

Swansea Town

Soirées de Vienne, No.6 – Schubert/Liszt – Robert Bridge

Away in a manger (vs 1,2,3)

All through the night

Skye Boat Song

Down by the Sally Garden

Danny Boy

Paraphrase on themes from Rigoletto – Verdi/Liszt – Robert Bridge

O Come All Ye Faithful (vs 1,2,6)

Ellan Vannin – suggest printing our extra pages to reduce page turns 

Battle of Jericho

Shenandoah

Hark the Herald Angels Sing (vs 1,2,3)

Dear All

There are two more (last two!) songs to download for tomorrow’s rehearsal:

‘Down by the Sally Gardens’

& ‘Over the Sea to Skye’

Both pieces may be found under Music and Media Library, Repertoire Outline for Autumn 2020 Concert etc, at the top of the page below Linden Lea and All Through the Night.

Please download and bring them (along with all the other pieces) to tomorrow’s rehearsal.

See you there!

Dear All

Reminder that choir is back tomorrow after the half term break.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Dear All

Reminder that there is no rehearsal tonight – half term break.

See you all again next week 26th October.

Dear All 

Reminder that we have a rehearsal this Tuesday 12^th October and the week after will now be the half term break.

Please bring the following music to rehearsal:

Danny Boy

Linden Lea (Dave to find RVW accompaniment for Robert)

Ellan Vanin

Turtle Dove

Swansea Town

Shenandoah

Battle of Jericho

All music may be found on the website as follows:

Look at the menu bar at the top of the choir website homepage

Find ‘Music and Media Library’

Click on the arrow to the right-hand side of ‘Music Media Library’ to reveal dropdown menu

Select (click on)  ‘Repertoire Outline for Autumn 2020’

You will find all the songs listed above (as well as some more)

To find the music click on the name of the song which you will see is blue.

Practice recordings are listed as such below each named song.

Let me know if you have any problems.

It was fantastic to see how enthusiastic everyone was about putting on a concert this term. Dave has every confidence in us sounding great on the night but with the date now set for 14^th December we need to really pick up our practice between rehearsals to minimise the time spent note bashing on Tuesdays. Dave sends out a rehearsal summary each week which should help. And if we keep on top of the pieces we’ve done so far we’ll have no problem learning 4 news ones that are to be added to the programme! Dave is finalising the running order and we should have these on the website after half term.

See you on Tuesday

Dear All

Thank you for all your responses about this term’s concert. They were unanimous and enthusiastic! We have picked a concert date that we hope will work for most people: Tuesday 14^th December, evening (start time to be confirmed) at Christchurch. The aim will be for an informal and celebratory performance and as such we will ask guests for donations rather than charge a set fee for tickets.  

As we will not have an afternoon rehearsal beforehand, we will aim to go through the programme logistics the week before so it would be helpful if you note the 7^th December rehearsal as an important one to attend if you can.

See you tomorrow!

Dear All 

The website is now up and running again – huge thanks to David Corless for finding the time to sort it out.

If anyone continues to have any problems please email me on jonezfamily658@virginmedia.com

For tomorrow’s rehearsal please bring all the pieces we have been looking at over the last year (listed below).

Danny Boy

Linden Lea

Ellan Vanin

The Lover’s Ghost & Turtle Dove

I love my love & Swansea Town

Shenandoah

The little light of mine

Battle of Jericho

Look forward to seeing you tomorrow

Dear All 

I have been gently reminded (thank you Chris!) that we usually gather for a little social session before the first rehearsal of term begins and we definitely want to do that this year. 

So please bring a bottle of whatever you fancy to the church and some spare plastic cups if you have them and we’ll have a little catch up to start with.

Dear All 

We hope you are all feeling refreshed after the summer and are looking forward to rehearsals starting again tomorrow (Tuesday 14^th September): 19:45- 21:30 at Christchurch.

As mentioned before we will be picking up where we left off with regards to music and Dave has asked that you bring the following pieces to rehearsal:

Shenandoah

Swansea Town

Linden Lea

Danny Boy

I hope everyone has been able to access the music on the choir website. Please email me if you have any problems doing so – jonezfamily658@virginmedia.com.

Subs for the term are £70 to be paid by bank transfer to the Sheen Gate Choir account as before.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible tomorrow!