Category: Choir Updates

Hello everyone,

Tickets request

Please email Tricia Joshi on patricia@joshifamily.co.uk.  You will need to make the payment to the choir account – using your name and ‘Concert’ as the ref.  Don’t forget you need to buy a ticket for yourself. Tickets are £15, £5 for under-12s. There won’t be physical tickets again this year but a list at the door works well we’ve found.

Ideally we’d really like for you each to order 4+ tickets.  It’s going to be an expensive concert to put on and we want to make sure we have a good size audience, so please do your best to get bums on seats.

Thanks.

Tricia

More useful progress last night, well done. Here’s what we did:

Haydn
Von deiner gut p116 – we put all the different segments together and they are all doing well. The trickiest bit is the last passage.
Nun Schwanden p12 – the second movement, the first one we learned all those weeks ago. Good job at tidying up the word ends in the H A P P Y bit. The choppier minor key bit was good too.
Vollendet ist p107 – we worked through the whole thing from back to front at slow speed, then assembled at high speed and it worked well. Good job.

Brahms – still some shakiness around the notes that we need to fix. Basses will help out tenors at their low entries, then resume the bass line. Being sure of the first notes of sections is one focus. The Amen is a highlight. I’d love to get the whole thing sounding as gorgeous as that coda.

Zorongo – Marta focused on nuance and drama, and from where I was standing it sounded good. The second, quick section needs to move – 1 in a bar speed. So get those words nailed down.

The goal for the next week or two is to sign off on pieces and movements as ‘good to go’ – meaning not just that we are properly confident of notes, words and entries, but we know the musicality bits of expression, phrasing and the stuff that takes it from good to awesome. So plenty to do still!

Keep listening, keep singing along, and see you next week.

CH

For those who want to:

Homework pack

Brahms – focus on the first few notes of each section – make sure that you are totally sure of how to hit them with accuracy and confidence. The rest will flow on from there if we start each line well.

Creation – go over the three movements we did today, ideally singing along to a recording so you have the other parts around you, but practice tracks are good too.
If you need more, add to that – Die Himmel erzahen, the last segment especially; and the movements from last week, Der Herr ist Gros p76, Singt dem Herrn p151.

If you have time:
Va Pensiero – practise the words and fitting them to the music. I am confident that the music will take care of itself.

Morning all. Thanks to everyone for a good rehearsal last night. A big improvement on last week at THS. (Sorry Siobhan….) We are still figuring out notes in places, but the good news is that we are getting down to a decreasing number of tricky bits that are tripping us up, in amongst long sections that are getting good. But there is still plenty to do, and in response to requests from some of you, I am including a ‘homework pack’ of bits that it would be great to go back over after what we did together, to make sure that those good bits are remembered and those tricky bits are smoother, and for those who couldn’t be at rehearsal to play catchup. As always, strictly optional, but if you want to feel confident on stage next month, and want to enjoy putting on a quality performance, a few minutes’ practice is definitely a good idea.

Here is what we sang:

Zorongo: much better. Still needs to sound more secure, which will come more easily if you know the words. Siobhan made a good suggestion to help with this: audio files of Marta speaking the words so you know exactly how to sing the words. And Marta has done this for us already. Links in the usual place.
Words (SAT) Words (B)
Habanera: Ditto. Watching at the starts of the choruses, with those pauses that make timing hard, is essential. For both these pieces I am going to start charging £1 to the choir funds for every Z which is sung as an English Z, not as a Spanish TH!
Words (SAT) Words (B)

Brahms’ Geistliches Lied: this has regressed from where it was before Easter when it sounded great, and now sounds nervous again, to the extent that it has been suggested that we should nix it from the program. I’d be very sad to do that. I think it is a lovely piece, a good amuse bouche before the rich Haydn, and is musically well within our reach. But all four parts had bits where the notes were not right, and that leads to hesitancy which in a slow, emotional piece like this, is a problem. For homeworkers, this is a place to devote some time. To know it is to love it.

Haydn: We covered three movements:
Die Himmel Erzahlen p47 – we worked from C to the end. Entries – and there are lots – need to be 100% confident. The trickiest passage is D-E, page 55. Apart from that one bit which has some unexpected timings, it is all getting good.
Von deiner Gut p116 – the long movement with lots of different but short sections. We worked again on D through to the end, that’s D p122; G p125; Kp128; M p130. Then the rambunctious bit from O-Q, p132. It’s getting close to being there this one now, which is great. I’d love to be able to try the entire 10-minute movement through next week.
Singt dem Herrn p151 – although this is all quite intricate and needs study to get it perfect, the tricky bit here is just a few bars after A, 27-34 or so, p154. The way the words fit is a bit unexpected. The other thing to practise and have absolutely certain is the final passage – NOT coming in early at letter D!!! Huge mark on your score there please!

Have a good week. See you all next week.

CH

Homework pack:

Brahms: Sop / Alto / Ten / Bass You can skip the orchestral bits but hardly worth it as it’s only short. Phonetic pronunciation of lyrics here. Learning the words will make your confidence much greater and allow you to be looking up. Expression is everything in this.

Haydn:
Die Himmel Erzahlen: Cyberbass Mvt 14, The heavens are telling Letter C is at 2:45; D is at 3:00.
Von deiner Gut: Cyberbass Mvt 28b, Of stars fairest D is at 0:00; G 2:00; K 4:02; M 5:32; O 6:22
Singt dem Herrn: Cyberbass Mvt 32, Sing the Lord ye voices all Letter A is at 1:20
You can adjust the playback speeds – try it at 1.25x, that is closer to the actual speeds.
If you can get confident in these three, that is a big chunk of the tricky stuff in the whole thing.
Good luck!

Morning all, see you at 19.45 at Christ Church – not THS as previously advertised.

Dear All

Next week’s rehearsal Tuesday 2nd May will be back at CHRISTCHURCH not Tower House.

We’ve decided to switch next Tuesday’s rehearsal back to Christchurch. We’ll have another trial session at Tower House in the Autumn term but on the run up to our concert thought it would be best to rehearse in the more familiar venue where we will be performing.

Have a lovely long weekend. Remember to try to spend some time learning the words if you can and let’s smash next week’s rehearsal!

Morning all

Last night was the two-thirds mark of our practice timetable. We were in an different venue, with acoustics that many of you found unhelpful. We had the pleasure of Anne-Marie Owens joining us. My plan was to spend a chunk of time going through the remainder of the big movement Von deiner gut, and then run through stuff we have done plenty of previous work on and do some brushing up. The first bit of the plan was good, but the review of the Brahms especially, and the other movements of the Haydn, and Zorongo – these were all a long way short of where they were last time we sang them. Laudate Dominum was pretty good, but still closer to the learning the notes and words stage than the making it perfect stage. And Va Pensiero was OK for a first look in a long while. But as a general statement, we are all still figuring out notes and struggling with words. There is a huge amount of music to take on board for this concert, so no suggestion that we should all be able to sing the whole of the Creation from memory. But it would definitely help if we were all a little more familiar with at least one aspect of the music. Learning words is one helpful initiative. There are files with phonetics and translations on the website to help you. And for the music, you have practice tracks if you want to devote hard time to it, or just listen to the choruses on Spotify or wherever.

For the record, the movements we worked on were:
Im Anfange p7
Der Herr ist Gross p76
Von deiner Gut p132 to end
Singt dem Herren p151

See you all, back at THS for a second week, next Tuesday.

Have a good week.

CH

This week we are at Tower House School, Sheen Lane. 7.45 pm as usual.

Please make sure you have all the music, that is:

• Brahms Geistliches Lied
• Mozart Laudate Dominum
• Zorongo
• Habanera
• Verdi Va Pensiero (aka Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves)
  
  Plus of course the Haydn book.

See you tomorrow.

CH

Welcome back, everyone, good to be back to singing after the Easter break. Reminder in case you read no further – NEXT TWO WEEKS ARE AT TOWER HOUSE SCHOOL, SHEEN LANE.

Last night we took a big bite at four of the trickiest movements in the Haydn, and you did a good job of munching through some heavy mouthfuls of notes.

But first, we took our first look at the lovely Laudate Dominum by Mozart. Nothing too tricky here in terms of harmonies, but some detailed filigree work in the rhythms and embellishments that need to be precise. Sops and altos especially.

For the Creation, the movements we worked on were:

Von deiner Gut (p116) – the longest movement in the whole oratorio, with lots of little bits that are each a different musical element. We went through from D to O, pages 122-131, which comprises 4 separate one-page bits.
Mit Staunen (p22) – we figured out from B to the end, then ran it through. This is pleasingly close to being good. Notes are pretty solid.
Stimmt an die Saiten (p38) – The action in this one is from C to the end, starting with the stretto entry at C (all four parts starting one beat apart) and leading up to the semiquaver runs bars 50-52. We spent some time on this section but there is more to do before it is ready.
Die Himmel erzahlen (p47) – Another bipolar movement, starts innocuously but from D on it’s every part for himself. We got through it and all finished at roughly the same time, but again, work to be done.

We took a few minutes at the end to remind ourselves of the very first movement (p7), which is musically very easy, but has to be spot on precise in terms of both singing exactly together and bang on the note.

If you want homework, or if you were not here this week and want to catch up, look at the bits of Von deiner Gut and Stimmt an for sure. And if you have time left, the second half of Die Himmel.

I had intended to finish by looking at Va Pensiero, our encore piece, but we couldn’t as we didn’t have enough people who had printed off the music. So please, please – make sure you have everything printed off and brought with you from now on. And if you were struggling with knowing which line of music to sing in places, take 15 minutes and a highlighter and mark your lines. It helps. (So long as you highlight the correct line, Sue.)

Finally, we have 8 rehearsals left – and a lot to work on – so can I encourage everyone to be at as many rehearsals as possible please, ready to start at 7.45? I know it’s a tradition for SGC to be scrambling to be ready for a concert, but it would be nice to feel comfortable and confident and not learning notes the week beforehand….

Have a good week, and see you all next Tuesday evening AT TOWER HOUSE.

Chris

Hello all, I hope you have had a good break and have been able to enjoy the sunny days and avoid getting caught in the stormy bits.

We are back in rehearsals tomorrow, at Christ Church, and I am very excited to get back to singing and the run-up to our summer concert extravaganza. Since we last met, we have signed up three fantastic soloists and hopefully in the next 24 hours, a great orchestra for the concert. With their help, an excellent conductor and, of course, the pleasure of welcoming Coro Ad Libitum to London, it will be a special concert. I hope you are looking forward to it. If you haven’t yet told all of your friends and family about it and put the date in their calendars, you will soon have a pdf poster that you can attach to an email to make a splash. Thanks to the many people whose hard work has brought all these strands together.

If reading this makes you suddenly think you should have done some practice over the break, here are a couple of (strictly optional) low stress, last minute things you could do before Tuesday evening –

• Learn the first line of the Brahms so you can sing the first moments of the concert by heart, without needing to look down.
• Listen to movement 29 of the Haydn, Von deiner Gut, a couple of times. It’s the longest movement in the work and we have yet to look at the back end of it.
• Speak the words of Habanera and/or Zorongo through 3 times.
• If you don’t know it, listen to a recording of the Mozart. You’ll like it.

And finally, please make sure you have all the music downloaded – print off the Mozart and Verdi if you haven’t already and bring everything every week from now on. That’s Brahms, Mozart, Verdi, Habanera and Zorongo. Everything in the usual place on the website.

See you tomorrow

CH

I have set up playlists of the concert program on a couple of platforms. If anyone has others they want to share please do.

The Creation here is what we are proposing to do in terms of abridging, so you can listen to it all through and get a sense of where you are exerting yourself and what your recovery time is before the next big movement.

Enjoy!

Spotify

YouTube Music