Category: Choir Updates

Hi all, hope you are doing well.

I mentioned that it would be very helpful for us all to know the words of pieces better than we currently do. Trying to read notes and foreign words is hard, and if you are focused on doing both of those things, it means that looking up and thinking about detail, dynamics, musicality are inevitably downgraded in priority.

So here is a little (totally optional) exercise for anyone that needs a little help with this practice. Click on this link and page through the slides. Each one gives you a lead from one of our pieces. You just need to say back the next few words to complete the line. The answer is on the following slide. It will make sense when you give it a try.

Better yet would be if you can hear in your head the tune for the words you are reading. And one caution – the words don’t have the accents for the relevant languages. Be careful not to say the words wrong or you will learn bad habits! Handewerk and Schopfer are HENDevairk and SHERPfur, for example. Mananitas is MANYAneetas. You know this, just making sure my quiz doesn’t teach you bad pronunciation.

Have fun!

Chris

Hello all, I hope everyone is well.

It has been a fun and impressive term’s work. We have learned almost all of the music for the summer concert, which is a huge chunk of notes, and we are in good shape to hone and finesse the program to performance standard. Thank you for all your hard work, sitting in a cold church, getting used to singing in German and much more. I hope you have had as much enjoyment from it as I have.

Enjoy your three Tuesday nights off. I know some of you like to work on things in our breaks. For those who do, here are some thoughts.

First: words, words, words. We are not singing a single word of English in this concert. And while a few of us can count German or Spanish as a mother tongue, for most of us this means that we are all working just as hard on figuring out the words we are on singing as the notes. Which makes it doubly tricky, and increases the risk that our heads are down more than they are up. Solution – learn as much of the texts as you possibly can. It takes a little time, but the entire choral libretto of the Haydn is in fact only about half a side of A4, and in some cases, such as the second of the movements we looked at yesterday, there are very few words repeated several times over quite a long movement. So I have posted a file with the Creation words on the concert music page, and the translation is there too so that you know the general meaning of what you are singing. Reading this German text through a few times over the holiday is the biggest thing that you could do to help free up your mind to focus on the music. And of course, the same with the other pieces too.

Second: listen to what we are singing as much as possible. There are YouTube links on the concert page. Included in this, please listen to the Mozart Laudate Dominum. We have never sung it, but many of you will recognise it. It will help us to pick it up quickly after the holidays if you have an idea of how it sounds. Same for Va Pensiero.

Beyond that, if you have the inclination to use the various practice tracks, that is great but entirely up to you. If you did want something specific to work on, the second half of ‘Die Himmel erzahlen‘ is the most chaotic part of the whole work. Lines are flying all over the place in all directions. The only way to do it is to be 100% confident of your part and be able to sing on through without being thrown off by the mayhem around you. We will be spending time on this next term, but the more you are able to hold your own the better.

Enjoy the break, and see you back at Christ Church on April 18th.

Chris

Dear all

Over the Easter break you will hear more from me with ideas for how to keep things current while we are on our break, but for now – brilliant rehearsal this evening. Here we are, half way through the process of working towards the summer concert, and you are sounding so good. Still lots to tidy up and make perfect, but the basics are very well in place, with lots of lovely musicality already. The Brahms in particular tonight was gorgeous. Apparently the smile on my face was embarassingly silly in the Amen, but I love those harmonies and you put them together so beautifully.

Thank you for all your hard work, keep it up, see some of you on Tuesday, and the rest of you next month when we reconvene.

Happy Easter

Chris

Morning all. Last rehearsal before the Easter break tonight, 7.45pm sharp AT CHRIST CHURCH.

As last week you need: the two Spanish pieces (Zorongo and Habanera), Brahms’ Geistliches Lied and the Haydn.

See you later!

As mentioned in the rehearsal this week I’m giving a short recital on Sunday 19th at 12 noon in All Saints’ Church, Putney Common as part of their Tunes @ Noon series.

I’ll be playing some whimsical and futuristic piano pieces by Schumann called Papillons, and a set of 1920’s jazz-age waltzes by Ravel called Valses Nobles et Sentimentales. Clap for more than a couple of seconds and I’ll reward you with an outrageous encore.

Admission is free with a retiring donation to support the music at All Saints. If you would like to experience the full bedlam of the Mothering Sunday service arrive at 10.30. Otherwise I’d suggest you sneak in furtively at 11.45 and make a beeline for the coffee and biscuits.

Hope to see you there!

Robert

Morning singers, I hope you enjoyed last night as much as I did. Sometimes the only way to go at a tricky piece is to run at it full tilt and see what happens.

You will be excited to know that we are now half way through our journey towards the summer concert. Things are coming together very well, and the movements or sections of movements that need attention are coming into clear focus. I hope that the hard work of note bashing is starting to pay off and you are becoming able to sing with a little less laser focus on the notes and words, and able to hear and enjoy the music. It is certainly starting to sound very good in many places.

Last night we bounced through a lot of music.

Zorongo – we reviewed the first page, and learned the second (faster) section. Good work picking that up. Basses, be strong and accurate with those off-beat rhythms. We will work with Marta in refining it from here and getting the tempos right.

Nun schwanden (12) – we have not sung this movement much since we looked at in detail at the start of the season. You remember it well, and it is now in tidying up mode. Those entries have to be punchy, strong and bang-on together on the beat. Walk around the house singing Ver – zweif – lung Wut und Schreck – en in metronomic time, to the tune of the first entry (A) and the second (bar 89)!

Geistliches Lied – We learned the middle section, part by part, and I think you have the notes and words solid. And, when we put it together, it really started to sound lovely and Brahmsy. Next week we will devote a block of time to this piece. I want to go into the Easter break feeling that we know the whole thing well enough to start singing it rather than reading it.

Den Herr ist gross (20) – we worked through the first half of the movement up to letter B. You did a nice job with it. The remainder of the piece is similar so we should be able to finish the note learning on this quite quickly. It is a tricky one to rehearse because it will be so different with the soloists on top. If you feel like some home practice, this is definitely a movement to sing along to a recording so you get used to how the choral parts sit underneath the three solo lines.

Vollendet ist (10) – this is one of the biggest and most intricate movements of the whole work. You did a fine job of driving through it, twice. Altos – kudos for refinding your place the first time. It is an important choral skill to be able to rejoin the music if, as can happen, you get a bit lost…. We will devote a chunk of time to solidifying this one in the coming weeks.

Habanera – this is clearly going to be a favourite. I’m not sure if Marta would agree, but to me it sounded beautifully Spanish. If you want to finesse it at home, maybe try getting the words perfect. We were ticked off by Gala for singing the word ‘llores’ with an L when the pronunciation is Yorress. And please, CoraTHon, no Zs. Oh, and it’s a silent H, Abanera, like Arry Kane or Arry Redknapp. We will be singing this with Spaniards all around us and we don’t want to offend.

Stimmt an die Saiten (20) – We worked part by part up to letter C. We have sung all the way to the end in the past, so we will look at the second half in a few weeks and should be able to sing it all through with accuracy.

Some logistics stuff:
Next week is the last rehearsal before the Easter break. We MAY be going to Tower House rather than Christ Church, so please stay in touch and read your emails.
Siobhan mentioned the planning meeting on Tuesday 28th. If you would like to be a part of that (all welcome but no obligation), drop Siobhan a note, and bring your ideas on what/when/where the choir should sing the next couple of concerts.
We have begun the process of sourcing soloists (thank you, Caroline Cuss for leading that) and once that is done the orchestra will be put together. David Corless is starting work on concert publicity.
We are off Tuesday March 28 – Tuesday April 11. The first rehearsal back after Easter is Tuesday April 18.

Have a good week

Chris

Morning everyone, I am hoping to get through a wide range of repertoire this evening, including the one movement of the Haydn that we have not looked at yet. Nothing new to print today if you were at last week’s rehearsal, but please make sure you have the downloads we have previously used in addition to your copy of the Creation. Those downloads are here: Brahms’ Geistliches Lied, Zorongo & Habanera. (If you want to print Laudate Dominum go ahead, but we won’t use it tonight.)

I’d love to start bang on time, so please try to be there for 7.45 if you possibly can. Look forward to seeing you all.

Chris

Dear All

As you know Sheen Gate Choir is run by a committee of volunteers and all members are welcome to get involved as much or as little as they like in the running of the choir. Most people prefer to just come along and sing which is great (& the whole point of the choir!) but we periodically remind members that should anyone wish to get more involved they’d be very welcome. 

There’ll be plenty of extra things to organise on the run up to our concert – programme, tickets, bar etc.  – and we’re always grateful for help with these (more on that to follow).  In addition we’re going to be holding a choir planning meeting at the start of the Easter holidays –Tuesday  28^th March 19:30 – where we’ll look ahead to 2023-24 and discuss dates for concerts and what pieces we’ll perform. If anyone is interested in coming along please let Siobhan Jones know by emailing jonezfamily658@virginmedia.com

See you at all tomorrow

Morning all, hope you are enjoying the snow.

At last night’s rehearsal, we ended up the evening talking about the amended concert plan. For those who were not there, most of the plan remains exactly as was. The main event is the Haydn Creation. The significant change is the date, from Sat July 1 to Sat Jun 24. This is to allow us to perform jointly with Ad Libitum, the choir from Spain which Marta leads. The proposed concert program is on the website. We will be doing most of the concert just as SGC, with orchestra and soloists as before. Ad Libitum will be performing a block of Spanish music, and we will be performing a few items together. They will be around 20 singers; I’d hope that we would be a little more than that, so combined we could be 50-strong. We have secured the services of an excellent conductor, Stephen Hall OBE, musical director of the Civil Service Choir, to conduct us in the Haydn and possibly other pieces. He will be coming to a couple of rehearsals in the run up to the concert to get to know us. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the concert, please speak to myself, Siobhan or Lesley.

So to last night’s rehearsal. We kicked off with a look at Zorongo, the one unaccompanied piece in this concert. The piece is a little introduction, a slow first bit, then a lively second bit. We learned the intro and the slow bit last night. Good job picking that up. The quick bit we will learn next time.

We then turned to movement 4 of the Creation, Mit Staunen. We had not sung this together before, but your work in sections has clearly paid off. We put this relatively simple movement together quite nicely from the off. Pronunciation note – there are several words with the o-umlaut: ertont, schopfers (I can’t add the umlaut in the post). This is an UR sound not an English O. air-turnt, shurpfers.

Movement 13, Die Himmel, starts quite easy, up to letter C. But from there on, each part has its own challenges: entries, rhythmic changes, key changes. We spent a chunk of time on this long section. Nice work getting this largely figured out, we will keep on refining and solidifying this one.

Geistliches Lied is a bit of a struggle so far. I can sense that many of you have not yet discovered the mysterious beauty of this piece. Please persevere! When you have the notes learned, it will start to fit together and it will make much more sense. We spent longer than intended going back over the first section, so we didn’t do as much on the new middle bit. I will make some practice tracks for this piece and get them up on the website, so you can work on the notes at home if you like to.

We rather ran out of time, so our look at Habanera de Don Gil de Alcala was a poorly-accompanied hack through just to get a sense of how it goes. I think you found this a fun example of the Spanish element that Ad Libitum’s presence will bring to the concert.

So now we have the plan fully laid out, and while the concert might seem well in the future, in fact we have only 11 rehearsals left, and plenty still to learn.

Robert, we missed you and wish you a speedy recovery.

See you all next week

Chris

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a good weekend. Thanks to all for their help with the sectional rehearsals last week.

As you will have seen, we have decided to rejig the concert plan slightly, to make it possible for us to sing with Ad Libitum, a choir from Merida in Spain, whose leader is our own soprano, Marta. At the end of the rehearsal on Tuesday, we will dedicate some time for anyone who wants to ask any questions about details or reasons behind the plans we have made.

In the meantime, some new music to print off, please. I have created a new sub-page on the website for the summer concert, in the Media and Downloads section. If you could, please bring Zorongo and Habanera de Don Gil along. It would be great if you have time to listen to them so you have an idea of what we are working on – YouTube links are there. If you didn’t have the Brahms already, you will need that too.

I hope you are as excited as I am to learn a completely new style of music!

See you on Tuesday

Chris