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Poor Dave has tonsilitis but Alison Hunka has bravely agreed to step in tonight. Next week’s rehearsal is expected to be at Christ Church because the school is not free – I am just awaiting confirmation from CC. I can’t be there tonight, have fun! Lesley

Dear all

Apologies for not sending a roundup last week – a combination of 3 concerts in two weeks, being unusually busy at work and a little unwell over the past fortnight meant that it slipped my mind!

On 25th April we started by working through the Introit and Kyrie of the Mozart. We have covered all the notes for the Requiem now so I will be topping and tailing a couple of movements at each rehearsal. We also bashed some notes on the Rutter numbers 1 and 2 – more on these below.

This week we moved on to the Dies Irae and Rex Tremendae of the Mozart. These are generally sung very well. Keep the pace up in the Dies Irae – it dragged a lot at the beginning, and again when the basses sing ‘Quantus tremor…’ with quavers. The Rex is only hard because of how slow it is – needs a lot of concentration to keep in time and know when your entries are!

We spent the majority of the last 2 rehearsals with detailed work/note bashing on Rutter 1 (It was a lover and his lass) and 2 (Draw on sweet night). Both have their challenges but are very singable once we have our heads around the style.

It was a lover – make sure you are confident with the rhythms, especially when the syncopation kicks in. The verses are much more similar than they seem, so be confident that even though it’s slightly different you know what you are doing! The 1st bass part is especially tricky – have a look over in your own time if you can chaps!

Draw on – main point here is simple – YOU ARE NOT DRAWING A PERSON CALLED RON. There is no R between the words ‘Draw’ and ‘on’ – please stop putting one in! Rant over 😜. Generally we are coping with this very well. In contrast to the previous piece, the rhythms are very straight forward but the notes are sometimes hard, especially the occasional semitone clashes between parts. Each part needs to be 100% confident of their own line, so they are not put off by all the others! We will continue to work on this.

Finally, just to clarify from previous weeks, we are rehearsing up to and including Tuesday 24th March. We then have 3 weeks off for Easter, starting again on 21st April.

Have a good weekend!

Dave

Hoping to see everyone tomorrow evening. Take a chance to listen to the Birthday Madrigals if you havent already! Lesley

Dear all

Firstly, to clarify from last evening, there will be NO REHEARSAL NEXT WEEK on Tuesday 18th Feb due to half term. Our next rehearsal will be on Tuesday 25th Feb. Apologies for confusion!

We spent most of the rehearsal yesterday making great progress with the first of the Rutter Birthday Madrigals. I think this is the hardest of the set and we are already singing it competently, even after only 2 rehearsals! It is the kind of piece that needs to look and sound relaxed – which means we need to know it inside out! We will spend at least some time on this at each rehearsal to make sure we do, and it would be a good idea to have a listen to this at some point over the next fortnight to keep it in your minds.

We also started work on the second of the Birthday Madrigals, which is more straight-forward in terms of notes but does take some putting together, as the parts do clash a lot in places. Early signs are that we will rise to this challenge comfortably!

Finally, we sang through the Rex Tremendae, Confutatis and Lacrimosa of the Mozart. These are sounding very solid and we now need to start putting in the finer touches which make a performance special – dynamics (I will talk about those a lot) and phrasing (singing lines, not individual notes) are the key elements to this, which we will continue to work on.

All best

Dave

Dear all

Many thanks for a cracking rehearsal on Tuesday! We spent the majority of the rehearsal breaking the back of the first of the Rutter Birthday Madrigals – It Was a Lover and his Lass. There are some very tricky moments in this movement and it is, at times, complicated to put together, but each verse is largely the same as the last (with only minor differences), so I think it will come together fairly quickly. It will be a piece that needs regular work – please do spend some time listening to it with the score in front of you if you can!

We also spent some time on the final part of the Mozart – the Cum Sanctis Tuis fugue. This was very well sung. We will continue to work on making the semiquavers as tidy as possible and making each entry of the main theme very strong.

Finally, we had a run through the third of the Birthday Madrigals – Come Live With Me. This continues to be very good, but building up the chord in the last few bars still takes a few goes to get right! We will continue to visit this every now and then.

See you all next week!

Dave

Hi all

Huge apologies for not being able to be with you at short notice last week – we had a sudden childcare emergency. I am very grateful to Alison for stepping in and, from what I have heard, achieving so much with you, and to Robert, Chris and Lesley for understanding and helping to cover my absence!

For those not present, Alison spent the whole rehearsal on the Mozart. She went back over the Introit and the Kyrie and started work on the cum Sanctis fugue at the end. I understand she did a lot of work in picking the difficult semiquavers in the Kyrie and Cum Sanctis, which is very useful work. As we have now covered nearly all of the notes in the Mozart, we will start to do this a lot more. She also worked through the Lacrimosa, with a focus on the dynamics, and the Rex Tremendae. Many thanks again to Alison for this excellent work.

This week will will spend more time on the Rutter, so please make sure you have your copies with you.

All best,

Dave

Dear all. Apologies for a late roundup this week – it’s been a busy one!

Many thanks to those who came to see Carmen last night! Was really touching to see some friendly faces in the audience! Hope you enjoyed it – the cast was buzzing afterwards because we felt it went really well! Still one more chance to see it tomorrow if you are free – 7pm Holy Trinity Church, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington.

This week we spent some time on the Angus Dei and Lux Aeterna in the Mozart. These, again, are all about the changes in dynamics, capturing the difference between the almost angry setting for ‘Angus Dei…’ and the much more reflective ‘dona eis requiem’. This runs into the Lux Aeterna, which was sung very well on Tuesday. M<are sure you keep counting, especially altos who sing in stretto with the tenors and basses. Sopranos just need to make sure they know when their entires are, and enter strongly and confidently! The mini-fugue at the end was generally very good – keep the semiquavers smooth

We then looked at the Hostias and ‘Quam Olim Abrahae’ fugue. This needs to keep moving – Be aware I was going a little under tempo on Tuesday. The fugue needs to bring out the word ‘promisisti’ whenever you have it – I explained why at the rehearsal!

Finally we sang through the 4th of the Rutter Birthday Madrigals (which we did before Christmas). As with the third one we did last week, this just needs rocking over. We will start one or two of the other ones next week, as we have covered a lot of the Mozart now (very successfully).

Have a good weekend!

Dave

Dear all

Many thanks for another good rehearsal on Tuesday, despite the difficulty with the alarm at the school…

We started working on the Lacrimosa, one of the better-known movements of the requiem. The key to this movement will be making it interesting, especially using dynamics. We will continue to work on this, as the notes were pretty solid.

We then looked at the Rex Tremendae. This movement is only difficult because it is so slow, so make sure you are counting and concentrating for entries!

We also started work on the Kyrie, another of the fugues in this requiem. This will take a few runs through before we are comfortable with the notes, but this is the only real challenge with this movement. If you do any work between rehearsals, checking the semiquaver runs in this movement would be a good use of your time!

Finally, we had a sing through the third of the Rutter Birthday Madrigals. This took a lot of work to get to performance standard for the Autumn concert so we will need to keep it ticking over every couple of weeks or so.

For those interested, I’ll share details again of the opera I am singing in next week. The New London Opera Group, with whom I have been signing for over a decade, are presenting a semi-staged version of Carmen on Thursday 23rd and Saturday 25th January. I am playing Don Jose, which is quite a major role!

The show is on at Holy Trinity Church, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington (on the same road as the Royal College of Music and the Royal Albert Hall), with performances starting at 7pm (not 7.30 as previously advertised). The principal parts will be staged and costumed and the chorus will be in concert format, with piano accompaniment. Hope you can come along! More information and tickets availabel on the Facebook event – https://www.facebook.com/events/440053776689766/

Dave

Hi all,

And now for something completely different . . .  I wonder whether any of you would be interested in coming along to this workshop that I and a number of friends are attending.  It will be different but interesting and fun and the organisers are clear you don’t have to be Jewish or indeed have sung anything in Hebrew or Yiddish before, everything will be transliterated.

Anton

Singers invited to sign up to Jewish cultural choral workshop

Singers in Richmond borough are invited to join a special choral workshop, celebrating Jewish musical culture led by world-famous choir director, Polina Shepherd.

“On Sunday 2 February 2020, singers are invited to join Polina Shepherd, one of the world’s most charismatic and inspiring Jewish choir directors. Throughout the day, attendees will learn a wide range of material, ranging from sacred and secular, traditional and modern, in both Hebrew and Yiddish. No knowledge of the languages is necessary. 

Polina’s choral workshops showcase her specially developed choral teaching methods, which are based on specific East European sound, ornamentation and modal experimentation with attention to stylistic details, history and context. 

Following the workshop, singers will present, that evening, a performance at the Landmark Arts Centre in Teddington. The concert will also feature Merlin Shepherd, one of the world’s leading players of traditional East European Klezmer Clarinet.”

To book your place on the workshop and the concert in the evening, contact the Landmark Arts Centre on 020 8911 7558 or email education@landmarkartscentre.org. Tickets cost £20.

More details on this Richmond Council web page: https://www.richmond.gov.uk/council/news/press_office/older_news/press_releases_december_2019/singers_invited_to_sign_up_to_jewish_cultural_choral_workshop

Dear all

At tonight’s rehearsal we are going to try out a new way of arranging where the various parts sit. Lots of choirs use a block approach, where each part is arrayed from front row to back, like the segments of a tangerine, rather than our system of upper parts at the front, lower parts at the back. The proposal is to try that alternate arrangement out.

This will mean that many of us are going to be asked to sit somewhere unfamiliar and you may lose the regular person beside you with whom you have a singing bond. Please do your best to put up with the change, enjoy making new friends, and let’s see if it doesn’t improve the sound we project out into the audience.

The image below lays out in rough terms how Dave would like to set us out for concert purposes. The reality will necessarily be slightly different as numbers dictate. But broadly, looking at the choir from the audience, we are SBTA from left to right, with 1sts in the front rows and 2nds in the back two rows. Obviously THS is an open space, but it would be sensible for us to try to replicate this layout in rehearsals so that performances are not a sudden change.

See you tonight – and if you can be there a few minutes early, that would help make sure we are not still moving chairs and people around at 7.45 when we want to start singing.

Thanks very much