Conductor’s Notes

Good evening all, I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend? We’ve been back in Birmingham helping my best man Eoin move house. A few important things below, so thank you for reading these Notes carefully.

What We Did – Wednesday 20th September

We started with a brief warm up before throwing ourselves heads-first into the 1st movement of the Bernstein. We began by speaking through the text, and I feel happy saying that with every time we see it we become more confident in the pronunciation – a long way to go still, but each time is better! We also familiarised ourselves once again with the funky 7/4 rhythm, in order to prepare for the note-learning in that section.

We then split into SA/TB sectionals, with the sole purpose of learning the notes. A massive thank you to Rowena for leading the Tenors and Basses. We rehearsed in great detail the rhythms of the opening section, and then how each part takes over from the previous part, building to bar 32. It was really good to isolate some of the trickier notes and build confidence with them. It was also important to start fitting the text to the notes really clearly, so we practiced some of the rhythms slowly (bar 40 onwards, for example) to ensure everything was slotting into place. We clarified the notes for all the split parts, such as in bar 66 onwards, and then finished the sectional at bar 85.

After we’d worked on it in SA/TB sectionals, we came back and put it all together, singing through from the opening to bar 85. It certainly wasn’t flawless, and I wouldn’t expect it to be for week 3, but my goodness it was good, and we could all tell how great the progress had been! My little scream of joy hopefully proved how pleased with it I was! We spent a short time refining the odd moment, including putting ‘rousing’ energy into the opening, and feeling the different exciting characters Bernstein puts into his music.

We ended by looking briefly at the Sanctus from The Armed Man, tuning the chords, and refining the text, and tidying up the rhythms. A focussed way to end an intense but constructive rehearsal.

Please bear in mind, the Saturday 30th September rehearsal will feature a lot of sectional and tutti stuff, building on this fantastic foundation we’ve started with – please do ensure you come to the Saturday rehearsal!

To catch up: If you missed this rehearsal, please spend some time at home going through the learning tracks for the 1st Movement of the Bernstein, in order to familiarise yourselves with the notes and rhythms. The learning tracks can be found further down this post!

This week we’ll begin with a brief recap of the first movement, after a thorough warm up! Then we’ll split off for sectionals again, this time looking at the 2nd Movement. You may want to have a listen to this movement in advance of the rehearsal.

If we’ve got any time left at the end, we’ll work on the Agnus Dei from The Armed Man.

Marked Scores

The marked scores for the term are here.
I’m so grateful that you all put the markings in. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible to save you time in marking your copies, so please do try to get these in as soon as possible so we can make excellent progress in each rehearsal.

Learning Aids

As I try to do for each term, I’ve provided some learning aids for our programme this term. You can hear the full playlist on Spotify HERE.

As both the Bernstein and Jenkins are still in copyright, practice files are hard to come by free of charge. However, there are the ever-delightfully tinny Choralia links below:
Chichester Psalms
The Armed Man

I believe John Fletcher has rehearsal files for both works on his site, but those are both subscription-only.

We’ll be doing a lot of pronunciation work on the Chichester Psalms over the next couple of months as it’s in Hebrew. Please don’t let this scare you, it’s not too difficult. If you want to get ahead of the game, there are a few pronunciation guides on YouTube, including THIS.
There are even a few helpful recordings such as THIS, for the 3rd movement, where the parts are sung individually.

There’ll be lots of help for this term, but do feel free to do your own exploration of these pieces.

Chipping Norton Music Festival

It certainly feels a long way in the future, but the excellent team at the Music Festival have published their dates for 2024 already. For those who don’t know, the Chippy Music Festival is a great couple of weeks of music making in the community, and they always have a ‘Choirs’ day... in which we always partake! We normally do music from our Spring concert, and it’s a fantastic way to “dry run” some of that concert’s music.

In 2024, the ‘Choirs’ day will be Saturday 9th March.

Sarah Cobb will be sharing more information closer to the time about the whole Festival, but for now please put the date in your diary now, so we can have good numbers for this day!

CRAG Concert

The first CRAG concert of the season approaches, so if you’re around do go and support a wonderful charity putting on amazing concerts!

This Week’s listening

A couple of weeks ago I shared with you the Wrong Note Rag by Bernstein, which I hoped highlighted his incredible understanding and use of rhythm, as well as his fierce sense of humour.
This week I share with you a piece I came across years ago which perfectly exemplifies Bernstein’s grasp of harmony. In this piece, the interval of a major 2nd is heard throughout the work, which means the music is always ‘scrunching’ with itself – it’s a suspension which wants to resolve and never does. Even at the end, the chord is so joyous and clear, but there’s the constant hint of instability in the harmony as the music never properly settles. It’s utterly fascinating, and I hope you enjoy it.

You can listen to Bernstein’s Olympic Hymn performed by the stunning Boston Pops and John Williams HERE.

See you all on Wednesday 27th!
– Ben

Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had a good week and are looking forward to a weekend filled with fun at the Chippy fair! Just a quick one from me today as we’re heading up north to see our new nephew!

What We Did – Wednesday 13th September

Another great rehearsal with nearly 100 people attending – thank you so much for such a great start to the term! We began with another great warm up focused on tuning, intervals, and silly games to get your diction and brains warmed up... more to come...
Then we finished our work on The Armed Man, looking at the final movement, and really beginning to understand the difference between the major and minor versions of the main melody we sing. We also looked at the beautiful ending, which you read through very well – we’ll look at it in more detail, and bring out those interesting inner parts.

After this we made an excellent start to the Chichester Psalms, beginning in Movement 1, getting a feel for this wonderful 7/4 time signature. Starting with bar 66, we started to internalise the rhythm, and began looking at some of the text. We then looked at the opening 7/4 section, beginning at bar 14, noting how the parts ascend, and the melody is passed between parts. We also briefly touched on the build up to the ‘party’ section at bar 40, and how joyous this will need to sound.

After this, Sops and Altos looked at Movement 2, doing some note-bashing but also thinking about smooth and flowing lines, preparing the space, and opening the vowels. While S/A took a break, Tenors and Basses began the hard section of bars 64-101, really trying to nail down some of the text.

After the break we learned the ‘main melody’ of the last movement, trying to keep those intervals perfectly in tune. And then we looked at the ending, tuning some of those beautiful chords and working out the lengthy rhythms. We finished the rehearsal by looking at the opening of the piece, practicing some of the discordant harmonies, and getting the energy of the text across.

To catch up: If you missed this rehearsal, please spend some time at home listening to and reading through the Bernstein. The hardest thing about this piece is not knowing it – the moment you begin to listen to it and start to internalise the rhythms, melodies and harmonies (which happens automatically when you hear it), the less scary it becomes!

I’d like to do some hard work on the 1st movement of the Bernstein, and for this we’ll be splitting into sectionals. Please do have this first movement fresh in your heads so we can make some really good progress with it.

If we’ve got any time left at the end, we’ll work on the Agnus Dei and the Sanctus from The Armed Man.

Marked Scores

The marked scores for the term are here.
I know you all understand the amount of time that I put into learning, making decisions on, and then marking up these scores, and I’m so grateful that you all put the markings in. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible to save you time in marking your copies, so please do try to get these in as soon as possible so we can make excellent progress in these rehearsals.

Learning Aids

As I try to do for each term, I’ve provided some learning aids for our programme this term. You can hear the full playlist on Spotify HERE.

As both the Bernstein and Jenkins are still in copyright, practice files are hard to come by free of charge. However, there are the ever-delightfully tinny Choralia links below:
Chichester Psalms
The Armed Man

I believe John Fletcher has rehearsal files for both works on his site, but those are both subscription-only.

We’ll be doing a lot of pronunciation work on the Chichester Psalms over the next couple of months as it’s in Hebrew. Please don’t let this scare you, it’s not too difficult. If you want to get ahead of the game, there are a few pronunciation guides on YouTube, including THIS.
There are even a few helpful recordings such as THIS, for the 3rd movement, where the parts are sung individually.

There’ll be lots of help for this term, but do feel free to do your own exploration of these pieces.

This Week’s listening

This week’s listening isn’t actually a single work, but an entire concert! Last Saturday was the Last Night of the Proms, and was a really special event! Sheku played the cello, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra were on top form, but the highlights for me were Lise Davidsen, soprano soloist, humming a beautiful high note in Villalobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 (trust me, it’s worth it), Marin Alsop’s brilliant speech, and most importantly the astounding applause and cheering for the BBC Singers; think back a few months and they were to be disbanded on the eve of their 100th anniversary, and now this year they’ve performed in 5 stellar Proms!

The choir even sing Chilcott’s setting of O Danny Boy which we did in the Summer this year – it’s wonderful to hear it with orchestra, though I maintain we did it better...

I urge you to check out the concert, it’s wonderful. You can watch it HERE.

See you all on Wednesday 20th!
– Ben

Good morning everyone, I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend, despite the stifling heat on Saturday. Apologies for the delay in getting these notes out, I must admit I completely forgot – not yet back in the habit of doing them! A short one for you all, mainly as a heads-up for Wednesday.

For anyone new to the choir, do check these notes each week as I provide information about the week’s rehearsal, say what we’ll be doing at the next rehearsal, share helpful information, and publicise anything else that’s important.

What We Did – Wednesday 6th September

A cracking first rehearsal back, thank you all! I’d like to first off start with a thank you to Susannah and Mark for the smooth registration and score handout, and to also thank David and his team who set up each week – we ended up moving more chairs upstairs as we had roughly 95 singers... we’re back with a bang!

We started with some really thorough and thought-provoking warm ups, listening to blend, thinking about pitch, and working on tuning intervals. It’s great to be doing this so early on, and certainly something we’ll keep doing throughout the rehearsal process so we keep making the best choral sound possible.

Then we worked our way through The Armed Man, learning some of the French in the first movement, working on the odd section of melody and harmony, but mainly bashing through each movement to get an overview of the whole piece. We didn’t cover the last movement, but everything else went well. We also sang the unison section in the last movement of the Bernstein, from Figure 45 on page 38.

To catch up: If you missed this rehearsal, please spend some time at home listening to and reading through the Jenkins. If you’re not as confident with the sheet music, try and follow as best as you can, focusing on the words and shape of the music – a lot of Jenkins’s musical lines are very singable, and often quite simple.

We’ll begin by looking at the last movement of The Armed Man, reading it through and roughly learning it in this first instance. Then we’ll do some serious work on the Bernstein, so please do at least have a listen to it before the rehearsal.

If we’ve got any time left, we’ll work on the Agnus Dei and the Sanctus from The Armed Man.

Marked Scores

The marked scores for the term are here.
I know you all understand the amount of time that I put into learning, making decisions on, and then marking up these scores, and I’m so grateful that you all put the markings in. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible to save you time in marking your copies, so please do try to get these in as soon as possible so we can make excellent progress in these rehearsals.

Learning Aids

As I try to do for each term, I’ve provided some learning aids for our programme this term. You can hear the full playlist on Spotify HERE.

As both the Bernstein and Jenkins are still in copyright, practice files are hard to come by free of charge. However, there are the ever-delightfully tinny Choralia links below:
Chichester Psalms
The Armed Man

I believe John Fletcher has rehearsal files for both works on his site, but those are both subscription-only.

We’ll be doing a lot of pronunciation work on the Chichester Psalms over the next couple of months as it’s in Hebrew. Please don’t let this scare you, it’s not too difficult. If you want to get ahead of the game, there are a few pronunciation guides on YouTube, including THIS.
There are even a few helpful recordings such as THIS, for the 3rd movement, where the parts are sung individually.

There’ll be lots of help for this term, but do feel free to do your own exploration of these pieces.

This Term’s Dates

Saturday 18th November (19:30) – Concert Day!
The afternoon rehearsal with the orchestra is at 14:00-17:00, leaving us plenty of time for dinner.

Friday 17th November (19:30-21:30) – Rehearsal in St Mary’s Church, Banbury!

Saturday 30th September (10:30-16:30) – Saturday rehearsal with a come-and-share lunch.
It’s in the Chippy Town Hall, and will be a really important rehearsal, so please treat it as compulsory, like a regular Wednesday rehearsal.

Other Dates For This Season

One more time – so you’ve got a heads-up of the entire year, the dates below are what we’ve got confirmed in the diary. We’ll be sharing more detailed information as things draw nearer and plans become clearer, but for now please do put these in your diaries.

Autumn ’23
Music: Chichester Psalms & The Armed Man.
Rehearsals start – Wednesday 6th September.
Saturday rehearsal – 30th September, 10:30-16:30.
Friday rehearsal – 17th November, 19:30-21:30.
Saturday rehearsal & concert – 18th November, 14:00-17:00. Concert 19:30-21:45.

Christmas ’23
Music: Christmas favourites.
Weekly rehearsals for Spring term – Wednesday Nov 22nd to 13th December.
Christmas Come-and-Sing – Sunday 17th December, 10:30-17:30.

Spring ’24
Music: Bach’s John Passion.
Rehearsals start -Wednesday 10th January.
Friday rehearsal – 22nd March, 19:30-21:30.
Sunday rehearsal & concert – 24th March, 14:00-17:00. Concert 19:30-22:00.

Summer ’24
Music: Choral jazz.
Rehearsals start – Wednesday 17th April.
Friday rehearsal – 14th June, 19:30-21:30.
Saturday rehearsal & concert – 15th June, 14:00-17:00. Concert 19:30-21:30.

We’re also hoping to run a couple of workshops, focussing on music theory. More on these will be available soon, but they’ll likely be on a Saturday in 2024.

Forthcoming Events

Only one thing to share this week, and that’s the next season of CRAG concerts. Do check them out below and put a load in your diaries!

This Week’s listening

I want to share some Bernstein with you, so you can begin to understand him as a composer, as we tackle the Chichester Psalms. I hope everyone knows West Side Story, so I’ll share a song from another musical he did called Wonderful Town. This song, Wrong Note Rag is a brilliantly energetic and utterly hysterical piece, really showing off Bernstein’s incredible rhythm and delightful sense of humour. You can find out more about Wonderful Town HERE.

This recording features a young Sir Simon Rattle, and arguably the best orchestra in the world, the Berlin Philharmonic. Check out this great recording HERE.

See you all on Wednesday!
– Ben

Hello all! It’s been quite a while since I last posted on here, and a lot has happened since. Firstly, I hope you’re all well and have had a lovely summer – it’s not always been the warmest or driest, but it’s certainly been a good one. Secondly, welcome if you’re new to the choir this term; this is where you’ll get all of your between-rehearsal information from me, and we look forward to singing with you. Finally, there’s lots of stuff below, so please do read through carefully.

Wedding & Honeymoon

What an absolutely incredible day, it was really very special indeed! Lots of great music, food, drinking, and especially friends and family. We’re so grateful for the lovely messages we received, and know that you were all thinking of us on our big day. A few photos for you below – I’ll bore you with them all in the pub if you ask!

Most importantly, we’d like to say an enormous thank you for the very generous gift you gave us! The boat trip during our honeymoon to Skye was unforgettable; such beautiful scenery, stunning food and drink, and a really fun day out that we’d never have thought of treating ourselves to. Again, pictures below – unfortunately no dolphins or whales on that trip, but seals, sea eagles, and a distillery tour!

The rest of your incredibly kind present has also been put to good use. For those of you who don’t know, we’ve just moved down to Chippy, and we thought of some lovely ways to spend your donations to our wedding/house fund, including on some gorgeous art from Skye. It really does feel like the perfect way to come back from a perfect honeymoon!

First Rehearsal Back

Term is nigh, and we’re all set to begin rehearsing our new programme. The first rehearsal is Wednesday 6th September, 19:30-21:30 in the Chippy Town Hall. Music will be handed out before the start of the rehearsal, so please do try to get there early so we can kick the term off promptly.

The other important thing we’ll do at the first rehearsal is remind you all/introduce our Section Reps. These guys are brilliant, and you can talk to them about anything – they’ll also be communicating with you about certain things across the term and year. A reminder that they are:
Sop – Sian
Alto – David
Tenor – Ruth
Bass – Martin

This Term’s Dates

A reminder that the concert is Saturday 18th November at St Mary’s Church, Banbury. The afternoon rehearsal with the orchestra is at 14:00-17:00, leaving us plenty of time for dinner.

There’ll also be the standard dress rehearsal on the evening of Friday 17th November, 19:30-21:30.

We’ve planned a Saturday rehearsal with a come-and-share lunch this term too. It’s on Saturday 30th September, 10:30-16:30, in the Chippy Town Hall, and will be a really important rehearsal, so please put this in your diaries!

All details for the project are below.

Marked Scores

The marked scores for the term are here. As always, I know you all understand the amount of time that goes in to learning, making decisions, and then marking up these scores, and I’m so grateful that you all put the markings in. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible to save you time in marking your copies, so please do try to get these in as soon as possible so we can make excellent progress in these rehearsals.

Learning Aids

As I try to do for each term, I’ve provided some learning aids for our programme this term. You can hear the full playlist on Spotify HERE.

As both the Bernstein and Jenkins are still in copyright, practice files are hard to come by free of charge. However, there are the ever-delightfully tinny Choralia links below:
Chichester Psalms
The Armed Man

I believe John Fletcher has rehearsal files for both works on his site, but those are both subscription-only.

We’ll be doing a lot of pronunciation work on the Chichester Psalms over the next couple of months as it’s in Hebrew. Please don’t let this scare you, it’s not too difficult. If you want to get ahead of the game, there are a few pronunciation guides on YouTube, including THIS.
There are even a few helpful recordings such as THIS, for the 3rd movement, where the parts are sung individually.

There’ll be lots of help for this term, but do feel free to do your own exploration of these pieces.

Other Dates For This Season

So you’ve got a heads-up of the entire year, the dates below are what we’ve got confirmed in the diary. We’ll be sharing more detailed information as things draw nearer and plans become clearer, but for now please do put these in your diaries.

Autumn ’23
Music: Chichester Psalms & The Armed Man.
Rehearsals start – Wednesday 6th September.
Saturday rehearsal – 30th September, 10:30-16:30.
Friday rehearsal – 17th November, 19:30-21:30.
Saturday rehearsal & concert – 18th November, 14:00-17:00. Concert 19:30-21:45.

Christmas ’23
Music: Christmas favourites.
Weekly rehearsals for Spring term – Wednesday Nov 22nd to 13th December.
Christmas Come-and-Sing – Sunday 17th December, 10:30-17:30.

Spring ’24
Music: Bach’s John Passion.
Rehearsals start -Wednesday 10th January.
Friday rehearsal – 22nd March, 19:30-21:30.
Sunday rehearsal & concert – 24th March, 14:00-17:00. Concert 19:30-22:00.

Summer ’24
Music: Choral jazz.
Rehearsals start – Wednesday 17th April.
Friday rehearsal – 14th June, 19:30-21:30.
Saturday rehearsal & concert – 15th June, 14:00-17:00. Concert 19:30-21:30.

We’re also hoping to run a couple of workshops, focussing on music theory. More on these will be available soon, but they’ll likely be on a Saturday in 2024.

Commission Comments

We’re still open for comments on text to use for the libretto for the commission to celebrate our 155th anniversary! We’ve already had a few people contact us or write down their thoughts, but we want you all to email me or Eric with:

– Any Local poems that you find interesting/exciting/mean something to you and are about our lovely part of the world.
– Your thoughts on what the choir, singing, music, and the Chipping Norton and District area means to you.

Forthcoming Events

A few events to share with you, plenty of amazing opportunities in the area!

1. The Burford Singers are holding a Come-and-Sing Carmina Burana on Saturday 16th September. It’s an epic piece, and a great chance to learn it in a day. Check it out HERE.
2. Cello’s Angels are playing at the Chippy Town Hall on Sunday 3rd September. Kath, who shared the poster below with me, played for the recent Mozart Requiem Sing-Day we did in memory of Shauni. I’d highly recommend going to this! Poster below.
3. Oxford Orpheus are having some great workshops, their first at the end of September. Do check out the poster – you may recognise the odd thing or two...

This Week’s listening

I’m off to Germany this weekend to record a CD – we’ve also got a concert on Friday afternoon, and one of the pieces is just stunning; it’s the third movement from Poulenc’s Quatre petites prières de Saint François d’Assise (Four small prayers of Saint Francis of Assisi) – “Seigneur, je vous en prie”. If you’re interested in finding out more about these pieces, you can read about them here.

Although I’m sharing just the third movement here, I’d highly recommend listening to all four movements, they’re very short. You can hear it HERE.

I’m really looking forward to seeing you all on the 6th September!
– Ben

Happy first night of the Proms, everyone! I hope you’re all well and aren’t too drenched in this horrible weather. A few bits to wrap up from this term, and a few important bits going forwards, so thank you for reading though each section.

Shauni Sing Day

Well, what a day that was! A huge thank you to everyone involved, it was an absolutely incredible day, and I think we can all agree with Peter’s sentiments that it’s not about the destination but the journey... however, what a phenomenal destination it was! I’m so pleased with CNCS’s contribution to the day, and thank you all for your energies and efforts throughout the day. I also want to say how enjoyable the rehearsals in the weeks preceding were. CNCS, as expected, offered a warm welcome to those non-members who joined us for the rehearsals, and I think we may have even persuaded a few people to join us in September.

An enormous congratulations to everyone who contributed to running and planning the day. The logistics were not easy, but because of the work and dedication of everyone behind the scenes, especially Susannah and Sarah, the day ran completely seamlessly! And wow, what a pleasure to work with Peter again. It was such a pleasure to be a small cog in a big machine to celebrate Shauni, and it’ll certainly be a day I don’t forget anytime soon. Well done all!!

Social

We had such a lovely evening on Wednesday eating, drinking, and most importantly chatting with brilliant people! It was so good to see so many people filling the Town Hall not with music but with laughter and great conversation. Thank you to all who brought food and drink, and to everyone who set up/packed down/wash up chairs, tables, plates, cutlery, glasses, etc. – it was such a great evening. This is what CNCS is all about, and I feel very lucky to be involved with it!

The New term

An important update on next term:

We’ll be starting rehearsals on Wednesday 6th September, and we’ll go through to the concert week with no half term. The concert is Saturday 18th November at St Mary’s Church, Banbury, and there’ll be a dress rehearsal on the evening of Friday 17th.

We would like to do a Saturday rehearsal with a come-and-share lunch this term too. We can confirm now that we’ve been able to book it in for Saturday 30th September, so please put this in your diaries!

And just to remind you of the lovely repertoire:
Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms
Barber’s Adagio for Strings (played by the orchestra)
Jenkins’s Armed Man: A Mass For Peace

All details for the project are below.

Section Reps Meeting

We had an excellent meeting with our new Section Reps on Wednesday before the social, covering a lot of exciting stuff! This is a reminder that they are always open to hear your feedback and comments, so do get in touch with them.

They’ll also be sending an email round over the Summer with some important things in, so keep an eye out for that.

Commission Comments

As I mentioned at the social event, we want you to be a part of the commission. I’ll be sharing with you all the details once they’re ready, but we want to get going with collecting ideas for the libretto text that we’ll set to music!

We’ve already had a few people contact us or write down their thoughts, but we want you all to email me or Eric with:

– Any Local poems that you find interesting/exciting/mean something to you and are about our lovely part of the world.
– Your thoughts on what the choir, singing, music, and the Chipping Norton and District area means to you.

Ukraine Concert

I’ve been asked to share this concert by the Kyiv Classical Duo. Looks like it’ll be a great concert for an excellent cause, so do go along and support!

Wedding

I just wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all the love and support you’ve all shown me and Bec as we prepare for our wedding. It’s going to be such a brilliant day, and thanks to all of your generosity our honeymoon will be unforgettable! We promise to show you all the photos and tell you all about it when we’re back in Chippy! Next time we see most of you we’ll be a married couple!

This Week’s listening

A very important bit of listening this week – the BBC Proms has just kicked off with a bang! Featuring Sibelius’s monumental Finlandia, Grieg’s infamous Piano Concerto, and Britten’s joyous Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra, it’s a must-watch! Oh, and it’s got the BBC Singers in it – can you believe that the BBC almost cut them?! You can catch up with it on BBC iPlayer, and I’ll be sharing some more with you over the next couple of months. Do go and support live music!

Have a lovely summer and see you all soon.
– Ben

Hi everyone, just a quick post to mention a few things. Won’t take long!

Sing Day Update

We’ve had some great fun rehearsals bashing through the Mozart Requiem in preparation for Sunday, and it’s sounding great! A huge thank you to Janet Lincé for taking the first rehearsal and doing a whistle-stop tour of the whole thing! I’ve then been dissecting each movement, and we’ve really got it in a good place so there’s a core of people who’ll be really confident on Sunday. We also took a look at the booklet, which will be explained by Peter on Sunday.

It’s not too late to get your ticket to sing or watch in the evening, and with a HUGE(!) choir plus a great orchestra of professional musicians, and stellar soloists, it’s certainly not one to miss.
Get your tickets HERE!

Rehearsal Tracks For the Mozart

Brian has very kindly shared some rehearsal files with me, if you’re interested in looking over them before the day.
You can find them HERE.

Concerts

Two concerts to share with you, and both are TONIGHT!

Firstly, the Cherwell Choral Society have their concert ‘Americana‘. Secondly, the Banbury Symphony Orchestra have their programme ‘Cornucopia‘ (which features lots of amazing music for the french horn!

Both sound like they’ll be amazing, so it’s worth choosing one to go to if you can make it!

Hope to see you all on Sunday!
– Ben

Well, that was a bit brilliant! Well done to you all for another outstanding concert, I don’t think it could’ve gone much better! Feedback on the concert below, as well as a few other bits, so I’m very grateful for your careful reading.

Concert Feedback

Overall, the whole evening was a roaring success! I’m so pleased with how the choir sounded, how the text was projected and the performance across the entire evening. Before I dive into my breakdown, I’ve received a few comments about how great the evening was, including “The sustained notes at the end of several of the pieces were spine tinglingly wonderful, perfectly held, and soft and gentle”, “The opening with the Cantique de Jean Racine set a beautiful and delicate tone to the evening. The choir sang with precision and rounded beautiful tone. Lots of colour and expression was brought out particularly in To Music and Ave Verum at the end. . . . This was a real treat of an evening and the audience were sent home smiling!” and I even overheard at the interval an audience member saying “This is the best I’ve ever heard the choir sound!” – high praise indeed, and I couldn’t agree more!

The programme, while fairly accessible, was designed to push you out of your comfort zone, as a lot of it couldn’t be done accompanied or needed a different style of sound and type singing than that which we normally strive for. You rose to this challenge and absolutely nailed it! I could sense the joy from everyone in singing the fun madrigals, or the acute listening skills needed for the acapella singing, and the blend was just stonking. My parents commented on how great the blend of the sections were, and this was most noticeable in the upper- and lower-voice only pieces.

It kicked off perfectly with the Fauré, setting the bar for the quality of the concert, and then the unaccompanied pieces shone – If ye love me was particularly good, but the madrigals that followed were so exciting. Well done with It was a Lover; every verse was different and brought new character to the music – shame though Tenors/Basses that it was only the 4th and final time we got bar 26 right... I know you were putting all your focus into bar 25... hah! You gave the Drop, drop and the Ave Verum the poignance and space it required and deserved, and it was a beautiful end to the first half.

The start of the second half kicked off brilliantly with As Torrents, and again the blend of the voices has come on leaps and bounds in the acapella pieces. We were slightly on the ‘tired side’ for the Sullivan which fell a little flat, but the quality of the sound was really good (just flat...). Like my parents, I particularly enjoyed the upper- and lower-voice only pieces, and want to give a particular shout out to the tenors and basses for conveying the text so nicely and with such a warm tone! Greensleeves was BRILLIANT! I admit to you now that that was the one I was most worried about, due to the geography of it. But you’d all clearly put the effort in at home and it was confident and assured! Danny Boy was utterly beautiful, and I genuinely nearly teared up... well done! The final set was just a joy – Pastime was perfect (a goosebump-inducing sound in the loud sections), Innsbruck was gorgeous and serene, Now is the Month was lively and filled with energy – which, at the end of a 2-hour concert, is a very hard thing to achieve – and Sumer is Icumen in was just the most wonderful way to end the concert.

I should also mention our excellent instrumental interludes; Bec’s cello playing, I thought, was exquisite, and Wendy and Rowena’s duets were so much fun, especially the Chabrier – what excellent additions to the concert. Of course, a HUGE thank you and well done to Rowena, not just for the concert, but for the whole term. As always she accompanied us perfectly, having supported us expertly in all of our rehearsals. I know I speak on behalf of all of us when I say how much of a pleasure it is to work with her, and we’re so lucky to have her as part of the team.

Finally, a massive thank you to everyone who puts in so much hard work behind the scenes! Without those hidden workers the concerts just wouldn’t happen, let alone be as slick and well produced as they are. I’m so grateful to everyone who helps move chairs, furniture, people, stuff; to those who sell programmes, drinks, tickets, check people in; to those who get up early to solve problems, fix lights, find cushions. The list is endless, and I feel so lucky to be so well supported.

A massive congratulations on another phenomenal concert – here’s to many more!

Mozart Requiem rehearsals – Wednesday 21st June

As you’ll already know, we’ll be starting our Mozart Requiem rehearsals on Wednesday. If you’ve somehow miraculously not heard about it yet, you can find out all about it on a previous Conductor’s Notes post. Please aim to arrive early on Wednesday so we can get scores sorted for you all.

One thing – I’m actually away for an audition on Wednesday (fingers crossed for me please!) so you’ll be joined again by the fabulous Janet Lincé, who’ll masterfully guide you through the Requiem in this first rehearsal.
I look forward to seeing you on the 28th when I’m back.

Future Events

Our friends over at Cherwell Choral Society have their concert on Saturday 8th July, so do go and support them then, and sing the Mozart on Sunday 9th... what a perfect weekend!

This Week’s listening

I thought it would be interesting to share with you the piece I’ve chosen for my audition on Wednesday – Unicornis Captivatur by Norwegian composer, Ola Gjeilo. You can find out more about the piece and the text by clicking the title of the work above, and you can hear the piece HERE.

Have a great start to the Mozart, and see you all soon!
– Ben

Hello friends, what a great rehearsal last night. Thank you for all of your hard work this term, the Summer always feels like a whistle-stop tour, but we’ve made some excellent progress. Please make sure you put in a few extra minutes before now and Friday, and of course the concert! On Friday we’ll be looking at the remaining pieces we didn’t get to in the Wednesday rehearsal, but also making sure everything is nicely prepared for the concert, including getting used to the space.

What we did on Wednesday 14th June

We practiced the pieces that join each section, often running them. These were:
Cantique de Jean Racine
Locus Iste
If ye love me
Farewell dear Love
It was a Lover
Drop, Drop slow tears
Ave Verum
As Torrents
The Lily and the Rose
Danny Boy
Pastime
Sumer is icumen in
We also looked at Greensleeves.

What we will do on Friday 16th June

We’ll look at the remaining works, so please come with those prepared. These are:
Locus Iste
To Music
Sing we and Chant It
Fine Knacks for Ladies
The Silver Swan
The Long day closes
Scarborough Fair
Innsbruck
Now is the Month of Maying

If we have time, we’ll look at any other ‘troublesome’ pieces.

Learning Resources

Many of you said how useful the latest tracks were, so I’ve now (rather hurriedly) written out tracks for most of the remaining pieces. You can access the folder HERE.

Please do use them over the next couple of days if you need to touch up the odd note... no excuse for the concert, now!

Everything is available individually too (Fine Knacks has now been sorted):

Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
Bruckner – Locus Iste
Schubert – To Music
Tallis – If ye love me
Jones – Farewell, Dear Love
Morley – Sing we and chant it
Dowland – Fine knacks for ladies
Morley – It was a Lover and his Lass
Gibbons – Drop, drop slow tears
Gibbons – The Silver Swan
Mozart – Ave Verum
Elgar – As Torrents in Summer
Sullivan – The Long Day Closes
Chilcott – The Lily and the Rose (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Vaughan Williams – Greensleeves
Higgins – Scarborough Fair
Chilcott – O Danny Boy
Henry VIII – Pastime
Isaac – Innsbruck
Morley – Now is the Month of Maying
Bullard – Sumer is icumen in

Recommended Recordings

The whole playlist is HERE.

Friday rehearsal

A reminder that there’s the pre-concert rehearsal on Friday evening, 19:30-21:30 in St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton. Please arrive at 19:10 if possible so we can get seats out and sorted.

Concert Day

And, a reminder about concert day:

13:45 arrive and get seated.
14:00 rehearsal starts, and we’ll top-and-tail the pieces.
17:00 rehearsal ends.
18:00 we’ll begin picnicking in the church grounds.
19:20 changed and ready for a gentle warm up in the church rooms opposite the church.
19:30 concert begins.

The dress is normal concert dress, so either Dinner Jackets (black jacket, white shirt, black bowtie, black trousers, black socks and black shoes), or All Black.

Future Events

One other event coming up – Three Acres and A Cow. Do go and support, and check out the event HERE.

This Week’s listening

Concert in 3 days... make sure you’re happy with the notes!

See you on Friday 16th.
– Ben

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all well and have been enjoying the lovely weather this weekend. As the concert is less than a week away, please make sure you’re putting in some extra practice at home, just to make sure you’re really confident with everything.

What we did on Wednesday 7th June

We ran Greensleeves... well, got as far through as possible before it fell apart. The notes seemed a lot more confident, it was just the geography of it all. We’ll keep reminding ourselves of this. We then split into sectionals – Tenors and Basses with me sounded great, just remember to convey the words to the audience. Sops and Altos did some great work with Rowena, ensuring notes were confident and phrasing was elegant – I look forward to doing this with you in-situ, Sops and Altos. After this we quickly ran through Sumer is icumen in, practicing our entrances and touching up a couple of moments in the melody; confidence with your entrances – once we get going with the round it becomes simple.

After the break we looked at Fine Knacks for Ladies, again reminding ourselves of the notes, and becoming more familiar with the 2nd and 3rd verses. It’s really worth the 5 minutes it takes at home to look through the words! This was followed by It was a Lover, which went really well on the whole – again, we had to isolate a couple of parts to tidy some notes up, but I’m hoping everyone is more familiar with it now. Finally, we ended with Sing we and chant it – again, it’s more about the quality of the text than the notes. Please do check the words at home, so we can perform it with a smile on Saturday!

What we will do on Wednesday 14th June

Our final Wednesday rehearsal before the concert! We’ll be doing the joins of each section, in order. So it’ll be:
Cantique de Jean Racine
If ye love me
Farewell dear Love
It was a Lover
Drop, Drop slow tears
Ave Verum
As Torrents
The Lily and the Rose
The Sally Gardens
Danny Boy
Pastime
Sumer is icumen in

We’ll also look at Greensleeves again for the geography.

Learning Resources

As well as the learning resources I’ve shared for the term below, I’ve now created audio files of Greensleeves, It was a Lover, and To Music to help you solidify your parts. Please use these resources to make sure you’re really happy with your parts! Link to them is HERE.

And as always, here are the other learning resources:

Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
Bruckner – Locus Iste
Tallis – If ye love me
Jones – Farewell, Dear Love
Morley – Sing we and chant it
Dowland – Fine knacks for ladies
Gibbons – Drop, drop slow tears
Gibbons – The Silver Swan
Mozart – Ave Verum
Elgar – As Torrents in Summer
Sullivan – The Long Day Closes
Chilcott – The Lily and the Rose (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Chilcott – O Danny Boy (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Isaac – Innsbruck

Recommended Recordings

The playlist below is just a guide, but please do listen to Sumer is icumen in HERE.

The whole playlist is HERE.

Friday rehearsal

A reminder that there’s the pre-concert rehearsal on Friday evening, 19:30-21:30 in St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton. Please arrive early so we can get seats out and sorted.

Concert Day

And, a reminder about concert day:

13:45 arrive and get seated.
14:00 rehearsal starts, and we’ll top-and-tail the pieces.
17:00 rehearsal ends.
18:00 we’ll begin picnicking in the church grounds.
19:20 changed and ready for a gentle warm up in the church rooms opposite the church.
19:30 concert begins.

The dress is normal concert dress, so either Dinner Jackets (black jacket, white shirt, black bowtie, black trousers, black socks and black shoes), or All Black.

Social

We’re planning an end-of-term social – Charlotte will be sending an email out just before Wednesday’s rehearsal so it’ll be fresh in your minds. It’ll be Wednesday 12th July, at the normal time of 19:30-21:30. All details on the email, so stay tuned.

This Week’s listening

At this stage... just make sure you’re really confident with the music for the concert! Thanks all.

Thank you for your hard work this term, it’s a lot of great music to get through.
See you on Wednesday 14th.
– Ben

Good morning friends, I hope you’ve all had a lovely half-term break? We’ve been steaming ahead with wedding planning, and with 2 months to go today, it’s feeling awfully close! Regular notes below, but then some important information, so please make sure you read all of this post – much appreciated.

What we did on Wednesday 24th May

We began refining some of the harder, more complex numbers, beginning with Scarborough Fair, confirming how the melody passes between the parts, and how the harmonies fit in. We also did some good work on blend, so that less-important parts don’t stick out, such as the T/B final note. Then we looked at Greensleeves, making sure all notes were correct, beginning with the Bass harmony part at the start – please sing through this at home if you’re still not 100% happy with it. We also looked at the countermelody in the S/T part in bar 27 which is tricky, so have your wits about you with that one.

After the break we worked on the Cantique, which was sung beautifully; we’re now drawing out as much from the text as possible to help shape the music. Just remember to do as much with the colours on page 8. We made sure all of the fiddly notes were secure in bars 48 and 50. We ended with work on The Long Day Closes, keeping that beautiful blend across the choir.

What we will do on Wednesday 7th June

Back to it! We’ll start by running Greensleeves to see how much we can remember from before half term. Then we’ll split off into sectionals, with S/A working on The Lily and the Rose, and T/B working on The Sally Gardens (I’ve confirmed that the lower hall is back up and running, so thanks for your patience with this!)

After a break we’ll look at Fine Knacks for Ladies, It was a Lover, and finish with Sing we and chant it.

Recommended Recordings

It’s a bit of a bitty term, as I’m sure you’ve realised; a great programme formed of wonderful, but shorter, pieces. For this reason, and given some of the arrangements/editions we’re doing haven’t been recorded, the recommended recordings are meant to help you understand and get to grip with the pieces, not necessarily learn them note-by-note. They’re good to have on in the background, and to follow some of the text, melodies and rhythms, but they’re not always going to line up 100% accurately with your copies.

You can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

I’ve been able to find some learning resources for some of the pieces we’re doing, so do check them out below. I hope they’re helpful, and will aid your learning of the music over the term. Just click the title of the piece and it’ll take you to the link.

Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
Bruckner – Locus Iste
Tallis – If ye love me
Jones – Farewell, Dear Love
Morley – Sing we and chant it
Dowland – Fine knacks for ladies
Gibbons – Drop, drop slow tears
Gibbons – The Silver Swan
Mozart – Ave Verum
Elgar – As Torrents in Summer
Sullivan – The Long Day Closes
Chilcott – The Lily and the Rose (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Chilcott – O Danny Boy (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Isaac – Innsbruck

Translations

A few of you have asked for the translations for the pieces. Please see below. If it helps you to write in what certain words or phrases mean, please do!

Post-it note suggestions

I’ve now collated all of your Post-it note suggestions, and can say there’s an amazing mix! I look forward to learning the pieces suggested by you that I don’t know, and the whole process has been really interesting for me to see what you would like to do. I’ve not had time to comment on each piece, but I’d like to share with you your ideas.

Autumn 2023

This brings us neatly on to my announcement of Autumn 2023. The Programme is called Music for Remembrance and Peace, and will be on Saturday 18th November in St Mary’s Banbury. A full schedule is below, but the pieces we’ll be performing are: Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man! This will be with an orchestra, and the orchestra will also perform Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

September:
Wednesday 6th – Rehearsal 1
Wednesday 13th – Rehearsal 2
Wednesday 20th – Rehearsal 3
Wednesday 27th – Rehearsal 4

October:
Wednesday 4th – Rehearsal 5
Wednesday 11th – Rehearsal 6
Saturday 14th – All-Day Rehearsal*
*We’re hoping to run an All-Day rehearsal from 10:30-16:30 – more info soon.
Wednesday 18th – Rehearsal 7
Wednesday 25th – Rehearsal 8

November:
Wednesday 1st – Rehearsal 9
Wednesday 8th – Rehearsal 10
Wednesday 15th – Rehearsal 11
Friday 17th – Rehearsal 12 (In Concert Venue)
Saturday 18th – Concert day
-Rehearsal: 14:00 – 17:00
-Concert: 19:30 – 21:30

It promises to be a very exciting term, and a very poignant and emotional concert, so get these dates in the diary now as it’s not one to miss!

A Spotify playlist is HERE, to whet your appetite!

There’s also a lot of other VERY exciting news I have to share with you, so don’t miss the rehearsal on Wednesday 14th to be the first to hear! (I will of course share it on Conductor’s Notes too, following the announcements)...

Events

There’s two important ones to mention this week. The first is a reminder to sign up for the Mozart Requiem Come-and-Sing Day in memory of Shauni. She did so much for CNCS, the Music Festival, and music in the area, that even if you didn’t know her personally you’ve all felt the affects of the work she did. Come and celebrate her life and legacy by joining us for the Wednesday rehearsals on the 21st and 28th June, and 5th July, and the event itself on Sunday 9th July. Sign up HERE.

The other one is in preparation for the Autumn – the Standish Consort are running a Come-and-Sing of the Bernstein Chichester Psalms! Mark Wilson, their conductor, and I used to sing at Birmingham Cathedral together. I’m sure it’ll be a fun day, and a great introduction to the piece, if you don’t know it. It’s on Saturday 1st July, and you can check it out HERE.

This Week’s listening

Two things I want you to listen to – some of the music for this concert, and then go and listen to the Autumn programme, all above. Enjoy!

See you on Wednesday 7th.
– Ben

Hello all! Apologies for the late posting of these notes, I’ve been doing a lot of work in the background, so some very exciting announcements coming soon... stay tuned.

In the meantime, please glance over these notes in preparation for Wednesday, and do also check out some of the events happening below.

What we did on Wednesday 17th May

We started with Sumer is icumen in, ensuring the melody was all correct, the words were confident, and then putting it together in the 2-part and then 4-part round. Make sure you look at the words so we don’t forget the old-English. Then we worked on Now is the Month of Maying, solidifying the notes and beginning to speed the music and text up. We also did some work on the dynamic contrast between the verses. We then worked on Pastime With Good Company, again checking notes and then putting the text to this, and ensuring the Bass line was supportive and the false relations in the melody were confident. Before the break we looked at the notes of Innsbruck, and also the shaping of the music.

After the break we spoke through the German text, putting it together with the notes, and starting on the expression of the music. We then worked on Danny Boy, keeping a good flow to the music, securing notes in the a Capella sections, and looking at the gorgeous countermelody in the Sopranos and Altos. We ended with a brief bit of work on Greensleeves; please do take careful note of where you do and don’t sing – it’s very clear in the copies. We’ll do more work on the countermelodies in this soon.

What we will do on Wednesday 24th May

Now we’ve seen all of the music in detail, it’s time to start refining! So, we’ll begin with Scarborough Fair, Greensleeves, and Cantique, before splitting into sectionals to work on The Lily and the Rose and The Sally Gardens, and ending with Sumer is Icumen In if we have time.

We’ll be back to normal in the Town Hall.

Please also note that next week (31st May) is Half Term, and there’ll be no rehearsal then.

Marked Score

I’ve done all the hard work for you this term by providing a marked booklet, so I won’t be sharing it here as you all already have physical copies. Below, however, is a guide to my markings, just as a reminder of what it all means.

Remember a pencil to each rehearsal!! You’ll still need to write things in your copies!

Recommended Recordings

It’s a bit of a bitty term, as I’m sure you’ve realised; a great programme formed of wonderful, but shorter, pieces. For this reason, and given some of the arrangements/editions we’re doing haven’t been recorded, the recommended recordings are meant to help you understand and get to grip with the pieces, not necessarily learn them note-by-note. They’re good to have on in the background, and to follow some of the text, melodies and rhythms, but they’re not always going to line up 100% accurately with your copies.

You can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

I’ve been able to find some learning resources for some of the pieces we’re doing, so do check them out below. I hope they’re helpful, and will aid your learning of the music over the term. Just click the title of the piece and it’ll take you to the link.

Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
Bruckner – Locus Iste
Tallis – If ye love me
Jones – Farewell, Dear Love
Morley – Sing we and chant it
Dowland – Fine knacks for ladies
Gibbons – Drop, drop slow tears
Gibbons – The Silver Swan
Mozart – Ave Verum
Elgar – As Torrents in Summer
Sullivan – The Long Day Closes
Chilcott – The Lily and the Rose (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Chilcott – O Danny Boy (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Isaac – Innsbruck

Translations

A few of you have asked for the translations for the pieces. Please see below. If it helps you to write in what certain words or phrases mean, please do!

Post-it note suggestions

A great first week of this with some excellent suggestions – I’ve taken a quick glance through them all. If you missed this last week, don’t worry, we’ll be doing it once more this Wednesday!

Events

Four (!) events for you this week – the NC3 Concert on Saturday 10th June, the Burford Singers Come and Sing, a Charity Concert, and the Shauni Sing Day. Please do check out the details of each of these exciting events!

This Week’s listening

I mentioned a few weeks back about Elgar’s very specific and thorough markings, and how a lot of his technical choral works were written or inspired by test pieces. Well, this is one of his Four Part Songs, and you can find out more about the competitions, pieces, and Elgar’s works HERE. This piece, O Wild West Wind is one of the most exciting bits of early 20th century choral music, written not as a test piece, but certainly showing the level of technicality and accuracy expected of choirs.
Listen HERE.

See you on Wednesday 24th.
– Ben

Another great rehearsal on Wednesday. It was great to do some really detailed rehearsing, and to work on the blend and ensemble; it was such a lovely sound! A few important bits below, so please make sure you read to the end.

What we did on Wednesday 10th May

We began by rehearsing Mozart’s Ave Verum, thinking immediately about the ensemble (where we breathe, where we put the consonants, and the smooth movements of all the chords), as well as travelling through the longer notes – don’t let the sound die, keep some energy behind the sound. Let the music build towards the climax at the end, and make sure the vowels are nice and Italianate; open and bright! After this we looked at The Silver Swan, which we sang through a couple of times, and broke down each part, along with pairs of parts. As I said, with polyphony, it’s important to bring out the interesting parts when they come up, so hopefully we began to understand the more important moments. Keep the sound really bright and very smooth. We then ended the first half by ‘ding-ing’ our way through Fine knacks for ladies, pointing out a few interesting moments, such as the Basses and Tenors with your quicker notes at the bottom of the first page. After making sure we were happy with the notes we sped it up and put some text to it, and will continue to breathe life into the music in the forthcoming weeks.

We came back after the break to As Torrents in Summer, and we thought about the great detail Elgar puts into his work, showing us everything we need to know, especially about the phrasing... so do every detail he puts in! We tuned some of the chords (the Sop/Alto chord at the top of page 2), and put some expression into the longer phrases. Top of page 3: make sure the text is clear and more animated – he doesn’t write legato here, as he did before, so it can be very lively. A beautiful blend of voices. We then looked at It was a lover, again ‘ding-ing’ our way through to remind ourselves of the music, then working on the individual parts and notes. We also looked at the cascading quaver runs on page 3, trying to keep them florid and really exciting. It was also good to start putting the text to this, so keep looking over it and working out how the text fits your line of music. We ended with the beautiful The Long Day Closes, doing a fun exercise of removing the consonants to keep a smooth and luscious line of vowels, then gently putting the consonants back in – this made SUCH a difference to the sound, so practice this at home. We finished the rehearsal by doing it a Capella, and unconducted, which was a really special way to end the rehearsal. Thank you for your hard work!

What we will do on Wednesday 17th May

We’ll look at the last two sets of music – Folk Songs and Madrigals (2), so please listen, look, and sing through some of these over the next few days in preparation.

We’ll be in the METHODIST CHURCH for this rehearsal, so please don’t go to the Town Hall.

Marked Score

I’ve done all the hard work for you this term by providing a marked booklet, so I won’t be sharing it here as you all already have physical copies. Below, however, is a guide to my markings, just as a reminder of what it all means.

Remember a pencil to each rehearsal!! You’ll still need to write things in your copies!

Recommended Recordings

It’s a bit of a bitty term, as I’m sure you’ve realised; a great programme formed of wonderful, but shorter, pieces. For this reason, and given some of the arrangements/editions we’re doing haven’t been recorded, the recommended recordings are meant to help you understand and get to grip with the pieces, not necessarily learn them note-by-note. They’re good to have on in the background, and to follow some of the text, melodies and rhythms, but they’re not always going to line up 100% accurately with your copies.

You can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

I’ve been able to find some learning resources for some of the pieces we’re doing, so do check them out below. I hope they’re helpful, and will aid your learning of the music over the term. Just click the title of the piece and it’ll take you to the link.

Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
Bruckner – Locus Iste
Tallis – If ye love me
Jones – Farewell, Dear Love
Morley – Sing we and chant it
Dowland – Fine knacks for ladies
Gibbons – Drop, drop slow tears
Gibbons – The Silver Swan
Mozart – Ave Verum
Elgar – As Torrents in Summer
Sullivan – The Long Day Closes
Chilcott – The Lily and the Rose (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Chilcott – O Danny Boy (paid subscription only, sorry!)
Isaac – Innsbruck

Post-it note suggestions

As I mentioned in the rehearsal, on the 17th I’ll be leaving out post-it notes for you to make suggestions of some pieces you’d like to do with the choir. I can’t promise to do them all, but it’s a really useful exercise for me to see what music you like and are interested in doing.

Of course, this is only one of the ways you can have your voices heard; come and talk to me, the committee, and more importantly your Section Reps!

Banbury Chamber Orchestra Concert

Rosemary has asked me to share an excellent looking concert by the Banbury Chamber Orchestra, this Sunday (14th May) at 4pm in Deddington church. You can buy tickets HERE and full details are on the poster below.

This Week’s listening

As I was driving back last night, after a very long mental tangent that I won’t bore you with, I was reminded of a piece I played years ago when I was in the Air Cadet National Concert Band, and also conducted with the University of Birmingham Wind Band. It’s a great fun piece called Stephenson’s Rocket by composer Nigel Hess (of Ladies in Lavender fame), and depicts the titular locomotive steam engine, Stephenson’s Rocket. It’s a great fun piece with lots of great ‘train’ sound effects, a bouncy march and a super slushy theme. Great fun and well worth a listen; check it our HERE.

See you on Wednesday 17th.
– Ben

Just a quick one this week I’m afraid, and apologies it’s so close to the rehearsal – I had a lovely bank-holiday weekend away in Dublin with The Acafellas.

What we did on Wednesday 3rd May

We began with some good work on the Fauré, working well on the text, the blend of the sound, and a few notes. Remember to keep everything nice and smooth, and we’ll be able to use the vowels to help with this as we become more confident with the text. After this we looked at Locus Iste, again working on a few notes but mainly thinking about the emphasis and movement of the music, creating really strong and exciting dynamic contrasts. Tenors; listen to it lots and internalise that C in bar 21! We also made sure to give the long notes some good direction. After this we looked at the notes in To Music, putting various parts together to pair the important parts of the music. We ended the set with If ye love me, making sure all the entries were really well bounced off each other, and the sound was beautiful throughout. After the break we looked at Farewell dear love, beginning to shape and phrase the music excellently. We ended by working on Sing we and Chant it, again familiarising our notes to ‘ding’ and then adding the text, both at slower and quicker speeds.

What we will do on Wednesday 10th May

We’ll begin with The Silver Swan, Ave Verum, and Fine Knack for Ladies, then look at It was a lover, As Torrents in Summer, and The Long Day Closes. This should be enough, but if we have time we’ll work on the last section of the Fauré, just to secure it.

I thought the seating blocks of S-A-T-B sections next to each other worked, so we’ll do that again, however I would like to put Sopranos on the far left (as you look at it from my point of view) as above. Altos felt a bit isolated.

Marked Score

I’ve done all the hard work for you this term by providing a marked booklet, so I won’t be sharing it here as you all already have physical copies. Below, however, is a guide to my markings, just as a reminder for what it all means.

Remember a pencil to each rehearsal!! You’ll still need to write things in your copies!

Recommended Recordings

It’s a bit of a bitty term, as I’m sure you’ve realised; a great programmed formed of wonderful, but shorter, pieces. For this reason, and given some of the arrangements/editions we’re doing haven’t been recorded, the recommended recordings are on the whole meant to help you understand and get to grip with the pieces, not necessarily learn them note-for-note. They’re good to have on in the background, and to follow some of the text, melodies and rhythms to, but they’re not always going to line up 100% accurately.

You can listen HERE.

Section Reps

Great to appoint our new Section Reps on Wednesday. They are:
Soprano: Sian
Alto: David
Tenor: Ruth
Bass: Martin

Eric will be sharing their emails soon once we’ve all had a chat to commence the hand-over from the previous reps. A huge thank you to Rachel, Naomi, Peter and Bill for being our inaugural Section Reps, and doing such a good job of getting it off the ground. We’ve all learnt so much from our first year of having SRs.

See you all on Wednesday,
– Ben

A brilliant start to the term – it was great to sing through and begin learning so much of the new programme. It’s going to be an entertaining concert and a fun term in general.

What we did on Wednesday 19th April

We sang through and worked on as much music as possible, beginning with the simple and beautiful Drop, drop slow tears, which immediately got us thinking about ensemble and singing well together again. Then we looked at the Cantique de Jean Racine, which included a little bit of work on some of the notes and the character of the music, especially with the bolder “qui la” sections on page 8 of the booklet. We sang through If Ye Love Me, and Locus Iste, as well as To Music, working a little bit on this. We turned our attention some madrigals and folk songs after the break, reading through – and doing small bits of work on – Greensleeves, O Danny Boy, Innsbruck, Pastime with good company, Sumer is icumen in, and Now is the month of maying, which we learnt the notes and patterns for to ‘ding’ and then began putting the text with it. We ended by briefly talking through the rest of the music, and finishing with Mozart’s Ave Verum, which was sung beautifully.

What we did on Wednesday 26th April

We continued our sing-through of the programme, but we started by refreshing Now is the month of Maying, doing some more detailed work on the notes, and then the text. We then looked at the first set of Madrigals, beginning with Farewell, Dear Love, Sing we and Chant it, Fine knack for Ladies, and It was a lover and his lass. Most of these we did to ‘ding’ and then put the text to it, allowing us to focus on the notes, as the music stays the same but the words change each verse. In the case of It was a lover, we did each line individually too. We then did some work on the SA/TB only works as we took a break, with the Sops and Altos singing The Lily and the Rose through beautifully, and the Tenors and Basses singing The Sally Gardens divinely too. After the break we looked at The Silver Swan, isolating paired parts and learning those together, then As Torrents in Summer, and The Long Day Closes, again isolating parts to help us understand the harmony. We then Sang through Scarborough Fair before ending with another sing-through of Mozart’s Ave Verum, in memory of Tony who had it played at his funeral that afternoon.

What we will do on Wednesday 3rd May

We’ve now seen all of the music, so the hard work will begin now as we start to look more in-depth at it all.
If you look at the Contents Page, you’ll notice the programme is divided into sections: we’ll be looking at Part-Songs (1) and Madrigals (1) this week.

Please also note that I’d like to set up seating in blocks of S-A-T-B sections next to each other, rather than Altos and Basses behind Sopranos and Tenors. This is following some comments from the Section Reps, so we’ll try it like this for this week.

Marked Score

I’ve done all the hard work for you this term by providing a marked booklet, so I won’t be sharing it here as you all already have physical copies. Below, however, is a guide to my markings, just as a reminder for what it all means.

Remember a pencil to each rehearsal!! You’ll still need to write things in your copies!

Recommended Recordings

It’s a bit of a bitty term, as I’m sure you’ve realised; a great programmed formed of wonderful, but shorter, pieces. For this reason, and given some of the arrangements/editions we’re doing haven’t been recorded, the recommended recordings are on the whole meant to help you understand and get to grip with the pieces, not necessarily learn them note-for-note. They’re good to have on in the background, and to follow some of the text, melodies and rhythms to, but they’re not always going to line up 100% accurately.

You can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

I’ll be sharing some learning resources in the next week or so.

Treasurer and Section Reps

As Eric mentioned on Wednesday, we’ll be appointing our new Section Reps on Wed 3rd. We’ve hade expressions of interest from all voice parts, but don’t let it stop you from putting your name forward if you’d still like.

We also need a new Treasurer, as Christophe will be stepping down at our next AGM in November. If you’d like to fill this spot, do talk to Eric.

This Week’s listening

Some of these words were said by the priest at Tony’s funeral on Wednesday, and I immediately thought of sharing this piece with you. It’s Lord, let me know mine end by Hubert Parry, from his Songs of Farewell. An absolutely stunning setting of very moving text, I can assure you you’ll not have a dry eye after listening to this. This recording is sung by the incredible Tenebrae. Listen HERE.

You can find out more about the whole work HERE.

Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had a fabulous week, and are still basking in the glow of an absolutely incredible concert on Sunday. I’ve still not come down from how amazing it was! Some feedback on the concert, as well as information about forthcoming events, and next term, so thank you for reading through!

Brahms Concert Feedback

Well, what a concert! I thought the overall performance, quality of sound, and level of commitment from you all was just outstanding. I can honestly say that was one of the best concerts I’ve been a part of, and certainly the most fun I’ve had conducting – a long time to focus that hard, but we all achieved it exceptionally.

Before I give a brief run-down of the music, I want to thank you all for being so excellent during a very emotional weekend. To lose a choir member is always tragic, but particularly after a rehearsal on the weekend of a concert is absolutely devastating. Tony told me how much he enjoyed singing in the choir, how much it meant to him, and how much he was looking for the concert. We would have sung well on Sunday regardless, but to perform that concert in Tony’s honour I think led to a very emotionally charged and powerful performance. I’m incredibly proud of you all, and I know he would have been too.

The opening of the concert was magical. A huge thank you to the Adderbury Ensemble for their fabulous playing, which kicked the performance off so delicately and intimately. But, your first entry, was completely extraordinary! It seemed to creep out from nowhere with such poise and presence that captivated the audience, and we knew what we were in for right away! The unaccompanied singing was just great! I thought the whole of this movement was a huge success, especially when it came to the blend of voices. Musical phrasing was top notch, and the pronunciation was generally really good. In that acoustic it’s hard to get much text, but I could see how hard you were all working to produce good vowels and clean consonants!

The opening of the second movement was as menacing as I could have hoped for. When you got carried away and starting singing too loudly you responded to my gesture and kept it excellently refined, saving ourselves for a big climax. The loud sections were, as I asked the timpani for in the rehearsal, absolutely cataclysmic, which was so exciting! The whole of the fugue-like section was handled brilliantly, with confident entries, clear text, and a good direction to the music.

Most of the third movement was top-notch too! It was a pleasure to welcome back James Berry, who always delivers an exceptional performance, and you all took his baton and ran with it when you first came in – mournful, dark, and precise all in one. The slushy section was beautiful, and the “Nun Herr”s nice and clean. Then came our first ‘slightly dodge’ moment, which happens; it’s live performance, and there’s nothing we can do about it now, other than to appreciate you still performed it well and no one really noticed, haha! The fugue was on the whole really great! Clean entries, smooth lines, and you could hear everything that was happening. Well done!

Movement four was, as expected, just delightful! Well done in all the exposed lines (Tenors and Basses in particular), it was gorgeous. The punchy section at the end was great fun, and again we could clearly hear the interplay of the music. For movement five we welcomed Natasha Page who sang utterly beautifully – I could tell you were all enjoying listening to her in both the rehearsal and the concert, and the audience were understandably blown away by her. It was a struggle to keep it together for me in this movement, you sang it so exquisitely, and the text took on a new meaning over the weekend.

Movement six was completely enthralling, all the way through: from the first line of music and the hushed way you delivered it, and the loud and aggressive vivace sang with such bite and energy, to the perfectly executed fugue, maintaining the energy all the way to the end! Some of my favourite moments in this movement, and every time I pushed you for more, you delivered! The final movement had some really special moments too, with the beautiful lines sung with gorgeous expression, and the text nice and clear on the whole. Your “Ja, der Geist spricht” moments I felt were especially powerful. I could tell we were tired by the end, but you kept pushing through, singing exceptionally, and it really paid off.

Of course, a MASSIVE thank you to Rowena for accompanying us over the term. She’s put so much time, effort, and energy in to ensuring we have excellent rehearsals, allowing us to learn the music perfectly. Not to mention how incredible her playing was at the Music Festival! And to top it all off, it was a delight to see her smiling face singing from the alto section in the concert – we couldn’t ask for a better accompanist! As I said above, the soloists and orchestra were simply a dream to listen to, and a dream to work with, so a huge thanks to James and Natasha for their beautiful singing, Simon for his outstanding leading, the orchestra for their first-rate playing, and to Chris for fixing such a brilliant orchestra.

Finally, the most enormous thanks goes to the Committee and the people back-stage who make this happen; I get the fun part of waving my arms and taking bows, but these guys do the real hard work. I won’t list everyone by name (as I’m sure I’ll miss people off and feel guilty for doing so), but I’ll try to remember the jobs: Planning the concerts (Committee), tea and coffee in the breaks, setting up and clearing down chairs, providing food for the orchestra, and selling programmes and tickets. I know I’ve missed a lot off, as so much goes on in the background I can’t keep track of it all, but your support of these concerts is what makes them truly special. Thank you all!

Certainly a very emotional but exciting concert, and a huge, heartfelt thank you to you all for the energy you’ve put in this term and the joy it’s been to work with you. A great term, and I look forward to what’s next.

I’ll end with Sian’s feedback – due to recovering from Covid, Sian unfortunately couldn’t sing in the concert, but enjoyed being ‘on the other side’:
“It’s not just any Requiem, it’s the Brahms Requiem in German – a sublime, heart-breaking and demanding piece, requiring commitment, sensitivity, stamina, and heaven knows how many man and woman hours of study. The result was an amazing and beautiful concert. The choir’s performance had it all: the altos were gorgeous, the basses were brilliant, the tenors tuneful, and the sopranos sublime. We were wowed by choir, orchestra, soloists and our brilliant director’s passion in equal measure. And it’s surely thanks to the commitment and communicated confidence and passion imparted by Ben, that such heights can be achieved. A joy to be one of your delighted and emotional audience, but impatient to be back in the fold. Like I say, not just any choral society – the Chipping Norton Choral Society. Bravo everyone.“

What’s next

As a heads up for next term, please see details below. I’ll be posting again before we start, sharing a digital version of the booklet of music we’re putting together, so keep an eye out, but here are all the important things.

Important Dates:
Rehearsals start on Wednesday 19th April.
No rehearsal on Wednesday 31st May as it’s half term.
Dress rehearsal is on Friday 16th June in St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton.
Concert is Saturday 17th June in St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton.

A full list of dates can be found here (thanks to Heather for putting this together):

Shauni’s Remembrance Come-and-Sing

More details will be shared tomorrow, via the Chipping Norton Music Festival, with whom we’re partnering for this project, but below are the important dates and bits of information. Even if you didn’t know Shauni (like me), do come and support this brilliant project, and honour someone to whom the choir meant so much.

Repertoire: Mozart Requiem

Open rehearsals for all comers in Town Hall
Wednesday June 21^st – 19.30 – 21.30 Rehearsal 1
Wednesday June 28^th – 19.30 – 21.30  Rehearsal 2
Wednesday July 5^th – 19.30 – 21.30  Rehearsal 3

Sunday July 9th – Come-and-Sing Day and concert
Sunday  July 9^th – 09.30 – 17.30 Rehearsal
Concert 19.30 – St Mary’s Church

This Week’s Listening

A choice of two concerts tomorrow – do come and support members in both choirs! newCHOIR are performing music inspired by a life on the waves, including a very moving piece by Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, and Cherwell Choral Society are singing an incredible setting of the requiem text by British composer Ian Venables. Plenty of choice, so do go and support!

A huge congratulations for this term, it was truly special. Have a lovely Easter break, and I look forward to seeing you all again on Wednesday 19th April.
– Ben

A huge thank you to Janet for taking Wednesday’s rehearsal, I’ve had some excellent feedback from both Janet herself and some choir members all saying how brilliant the rehearsal was – hope I’m not out of a job...

Some important things about the concert below, as well as feedback from Wednesday’s rehearsal.

What we did on Wednesday 15th March

On page 34 you made sure the lines were flowing and a few notes were corrected. Janet then got you to work on the opening vowels which helps with the confidence of each entry on page 35. On the theme of text, she told me you did lots of work here, especially on a few vowel sounds that are hard to English speakers, such as “trösten”. Make sure there’s a lovely contrast with the P quiet marking in bar 159. Janet also offered some help in finding the notes at the bottom of page 37, working on the individual entries taking over the lines, as well as preparing the ‘lower’ part of the voice in time to help settle where that note feels in the voice.

Then you worked on pages 51 & 52, thinking about the lightness and bounciness of the faster quavers, particularly in the sopranos. This will help provide that lovely contrast with the bolder, longer notes. Janet also advised not to hammer the dynamic here, not forcing the forte sound, but instead thinking about the phrasing of the music which will help it come across. And then she did some work on the ‘bell-like’ accents at the top of page 52 – altos especially, when it’s slightly less obvious where the beat is, you can use the consonants to help punctuate the music, giving it that bell-like quality.

After the break you worked on Movement 5. The first challenge is coming in with confidence in bars 34 and 35 – listen to the harmony in the piano/orchestra for those starting notes, and commit to a beautiful sound. Think about where those notes sit in the voice so, as before, we’re comfortable with how it feels in the voice on those entries. Again, some work done on the “trösten” umlaut vowel. Altos, your entrance in bar 44 is a tricky one, so again, listen to the accompaniment and the soloist to solidify that entrance.

You ended with Movement 6, thinking about body strength and the quality of the text to help generate the power in the louder sections, such as bar 82. Careful with the final consonants on words like “Tod” at Letter E. At Letter L (page 80), really embrace that change of mood, becoming more lyrical and expressive – Janet recommended you use the breath well here to support that. In bar 304 onwards, just make sure the ‘H’ of “Herr” doesn’t get it the way too much – the vowel carries the power. Same with the ‘Kr’ of “Kraft” at Letter M. On page 83, remember to support the sound as we bring the dynamic suddenly down on “Ehre”.

By the sounds of things, a very good rehearsal! I hope it was useful having a different set of ears listening and helping with things, and I really look forward to hearing what Janet worked on with you all.

What we will do on Friday 24th March

This is our ‘dress run’ in the church, allowing us to get used to the acoustic and seating arrangement. It’s important to be there if you can! I want to get a feel of each movement in the space, doing the starts and ends, the fiddly changes, and running a couple of the challenging sections. So, what we’ll cover:

– The opening and ending of Movement 1, along with Letters B-D.
– Bars 178-218 of Movement 2, followed by the end of page 24 going into Letter M (and a couple of other short sections which weren’t 100% in the Music Festival.
– Start of Movement 3, followed by Letter E to the end.
– Start of Movement 4.
– Start and end of Movement 5.
– Start of Movement 6, and from Letter C to the end.
– Start of Movement 7 and from Letter B to page 88.

Lots to cover, and you should know it all by now – use any spare time you have to go through those tiny corners you personally feel need the work.

Please note, this rehearsal is at St Mary’s Church Banbury. Arrive at 7:10pm to get seated for a prompt 7:30 start!

Rehearsal Schedule for Sunday 26th March

A full rehearsal schedule is below, so you know what we’ll be covering with the orchestra.

14:10 – Arrive and get seated.
14:25 – Orchestra tune and introductions made.
14:30 – Prompt baton down, beginning with Movement 7.
14:50 – Movement 4.
15:05 – Movement 1.
15:30 – Movement 5.
15:45 – Break
16:00 – Movement 6.
16:30 – Movement 3.
17:00 – Movement 2.
17:15 – Orchestral touch-ups.
17:30 – Finish (absolute latest).

I’m hoping that we’ll plough through various bits, and that you’ll get plenty of time to rest while I work with the orchestra and soloists, so take it easy and save yourselves for the big concert.

For the concert:
19:15 – Latest arrival back to the church.
19:20 – Warm up (if possible).
19:25 – Head onto stage.
19:30 – Concert begins.
20:45 – Approximate concert end time.
21:00 – Pub!

I can’t wait for this concert, it’s going to be truly epic!

Concert Dress

Is either Dinner Jackets (black jacket, white shirt, black bowtie, black trousers, black socks and black shoes), or All Black. No bright pink socks – we really don’t want to spoil the mood of the concert!

Learning Resources

A final push to remind yourselves of some pronunciation using David Fitt’s excellent pronunciation guide. Please look over it and use it as it’s very helpful!

Poster and Tickets

For the final time this term, share the poster and get your tickets HERE.

See you in St Mary’s Church on Friday 24th March!
– Ben

Brilliant work this week, we managed to get through a lot, consolidating lots of hard sections, and refining plenty of points from last week’s run-through. I also offer my huge congratulations for Saturday’s performance! I was incredibly pleased with how it went, especially considering we were so many in such a tight space, and had barely any warm up...

Lots of important things in these notes, including details for the concert, and dates for next term.

What we did on Wednesday 15th March

We looked at Movement 1 Letter B, making sure the notes at the entry were correct but spent most of our focus on the change in character to the bouncy and lively “werden mit Freuden” – Sopranos are our pivot point to making that sprightly, and tenors infuse the energy (same thing at the top of page 7). After this we checked the notes at Letter C, basses in particular in finding that A natural – think a nice, bright, happy major third there! Finally, before Letter F, Sopranos don’t be put off by the C in the accompaniment and secure that nice strong D to kick us off. Everyone else follow with twice as much energy to keep the sound alive.

Then we started on Movement 3, ‘rolling’ the H in “Herr”, which gives us a lovely atmosphere. Keep everything absolutely metronomic, which will provide that harrowing character we need here! We then did lots of good work on the fugue (bar 173), including bringing out the entries in each voice part, keeping the counter-subject alive (crescendo through the long notes), and started pointing out the ‘duet voices’; these include: T/B bar 180, T/B bar 188, T/B bar 191/2, and then all four parts in 196 and 198. Tenors, punch out the rhythm at Letter G and bar 186 when it’s on the beat!

We finished the first half of the rehearsal by starting the 4th movement, getting back into that gentle mindset. Careful with the entries at Letter A – Tenors, you made this sound absolutely beautiful, just please think about the blend in the whole section; Basses, try to remember the starting note, and keep it in the same ‘upper’ position as the top D. We then practiced Letter B a Capella, which was very good practice to listen out, and to stay strong with the harmonic progressions.

After the break we did some fantastic sectional work on bar 82 of Movement 6, confirming notes, and making sure the timbre was really pure (not forced) but still powerful. Just remember to think about the end of words, particularly final consonants such as unverweslich! Good note confirmation in the fugue at 208 too – I can tell that people have been working really hard on this at home, solidifying their notes. With just over a week to go, you all need to feel confident being shepherds, not sheep! We came back together to put it all together, paying particular attention to entrances of parts, and not rushing the counter-subject in the fugue. We finished by doing some quality work on my favourite section, top of page 77 – giving it the “Preis und Ehre” it deserves (praise and honour).

Very well done, we’re now in the final push, so keep going with the learning, it’s going to be such a special night!

Please note where we’ll be sitting and standing:
Make sure these are marked in your copies.

Sit – before the start of the piece once you’re on stage.
Stand on my cue – for the opening.
Sit on my cue – at the end of Movement 2.
Stand – in bar 122 of Movement 3 (I won’t show you this, make sure it’s in your copy!).
Sit on my cue – at the end of Movement 4.
Stand on my cue – at the end of Movement 5.

Remember, when singing seated, sit well so you can still produce a great sound, particularly the beautiful choral lines in movement 5.

What we will do on Wednesday 22nd March

You’ll be led by the incredible Janet Lincé (my former conducting teacher) – she’s incredibly precise and thorough, so sing well for her, and make sure you’ve practiced it... I know you’ll all be on your best behaviour, haha!

You’ll start with Letter E in Movement 3, working on the lyrical lines, and then the precise entries at Letter F. Please also check your entries at the bottom of page 37 (bar 164), as these were a little rough in the run. After this you’ll look at the punchy entrances of bar 123 in Movement 4, ensuring the entry notes are clean.

After the break Janet will rehearse Movement 5, focusing on the entrances, especially around bar 34 and 43, and then the ending. This wasn’t bad in the run, just needed more confidence. To finish, you’ll go through Movement 6 Letter E to the start of the fugue in bar 208, and if there’s time look at Letter L to the end in the fugue.

Please note, you will be in the Methodist Church on Wednesday 22nd March!

Chipping Norton Music Festival

A huge well done for this, I was so proud to be directing you all. I’ll share the feedback sheet at the end of the term, but for now reflect on what went well, what needs work from you personally, and focus on the concert.

Marked Scores

I think I might have a crying fit if these aren’t in by now... take the time to put everything in and not let the team down!

BBC Singers

As you will all probably know by now, and as I mentioned in the rehearsal, the appalling decision to axe our only full-time professional choir (along with cutting the English-based BBC orchestras) has hit the musical world horribly. It’s absolutely offensive to our cultural presence, viewed so highly across the globe, and will have such a serious knock-on effect in inspiring the next generation of professional musicians, whom we should be encouraging so strongly.

You can support the BBC Singers in a number of ways, but the most important one is to sign this petition HERE.

If you still don’t quite get what the fuss is about, listen to their live performance of the Brahms Requiem; enjoy it, learn from it, and imagine our country without that professional ensemble... it’s unthinkable! Check out the recording HERE.

Learning Resources

As well as the resources we’ve been using (found in previous posts), David Fitt (bass) has very kindly produced this guide to help with some of the pronunciation. Please look over it and use it as it’s great!

Poster and Tickets

Below is the wonderful poster Brian has produced: I hope you’ve been sharing it far and wide.
You can also get your tickets HERE.

Summer Dates

As the end of this term fast approaches, please put in your diary the dates for next term.

Summer concert – “Summer is icumen in” – madrigals, part-songs, and folk-songs

Rehearsals: Wednesdays 19th April – 14th June.
Half term: Wednesday 31st May.
Friday rehearsal: Friday 16th June.
Concert: Saturday 17th June.
Concert venue: St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton.

Mozart Requiem – Sing Day for Shauni

Rehearsals: Wednesdays 21st June – 5th July.
Sing Day: Sunday 9th July.
Sing Day venue: Chipping Norton Town Hall & St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton.

Have a great rehearsal with Janet on the 22nd March.
– Ben

Well... what a rehearsal that was! A huge congratulations on getting through the piece; it’s quite a behemoth. I hope it was useful to you all to know what it felt like to get from beginning to end, with short breaks, as we’ll do in the concert, so you know how much energy to channel on the night. It also showed us all the weaker points that we still need to work on. I’ve been reflecting on it all, and we’ll put together a really efficient final few rehearsals, but do practice the bits you know you need to at home.

What we did on Wednesday 8th March

We spent most of the rehearsal doing an entire run of the piece. It allowed us to identify the sections which need the most work, and gave us an idea of the stamina required to get through the piece, including how deep we’ll need to dig for the final movement. A lot of really good things here, and we all learnt a lot from it.

After the break, we did a short bit of work on the end of Movement 7, from Letter D, making sure we were confident in finding our notes for our entries, keeping the rhythms together, and that the blend was beautiful, allowing us to end the piece in a gentle and serene manner. Put a massive ‘up’ arrow through the long notes on the last page so we don’t go flat!

We ended the rehearsal by touching up Letter K in Movement 2, for the Festival performance on Saturday. The chords at “und Schmerz” were a lot more in tune when we thought about them, as were the short “wird weg”s. Huge confidence in bar 269 Tenors, remembering to breathe in plenty of time! Concentrate on the notes in bars 297-298 – we covered this so it should be perfect on Saturday. and finally, the “ewige Freude”s at the end will be beautiful, just remember to prepare the note before you come in so it’s a smooth and gentle entrance. Well done all!

Overall feedback from the whole ‘performance’ – confidence in the entries (particularly on our starting notes), as well as text (especially consonants – do as much with them as you can and they’ll carry beautifully)!

Please note where we’ll be sitting and standing:
Following the run, I’ve decided where we’ll be sitting and standing for the performance. Please mark these in your copies.

Sit – before the start of the piece once you’re on stage.
Stand on my cue – for the opening.
Sit on my cue – at the end of Movement 2.
Stand – in bar 122 of Movement 3 (I won’t show you this, make sure it’s in your copy!).
Sit on my cue – at the end of Movement 4.
Stand on my cue – at the end of Movement 5.

Remember, when singing seated, sit well so you can still produce a great sound, particularly the beautiful choral lines in movement 5.

What we will do on Wednesday 15th March

We’ll begin by covering a few entries in Movement 1 in bars 55/56, at Letter C, and before Letter F. I’d then like to start Movement 3, and then work on the Fugue beginning bar 173 in tutti. Before the break we’ll look at the entries at Letter A in Movement 4, and the harmonic progression from Letter B.

After the break, we’ll split into sectionals for Movement 6 beginning at bar 82. S/A will be with Rowena, T/B downstairs with me. We’ll also look at the Fugue from bar 208, before coming back to put this all together.

As a heads up, one of the sections you’ll be covering with Janet Lincé (who’s kindly standing in for me on the 22nd March) will be Letter E to bar 173 – this section needs a lot of work at home, so please look at it by the 22nd March.

Chipping Norton Music Festival

This Saturday is our performance at the Festival. We’ve got a great number signed up, and the performance will be amazing, so here’s a reminder of the details:

Saturday 11th March
– Location: Chipping Norton Town Hall
– ‘Class’ time: 14:15 (performing second, around 14:25)
– Meet at: 14:00 in the Main Hall – there’ll be a warm up from the adjudicator first.
– Dress: All Black
– Other information: We’ll be singing Movement II of the Brahms (Denn Alles Fleisch) – do stay to support the other choirs.

Do also come along to The Acafellas concert on Sunday 12th March, Town Hall, 19:30 – some great music for you, and an evening of fun music!

Marked Scores

I think I might have a crying fit if these aren’t in by now... take the time to put everything in and not let the team down!

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

As well as the resources we’ve been using (found in previous posts), David Fitt (bass) has very kindly produced this guide to help with some of the pronunciation. Please look over it and use it as it’s great!

Poster and Tickets

Below is the wonderful poster Brian has produced, so start sharing it far and wide. You can also get your tickets HERE.

NC3 Concert

Do go and support our friends over at NC3 in their concert:
““The wondrous cross: A choral journey through Holy Week with hymns, psalms and motets”. Conducted by Bernard West with Dan Chambers on piano/organ and will include music from across the centuries from Thomas Weelkes to Bob Chilcott to Maurice Durufle to Sarah Macdonald with many stops in between.
We do hope you can join us at 7.30pm on Saturday 18th March in St Peter’s Church, Hook Norton.
Tickets are on sale from Eventbrite https://tinyurl.com/23bacz5f
If you would like to come, but are not comfortable buying tickets online, please let me know and I can arrange to get a ticket put by for you at the door. But please let me know that you’re planning to come, its really helpful for the choir to have an idea of what size audience to expect.”

See you on Saturday 11th or Wednesday 15th March.
– Ben

I hope you’ve all had a good weekend, working away at the Brahms and prepping for the Music Festival this coming weekend. Our concert draws ever closer, and we get our first ‘dry run’ this Wednesday, along with a performance of the 2nd movement on Saturday... how exciting!

What we did on Wednesday 1st March

We started in bar 54 of the 2nd movement (page 13) to warm up into the piece, and immediately did some good work on blend and precision. We built on this from letter C, ensuring all entries are correct and confident, so just revise some notes you may not be 100% happy with if you need. We paid particular attention to the pulse of the music so Rowena’s subdivisions kept us moving forward, and to the tuning of the long notes so that they don’t go flat. From Letter H we did some great work on the text and character of the music, and then getting into page 20 I need all eyes looking at me for the tempo change – Basses, remember you need confidence of the gods here! A little bit of work on the notes and harmonies in this next section, such as before Letter L (careful here!), but we mainly focused on bringing out the performance. At Letter N keep everything incredibly beautiful – the sound will carry as long as it’s a well-blended and lovely sound. Remember your notes here, we did lots of work on finding each entry, especially Basses!

After the break we did some sectional work refreshing the 3rd movement fugue from bar 173 (page 38). Sops and Altos did most of this a Capella, so well done there, and Tenors and Basses made good progress with Rowena. When we came back to put it back together, we seemed very confident with the subject and counter-subject entrances (such as at the start of this section), but just be careful when they’re slightly different, or come in sooner than you think, like at Letter H. We can do more with the accents I’ve marked in on the syncopations at bars 185-188 and 202-204 to give it more flair and energy.

What we will do on Wednesday 8th March

As I said in the rehearsal, a very important one on Wednesday – we’ll be running the entire piece from beginning to end, as though it were a concert. This is the only time we’ll do it before the concert itself, and it’ll be the opportunity for you all to feel what it’s like to sing it all the way through.
Make sure you come prepared!

Chipping Norton Music Festival

This Saturday is our performance at the Festival. We’ve got a great number signed up, so here’s a reminder of the details:

Saturday 11th March
– Location: Chipping Norton Town Hall
– ‘Class’ time: 14:15 (performing second, around 14:25)
– Meet at: 14:00 in the Main Hall – there’ll be a warm up from the adjudicator first.
– Dress: All Black
– Other information: We’ll be singing Movement II of the Brahms (Denn Alles Fleisch) – do support the other choirs.

Do also come along to The Acafellas concert on Sunday 12th March, Town Hall, 19:30 – some great music for you, and an evening of fun music!

Other important dates this term

Here are the important dates, times and locations you need to know for the rest of the term. We still have regular Wednesday rehearsals, obviously.

Friday 24th March: Rehearsal in venue
– Location: St Mary’s Church, Banbury
– Times: 19:30-21:30

Sunday 26th March: Concert Day
– Location: St Mary’s Church, Banbury
– Set-up time: 13:00 – as many people to help set up both choir and orchestra as possible please
– Rehearsal: 14:30-17:30, but hopefully finishing earlier, around 17:00
– Concert arrival: Back at the church at 19:10 – dressing rooms provided (I believe)
– Concert: 19:30 concert (no interval), finishing around 21:00
– Dress: Concert dress – either all black or dinner jacket – more details soon

Marked Scores

As you’ve got a whole week off now, that’s plenty of time to make sure these markings are all in! It’s so important to know the details of the music, especially where to breathe and where we’re putting consonants. If you see your neighbour without these markings in, give them a gentle nudge...

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

Discovering Music – Brahms Requiem

I came across a wonderful documentary about the influences of the Requiem, as part of the BBC’s Discovering Music programme. It’s very interesting, and well worth a listen! You can hear it HERE.

Poster and Tickets

Below is the wonderful poster Brian has produced, so start sharing it far and wide. You can also get your tickets HERE.

This Week’s listening

No separate piece this week, just go and refresh the Brahms for our run on Wednesday!

See you on Wednesday 8th March.
– Ben

What a good rehearsal we had, especially with the new piano in the hall, yay! We’ve now seen, in detail, every single bar of the piece, so well done on that achievement; now begins the really hard work...

What we did on Wednesday 15th February

We began by singing through the opening of Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich which went well and you remembered a lot of what we did – it’ll need a little bit of refining though. Well read through from Letter E; you engaged with the shapes of the phrases well, but please have a look at the notes at home. At Letter F we needed to bring out the main melody, first seen in the Basses. Well done on the Ich hoffe auf dichs at 164 – there was a lot of beautiful singing here, we just need to nail down the notes. We then had a very valiant attempt at singing through the fugue, and we did get all the way through it. Again, notes-wise, we’ll look at this, and do some ensemble work on it, but I’d be so grateful if you could look at this section.

After the break we split off for sectionals to rehearse the Movement VI (Denn wir haben hie) fugue, beginning at bar 208. In the same way we learnt the fugue in the 3rd movement, we looked at the subject and then the counter-subject. In our sectionals we sang through as much as possible, stopping to work on tricky corners and to find where to bring out the melody. Enjoy page 77, it’s my favourite part of the fugue. We then came back together to finish off the rehearsal with a Tutti, singing through this Fugue. Very well done!

What we will do on Wednesday 1st March

A REMINDER: there is NO rehearsal on the 22nd February!

On the 1st March (goodness me!) we’ll begin with Letter C in Movement II Denn Alles Fleisch, before working on Bar 206 onwards (Die Erloeseten) – this is all in preparation for the Chipping Norton Music Festival on Saturday 11th March. We’ll then look at the Movement VI Fugue (bar 208) in a full tutti, so please come with these notes prepared!

After the break we’ll split off into sectionals to refresh the Movement III Fugue (page 38, bar 173), before coming back together to work on it.

We’re now in the hardest part of the rehearsals – really detailed refinement of the music, so make sure you come with notes and text as prepared as you are able to!

Important Dates This Term

As I mentioned on Wednesday, here are the important dates, times and locations you need to know for the rest of the term. We still have regular Wednesday rehearsals, obviously.

Saturday 11th March: Chipping Norton Music Festival
– Location: Chipping Norton Town Hall
– ‘Class’ time: 14:15 (performing second, around 14:25)
– Meet at: 13:45 downstairs in the Town Hall
– Dress: All Black
– Other information: We’ll be singing Movement II of the Brahms (Denn Alles Fleisch) – do support the other choirs.

Friday 24th March: Rehearsal in venue
– Location: St Mary’s Church, Banbury
– Times: 19:30-21:30

Sunday 26th March: Concert Day
– Location: St Mary’s Church, Banbury
– Set-up time: 13:00 – as many people to help set up both choir and orchestra as possible please
– Rehearsal: 14:30-17:30, but hopefully finishing earlier, around 17:00
– Concert arrival: Back at the church at 19:10 – dressing rooms provided (I believe)
– Concert: 19:30 concert (no interval), finishing around 21:00
– Dress: Concert dress – either all black or dinner jacket – more details soon

Marked Scores

As you’ve got a whole week off now, that’s plenty of time to make sure these markings are all in! It’s so important to know the details of the music, especially where to breathe and where we’re putting consonants. If you see your neighbour without these markings in, give them a gentle nudge...

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

Discovering Music – Brahms Requiem

I came across a wonderful documentary about the influences of the Requiem, as part of the BBC’s Discovering Music programme. It’s very interesting, and well worth a listen! You can hear it HERE.

Poster and Tickets

Below is the wonderful poster Brian has produced, so start sharing it far and wide. You can also get your tickets HERE.

CRAG Concert

Many thanks to Fran for sharing another CRAG concert – it’s at 3pm on Sunday 5th March. Do go and support this wonderful concert series.

This Week’s listening

A piece I’ve been listening to, as we approach Passiontide, and one every year I yearn to sing: Antonio Lotti’s heart-breaking Crucifixus. The opening is absolutely stunning, riddle with suspensions, each part continues from the last until the music reaches a ‘grounding point’ where all parts sing in homophony. Then the ‘two choirs’ sing against each other, and the piece comes to a scrunchy climax before petering out to a forlorn ending. Taken from part of the Creed text, it’s most fitting as we look towards Passiontide as it speaks of Jesus’s sacrifice. You can listen HERE.

Have a lovely break and see you on Wednesday 1st March.
– Ben

Hello everyone, thanks for another great rehearsal on Wednesday, we’re making fantastic progress. I also want to thank you for all of the hard work you’re putting in at home; but this is one of those occasions where I’m going to keep asking that of all of you, as we begin to focus on the hardest parts of the piece, and start to refine everything we’ve done. I know you’ll keep learning the notes at home, and making sure your copies are marked, and will listen to the pronunciation guides below, because that’s what makes CNCS such a good team!

What we did on Wednesday 8th February

We started by working on the opening of Movement VI Denn wir haben, putting text to the notes we learnt last week. Lots of good things here, ensuring the blend was good, and the notes were clear – we even managed to do some work on the expression of the music, such as the short notes at the start followed by the more lyrical sections. Keep the energy going at bar 69 “zu der Zeit” so it’s maintains the excitement in the build up to the Vivace.

After this we sang through much of Movement VII Selig sind die Toten only stopping to rehearse after the first full section on page 86. In the rehearsing of this, we clarified notes, but also made sure the suspensions were fully embraced and given direction, such as in bar 33 in the Altos. We rehearsed the entries in bar 48, ensuring they were confident and bang in time. We also sang sections like bars 60 and 111 to keep them metronomically in time. Then we moved on to bar 130, looking at the flow of the triplets and the rhythmic push of the triplets against duplets. This section is very similar to the opening, but not identical – don’t become complacent, but apply the beautiful lines and rich sounds to this section.

We ended by singing through Movement II Denn alles Fleisch which sounded great, for the most part! I’m very happy with the opening, but we’ll still need to just tighten up Letters C to E, so please look at those notes. We’ll need to practice the join between Letter H and bar 206, getting into the “Die Erloeseten” section more succinctly, Basses. We worked on the “und Schmerz” and “wird weg“s to get the quality of the chords perfectly together, but then shortened them and put them in the situation of the piece. We then looked at bar 269, making the entries very accurate and exciting, and finished at Letter M.

What we will do on Wednesday 15th February

We’ll start with a tutti rehearsal on Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich from Letter E “Ach, wie gar nichts” to bar 172 (the only section we haven’t covered), and then we’ll be split off into sectionals for the Fugue in Movement VI Denn wir haben, bar 208. Finally, we’ll come back together and see how much of the Fugue we can put together.

Marked Scores

The complete Marked Score is now below so do go through and put the new markings in. I’d expect these to be in by now, but they need to be in by half term.

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

Half Term

A reminder that there’s still a rehearsal on the 15th February, but NOT one on the 22nd February. I know this is different to the Chipping Norton half term dates, so I can only apologise for any confusion or faff with this.

Poster and Tickets

Below is the wonderful poster Brian has produced, so start sharing it far and wide. You can also get your tickets HERE.

This Week’s listening

Some more Brahms this week, given we’ve delved so deeply into his Requiem. I highly recommend listening to the whole of this piece, but I thought I’d share with you the final movement of his Symphony no. 1. Brahms started working on the symphony in 1855 and after 21 years of working on it it was premiered in Karlsruhe. Despite his own critical expectation that the piece would never live up to, yet was considered the spiritual successor to, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (and in this final movement even the main theme sounds like it draws inspiration from Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy‘), it remains a firm favourite in the repertoire of orchestras and audiences, and I hope you can see why. Listen HERE.

See you on Wednesday 15th.
– Ben

Good afternoon lovely choir – I hope you all had a great week, and are enjoying your weekend so far. We had a great rehearsal on Wednesday, covering a lot of music, and we’ll continue to build on this over the next couple of weeks.

What we did on Wednesday 1st February

A good start to Movement V Ihr habt nun, both with the learning of notes and way we produced the sound (m.v. – mezza-voce, or ‘half-voice’), which created a beautifully sweet sound. We did a little bit with the phrasing too, including giving direction to the suspensions, such as in the Soprano part in bars 22 and 23. We focused on the lovely melodic lines in bars 35 and 36, and then finished the movement with a flourish, while making sure the notes were accurate.

After this we started on Movement VI Denn wir haben, “do”-ing our way through learning the notes, and keeping the rhythm absolutely metronomically precise. We practiced the entries at bars 18, 20 and 22, making sure the notes were accurate. Again, enjoy the suspensions at Letter B in the Tenor part. We then did the join at bar 69 zu der Zeit der letzen Posaune, focusing on the dynamics, accents, and text, building up the intensity. After the break we worked on the turbulent ‘Vivace’ section at bar 82, learning the notes and putting the aggression into the music. It was great to look at the pairings of voices, such as the Sops and Altos on the triplets, and the Altos and Tenors from page 65 to 66. We also looked at the notes on pages 69 and 70, and the dialogue between the upper and lower voices. We also looked at the start of the Fugue (bar 208), learning the subject and then the counter-subject in the Alto line.

To end the rehearsal, we did some excellent work on Movement VII Selig sind die Toten, starting with learning the main melody, first heard in the Sopranos. We note-bashed the first section, and then worked on the ethereal atmosphere of Letter B. We finished by singing through until bar 100.

What we will do on Wednesday 8th February

We’ll begin with the opening of Movement VI Denn wir haben, putting the text to the notes we learnt, and then move on to a complete sing through of Movement VII Selig sind die Toten, before working from where we got to last week (bar 103). We’ll finish by singing through, and working on, Movement II Denn alles Fleisch, which we’ll be performing at the Chipping Norton Music Festival.

Just as a heads-up: on Wednesday 15th February we’ll be having a tutti rehearsal on Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich from Letter E (the only section we haven’t covered), and then some tutti work on the Fugue (bar 173). After the break we’ll be splitting off into sectionals for the Fugue in Movement VI Denn wir haben, bar 208.

Marked Scores

The complete Marked Score is now below so do go through and put the new markings in, as well as any you may have missed before.
(Due to the size of the original file I’ve had to compress it. If anything is unclear, do email me and I’ll send you a link to the large 145MB original version!)

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

BBC Singers Performing Brahms

The BBC Singers are performing the two-piano version of the Brahms Requiem on Friday 10th February at St Martin in the Fields. If you’d like to go along to pick up tips and hear it live, or just want an excuse to go down to London, you can find out more HERE.

This Week’s listening

This week I thought I’d share with you a piece I’m doing with another choir this term – part of our newCHOIR programme “They That Go Down To The Sea”. It’s a piece by Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, paying homage to the sinking of the ferry Estonia in 1994, called Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae. It’s a very powerful and moving piece, as well as being fairly fiendish to sing... an absolutely incredible work, I highly recommend a listen HERE.

See you on Wednesday 1st.
– Ben

Hello everyone! A great rehearsal last night, with lots of good work done in sectionals learning the notes of the fugue in Movement III.

What we did on Wednesday 25th January

We started the rehearsal by singing through Movement IV Wie lieblich sind, much of which had stuck from the previous week which is excellent. We then worked on Letter C-D, breaking down each motif and slowly putting them together, ensuring notes were accurate and the melodic lines – such as in bars 143-148 – followed on nicely from each other. Tenors please note that bar 136 is a D, not a Bb. After this we looked at bars 269-290 in Movement II Denn alles fleish, making sure the entries come in in the right places, and the voices paired together (S/A in bar 273, for example) blended and were accurate with both rhythms and notes. Remember to embrace the strange rhythmic push at the bottom of page 24 (bars 284-286), with the 3-pulse against the 4 time signature. Before we took our break we sang through Letter M, and will work on that in future weeks.

After the break we split of into sectionals to work on the fugue (bar 173) in Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich. Some good work here, looking through all of the entries and ‘note-bashing’ through it. A huge thank you, as always, to Rowena for taking the T/B sectionals. We broke down little sections to make them easier to learn, such as bar 194 in the Soprano part (“Seelen sind” as a small section, then “in Gottes Hand” as the next, then slap them together) – a good way to practice difficult sections is note by note, bit by bit, and the putting them together. We finished by singing page 43 altogether, feeling the cadence and sense of accomplishment as we get to the end of the hard fugue.

Now we’ve seen all the notes in the fugue in the rehearsals, it’s up to you to learn them more confidently at home, so we can put it all together in a few weeks time.

What we will do on Wednesday 1st February

First rehearsal of February! We’ll be starting with Movement V Ihr habt nun, then sing through Movement VII Selig sind die Toten, and after the break look at Movement VI Denn wir haben from the opening until bar 208. Loads to cover here, so please, at the very least, have a listen to these incredible movements.

Marked Scores

The complete Marked Score is now below. I’ve been staggering it to give you time to focus on getting individual movements marked, but now we have come to the final three. Everything is below, so do go through and put the new markings in, as well as any you may have missed before.
(Due to the size of the original file I’ve had to compress it. If anything is unclear, do email me and I’ll send you a link to the large 145MB original version!)

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

BBC Singers Performing Brahms

A huge thank you to Elizabeth for sharing this with me – the BBC Singers (excellent choir!) are performing the two-piano version of the Brahms Requiem on Friday 10th February at St Martin in the Fields. If you’d like to go along to pick up tips and hear it live, or just want an excuse to go down to London, you can find out more HERE.

Swindon Choral Society – Messiah

I’ve been asked to share with you all that the Swindon Choral Society are running a Come-and-Sing Workshop on Handel’s Messiah, led by Brian Kay, on Saturday 25th February. You can find out more HERE.

This Week’s listening

Another fugue this week, inspired by the work we did on the 3rd movement of the Brahms; this time one of my all-time favourites. Bach is famous for many fugues, often paired with toccatas or preludes, but this one is a little standalone gem – Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, also known as the “The Little Fugue“. Here’s the version I grew up with, for brass quintet, played here by the Canadian Brass... listen HERE.

See you on Wednesday 1st.
– Ben

Good afternoon, lovely choir! What a great rehearsal last night, I’m so pleased with all of the work we were able to do – such fine detail at such an early stage in the rehearsal process. I can already tell that this is going to be a special one.

What we did on Wednesday 18th January

We began with a read-through of the main melody of Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich, first sung by the Baritone soloist. This set us up nicely to learn the harmony parts and put it all together. Aside from learning the notes, we did lots of work on this first section with the text and the expression of the music, including using glottal stops to accent certain vowels (“und” and “ist” on page 30). Altos, Tenors, and Basses, remember to keep the energy alive at the top of page 30 to support the Sopranos with their melody. Before the break we had a look at the opening of the fugue in bar 173. We learnt the subject and counter-subject in the tenor line, before applying it to our own parts, and making a very good attempt at singing it through, getting to page 41 before it really fell apart!

After the break we started working on Movement IV Wie lieblich sind, really delving into the beautiful melodic lines and the gorgeous expressions of the piece. We learnt in detail the parts until bar 43, and it seemed as though most people are fairly confident note-wise with that first section. Then we sang through from bar 46 until bar 84, with a particular focus on the staggered entries from bar 48. Then we sang through from Letter C to the end, and settling on working from Letter D to the end – be very self-indulgent with the text and melody here; it’s super slushy, so enjoy it!

What we will do on Wednesday 25th January

The first half of the rehearsal will be tutti in the main hall, rehearsing Letter C in Movement III Wie lieblich sind, and Letter L to Letter N in Movement II Denn alles fleisch. After a short break we’ll split off into sectionals with T/B downstairs in the lower hall with Rowena, and S/A upstairs with me: we’ll be note-bashing the fugue (bar 173) in Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich. If you have time, please do look over this section in particular – it’s worth using the learning resources below to slow it down and listen note-by-note.

Marked Scores

I appreciate last week’s Notes came out after the weekend (sorry!), but this time you’ll have the whole weekend to make sure they’re in. I promise you that your time putting them in is well spent – the ensemble benefits and you get into the music in detail, so thank you for doing it!

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

Chipping Norton Music Festival

As Sarah Cobb mentioned last night in the break, do check out the Chipping Norton Music Festival. We’ll be performing on Saturday 11th March in the afternoon, and we’ll be doing a bit of the Brahms. There’s so much going on that you’re completely spoilt for choice! Check out all the events, along with information on how to participate or watch events, HERE.

Run By Singers

An excellent opportunity for a choral singing holiday! They wrote to us directly to advertise places, so if you fancy travelling and singing all combined into one, check it out. In their own words:

“If you’re passionate about singing great choral music and enjoy the company of other singers, then you have probably come to the right place. A singing holiday with Run by Singers is an unforgettable experience.”

Find out more HERE.

CRAG Concert

Fran has asked me to share this concert poster – a great programme of music, and an excellent cause!

This Week’s listening

I mentioned in the rehearsal ‘the perfect fugue’ – Shostakovich’s Fugue in A major, number 7. It’s a perfectly constructed fugue without a single note of dissonance, but still has so much interest and excitement, particularly because of its arpeggio-based subject. There are plenty of brilliant recordings, but this recording allows you to follow along with the music and all of the different chords that are being played (just ignore the talking before and after). You can check it out HERE.

See you on Wednesday 25th.
– Ben

Hello everyone, I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend. Huge apologies for the delay in getting these Conductor’s Notes out to you; as I mentioned in the rehearsal, I’ll try my best to get these out before the weekend, but some weeks there’s just not enough time in the day to get them out before then... this week was one of those!
Anyway, lots of great stuff below, so thank you for reading.

What we did on Wednesday 11th January

We ran through the opening of movement I Selig sind, putting into practice everything we’d worked on in the first week. A few minor things needed to be reminded/corrected, such as the Bass entry at Letter C, and the text at bar 88, but it sounded very solid on the whole, for week 2. We then worked from bar 100, bringing out the beautiful melodic lines, and pairing the voice parts together (such as at the bottom of page 9). We broke down 4 before Letter F, and really locked in the ending.

After the break we looked at Letter C in movement II Denn alles Fleisch, not only working on the notes but the phrasing and flow of the music. Just a reminder to be careful when we have staggered entries (such as at Letter D) to come in confidently with your note, and to continue the musical line from the part before you. Tenors, bottom of page 15, keep your descending notes really bright – you’re the most important part there. Then we looked at Letter H, creating a punchy and powerful start to this new section. At Letter K, we looked at the motif he uses (in the Sopranos), and how he uses this in other parts (rhythmically stretched in the Tenors). We put this all together until around Letter L, before looking at the ending from Letter N – remember, beautiful singing here!

What we will do on Wednesday 18th January

We’ll begin with the opening section of Movement III Herr, lehre doch mich, all the way until page 32. Before we break, we’ll have a gentle refresher of the fugue (bar 173), relearning the ‘subject’ and ‘counter-subject’. After the break, we’ll look at Movement IV Wie lieblich sind, finding that beautiful flow to the movement, and bringing out the different characters at each point (such as the ‘proud’ feeling on page 51).

As a heads-up: on Wednesday 25th January we’ll be having sectionals on the fugue (bar 173) in Movement III, as well as from Letter L in Movement II. More detail in the next Conductor’s Notes.

Marked Scores

Here are Movements 3 & 4 – trust me when I say it took me a long time to make decisions about the 3rd movement. You don’t need to make those decisions, you just need to put the markings in. If you don’t already have the markings in for movements 1 & 2, please look back on previous Conductor’s Notes to find them there.

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

Robin Howard’s Funeral

Some of you, particularly Basses, might remember Robin Howard, former member of CNCS. I’ve been asked to share details about his funeral with you, in case you’d like to go. His funeral will be in Enstone on Friday 20th January, and you can find all details HERE.

Three Choirs Festival – Bach!

Eric has asked me to share this with you, in the words of the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival Committee:

“A unique musical opportunity – The Bach Marathon

Imagine all 48 of Bach’s Preludes and Fugues played by a superb musician in just two morning sessions. These exquisite works of art encompass every possible note in music, a microcosm of what music is, being played in all 12 major and minor keys.
Friends of Gloucester Three Choirs are delighted to be able to bring these performances to Gloucester, thanks to Adrian Partington, Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral. Better still, we will be live-streaming this supreme marathon effort for those who cannot attend in person to watch it live or who wish to watch it later.

On Saturdays 18th (book 1) and 25th February (book 2), Adrian will be putting himself through Bach’s paces to play a whole book of 24 Preludes and Fugues without a break. Adrian has happily taken on this challenge, rehearsing for months to pull off this feat of playing.
The Bach Marathon will take place in the Ivor Gurney Hall, adjacent to Gloucester Cathedral from 10:00 – 12:00 on both Saturdays. We invite you to come, listen and watch for just £5. Come for the whole performance or just listen to a few. Tickets available on the door, cash, or card.

If you can’t manage to be there, you can watch it live or later. The link will be available on the Three Choirs website.
For more information about this and other events, go to Three Choirs website.“

AGM Chair’s Report

Eric has very kindly written up his Chair’s report from the AGM – well said then, and well written now. I encourage you all to have a read of it below.

This Week’s listening

A bit more Brahms this week, because why not? One of my favourite motets that Brahms wrote, it sets Paul Flemming’s incredible poem Geistliches Lied (Spiritual Song) as a ‘double canon’ – the same tune is used in different parts, following on from each other (a little lit like the round Frère Jacques) – only Brahms takes it to the next level. It’s a beautiful piece, and has one of the most spectacular ‘Amen’s ever written at the end. Listen HERE.

See you on Wednesday 18th.
– Ben

What a great start to the term! A brilliant rehearsal doing some cracking music in the wonderful Town Hall, and some people had even marked up their scores – wahey! It was so lovely to see so many of you again, and to welcome our new members. I can already tell what a great term this will be.

What we did on Wednesday 4th January

We covered much of the first two movements – I. Selig sind and II. Denn alles Fleisch. We started with the opening melody in movement II, working on tuning, pronunciation, and character (note that Letters A-C are the same as F-H... yay!) Then we learnt the ‘mini fugue’ from bar 206, again drawing out a lot of character and energy, particularly on the “Freude”s at Letter I. It was great to do so much detail so early on – that’s what I’m expecting from you all this term.

After the break we sang through movement I; it was a very admirable run, particularly for those who haven’t seen it before, and I asked you to remember how it felt so we can look back after the concert and you can see the incredible progress we make! We then did loads of detailed work on the opening, getting the pronunciation of the German correct, as well as the odd bit of note bashing where it’s hard, such as at Letter B. Good work on the energy at bar 55, and where it comes again in bar 88.

What we will do on Wednesday 11th January

We’ll start by running through the opening of movement I, before working on the ending section where we got to last week (bar 100, top of page 8). After this we’ll look at Letter C in movement II, and put it together with the first section. After the break, we’ll work from Letter K to the end in movement II, nailing the whole of the movement.

As a heads up, I’d like to do movement II in the Music Festival this year... more on that in a few weeks, but this will be the one to practice!

If you hired scores from Christmas and haven’t given them back, please bring them this week, otherwise the Committee will have to start chasing people!

Breathe Workshop – Saturday 7th January

A great success! Thank you to the 40 or so who signed up and joined us for the afternoon. I hope you found it very insightful and helpful, and you can start applying those exercises and techniques to the Brahms. Thank you of course to Rowena for accompanying, to the Committee for their organising expertise, Naomi and Sarah for looking after the teas/coffees all afternoon, and the cake makers/bringers for the amount of wonderful food we had. It’s so great to be able to put these days on where we all get so much out of it and come away so happy.

Charlotte will be posting on Facebook soon (if it’s not already up), so keep an eye out there.

Marked Scores

As with last week, the first 2 movements are here. I’ll be sending out the next movements next week, so make sure these are all in by then... otherwise it’s double the workload!

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

Peter’s Presentation

In Eric’s words: “On Saturday, a small group of Committee members presented Peter with his Life Membership Certificate. For the benefit of our new members, Peter was MD for 24 years before he moved to Devon last year, when we appointed Ben. He is one of a select few Life Members, but in view of the special place he occupies in the recent history of the choir, we had it produced by a professional calligrapher – Rachel’s, one of our new Altos, mother. I think you’ll agree she has done an outstanding job. Peter was, as you’d expect, delighted and has sent me a note saying he has been deeply touched and feels honoured.”

This Week’s listening

Everyone at the Breathe workshop seemed to enjoy singing Anton Bruckner’s Locus Iste so much that I thought I’d share with you my favourite of the group of unaccompanied motets he wrote: Os justi. You can hear this stunningly beautiful piece, performed by the incredible Tenebrae, HERE.

See you on Wednesday 11th.
– Ben

Happy Christmas everyone! I hope you’ve all had a lovely and restful Christmas, filled with joy and merriment. This is my final Conductor’s Notes of 2022(!), and a time to look forward to what the New Year will bring. It’s very exciting to think that I’ve been doing this for a year now... how time flies! I’ll save the summary of what we’ve achieved in 2022 for the AGM Reports, which will be shared on here soon, and will instead focus on the next week as we get going again.

What we will do on Wednesday 4th January

Time for some Brahms! We’ll be picking up where we left off in September, and introducing the piece to our friends who couldn’t join us then. We’ll cover the first two movements – I. Selig sind and II. Denn alles Fleisch – which, while having their tricky moments, are relatively accessible, and will be a good way to reintroduce the German language and Brahms’s incredible harmonies.

Below is the Marked Score for the first two movements only. Please try to get some of these markings in before the 4th, and the 11th, as we’ll be covering these two movements then.

Also a reminder that we’re in the TOWN HALL – don’t go to the Methodist Church.

Breathe Workshop – Saturday 7th January

“Due to a combination of the lasting effects of Covid and the cold weather, many of us have felt that our breathing when singing is not what it once was. Having run a workshop entitled ‘and Breathe…’ with newChoir, focusing heavily on helping those whose breathing had been affected by Covid and educating those who want to understand their breathing better, Ben was encouraged by one of our altos to run a similar workshop for CNCS. 

Using exercises and choral pieces as our basis, the afternoon will look at techniques to improve breath control, vocal stamina and voice projection. The event will be in the Chipping Norton Town Hall on Saturday 7th January 2023, from 2:00pm to 5:00pm. The ticket cost includes free tea/coffee and cake in the breaks.”

You can still get your tickets through the link in Eric’s emails. Having put together the booklet of music and exercises, I can assure you it’ll be worth it – I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible, so you can take away so much from the day.

Marked Scores

Recommended Recordings

There are many fabulous recordings of this piece, including this one by the late great Bernard Haitink.

However, we’re doing an incredible version for chamber orchestra, with our friends from the Adderbury Ensemble. In this chamber arrangement, the arranger (Joachim Linckelmann) keeps all of the wonderful colours and atmospheres of the original orchestration, but reduces the orchestra to a manageable size. This is my recommended recording, and you can listen HERE.

Learning Resources

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to assist you in your learning – please take the time to listen to the learning tracks, and to digest this piece properly; it’s tricky, and you’ll need to be on it.

Pronunciation Guide
We’ll be doing lots of work on the German pronunciation, and will be getting some coaching through the rehearsals too. However, you can make a good head-start on it by listening to this Pronunciation Guide.

Chord Perfect
These learning tracks are great as they are real singers amplified for the respective voice parts! It may help you to have real singers leading your learning, and it’s free! Just be aware that the ‘wobble’ on each voice can be quite pronounced (great for Brahms, but can lead to slightly flat singing if you slow it down).
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass 1
Bass 2

John Fletcher Music
Another great aid in learning, particularly as you can isolate your part or have all parts together. The sound is clear and easy to pick up, but it doesn’t do text. Check it out here.

Choralia
The most flexible option here as you can speed it up/slow it down, get certain voices to become more prominent, and it has a click track to help you keep in time. However, it’s the most rudimentary sound of the lot, so try not to sound too ‘computer-like’. Have a look.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you find these don’t help then feel free to do your own digging. The most important thing is that you engage with this, and put the time in at home to learn it. We all saw the difference it made over 3 days for the Christmas concert... imagine how incredible you’ll sound if you start now!

This Week’s Listening

A piece I’ve been listening to recently, having fallen in love with it as a child and then learning it at university – Britten’s masterful Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. It’s a selection of six poems by English poets on the subject of night, including both its calm and its sinister aspects. It was written at the request of famous horn player Dennis Brain, and featured Britten’s partner, tenor Peter Pears. In Britten’s own words: “It is not important stuff, but quite pleasant, I think.”

Listen to Pears and Brain sing my favourite movement (Nocturne – Blow, bugle, Blow) HERE.

I hope you all enjoy the New Year’s celebrations, and I look forward to seeing you in less than a week’s time!
– Ben

Hello everyone; I hope you’re all having a relaxing week in the lead up to Christmas, and managed to indulge in the post-concert-glow on Sunday. A short update before Christmas, so thank you for reading all the way through.

Christmas Concert

A huge well done to you all for the concert. It was absolutely brilliant, and I had such fun conducting you all that evening. I’ve had some lovely feedback from many people (as well as birthday wishes, thank you so much for those), both in the audience and in the choir, and Eric will be sharing more with you.

A quick run-down of the concert, from my point of view:
Corp: Despite us finding it rather challenging throughout the rehearsal process, I’m so grateful for the work you all put in, and it paid off completely. The audience loved it, and I gather I’ve even managed to change some opinions in the choir! I was so proud with how everyone performed it, but two standout moments for me were the ‘Crucifixus’ in the Credo (which was beautiful) and the end of the Agnus Dei (which was very exciting).

Carols set 1: A Capella singing with 87 people is hard, but with Past three a clock and Coventry Carol, I thought you did incredibly. Past three a clock was engaging and exciting, you told the story well, and you followed my direction without fault – mainly because so many of you were watching and performing. The quiet singing in Coventry Carol was to die for, and the 2nd (loud) verse was so terrifying... as a conductor, one can often ‘feel’ the atmosphere in the audience without seeing them, and the horror and excitement of that middle verse was palpable.

Vaughan Williams: What can I say – it was utterly brilliant. A really good performance of this, and significantly better than any of the rehearsals. The opening section was confident and supportive of Charlie, and had a beautiful flow to it. The second section had real character, and each of the upper/lower voice openings were well sung and full of energy. In the third section, I thought the dialogue between the choir and Charlie was perfect – it really helped convey the nature of each carol, and kept it very dance-like and joyous. The ending was SO good; exciting unison singing, and a tender and exquisite final few bars. Well done all.

Carols set 2: Well done on these. You led the audience with gusto in Good King Wenceslas, which was very good fun. Silent Night had its moments, but we recovered well, and that’s part of the joy and excitement of live performance – if you wanted to hear something perfect, listen to a studio recording! Having said this, you conveyed the expression and character of the piece very well, and people enjoyed the more ‘gentle’ carols. In the bleak mid-winter was great... nothing more to be said... well done!

Carols set 3: Again, beginning this set with A Capella Ding dong! merrily on high was so exciting, and you sang it superbly. All the ‘campness’ was executed perfectly, and it had such joy in the quality of singing. Hark! the herald-angels sing was a great audience pleaser to end off, and Sopranos can thank Bernard for putting it down a tone so you didn’t have to sing that top A... haha! Jingle Bells was the perfect way to close the concert, and the audience absolutely loved it! When I told you in rehearsals to dial it back and keep it ‘classy’, knowing you would ‘let loose’ in the concert, I wasn’t wrong... and you gave it such an exuberant performance that everyone left with huge smiles on their faces.

The last musical thing I must mention is our soloists and accompanists. Firstly, a MASSIVE thank you to Rowena for accompanying us over the term. Without her support, it would’ve been half the concert it was. Then, a huge congratulations and thanks to Bernard for his faultless playing in the concert. Not only was the accompaniment for the choir perfect, but the solos were magnificent and were a pleasure to listen to. Bec’s solo cello playing was beautiful, and really helped make something special of the Vaughan Williams, brilliantly complimenting your excellent singing. Finally, Charlie’s singing was, of course, a marvel, and I remember watching a few faces light up in the rehearsal when he first sang. And, I hope you can all agree that the reading was incredibly effective and supportive to the Ukrainian families we had in the audience – read with real emotion.

The most enormous thanks goes to the Committee and the people back-stage who make this happen; I get the fun part of waving my arms and taking bows, but these guys do the real hard work. I won’t list everyone by name (as I’m sure I’ll miss people off and feel guilty for doing so), but I’ll try to remember the jobs: Planning the concerts (Committee), tea and coffee in the breaks, setting up and clearing down chairs, serving refreshments at the interval, and selling programmes and tickets. I know I’ve missed a lot off, as so much goes on in the background I can’t keep track of it all, but your support of these concerts is what makes them truly special. Thank you all!

Overall, an incredibly memorable concert, and you should all be very proud of what we achieved. With an estimated 170 in the audience, all of whom loved it, I think we can say it was a complete success. Well done everyone!

What’s next

Just a heads up for next term. More will be shared after Christmas, but for now, let this whet your appetite.

Dates:
Rehearsals start on Wednesday 4th January.
No rehearsal on Wednesday 22nd February.
Concert is Sunday 26th March in St Mary’s Church, Banbury.

Venue Change:
As you may know, very excitingly, we’ve booked the Town Hall for the next couple of years. We will occasionally be unable to use it, but we’ll keep you informed when that is. For both the 4th January (first rehearsal) and the Breathe Workshop (more below) please meet in the Town Hall.

Breathe Workshop:
Is on Saturday 7th January. It’ll be a fun and interesting day, and I hope to see many of you there. More information can be found in Eric’s emails, as it’s a private link. He’s already sent this out once, but I’m sure will do so again.

Brahms:
Please find below an unmarked score – I’ve not had time to put anything in this yet, but I hope it gives a good heads-up for those who weren’t at the September rehearsals. More on this next week once the madness of Christmas is over.
You can also get listening to a suggested recording HERE: we’ll be using a small orchestra, in this orchestration – I’ll explain more in the New Year, but it’s very exciting.

This Week’s Listening

... is a bit of self promotion I’m afraid... I’ve been asked to sing in the Midnight Mass service from Leeds Cathedral, and I thought I might share it with you. You can catch it on BBC Radio 4 at 23:30 on Saturday 24th December, either live or via this LINK. I hope you enjoy.

I look forward to posting again soon with more exciting information about next term, but in the meantime, have a very restful and happy Christmas and New Year. I can’t wait for more excellent music-making in 2023.
– Ben

Thank you for your hard work this term – some of you I know have been working hard continuously since the start of October, and others have taken the ‘student-exam-approach’... cram as hard as possible at the last minute. I’m sorry to have been a little more stern than normal in Wednesday’s rehearsal, but given how close we are to concert day I need to know you’re all putting in the work at home to ensure the success of the concert. For this time you’re putting in, I’m so grateful.

What we did on Wednesday 14th December

We started with Good King Wenceslas – it was great to solidify it all, and we worked fairly efficiently in clarifying notes and giving phrases direction. After this we spent some time on the Gloria, going through and making sure each section was accurate. The opening got there once we were reminded (please ensure you know how it goes – it may be worth writing in what each carol is). It’s all about confidence and energy. Altos in particular, the moment you committed to pages 7 and 8, it transformed the sound.
After the break we finished the Gloria and then worked on the Credo from page 18. Similarly to the first half, a lot of this was spent on building confidence, which can be done by you at home by listening to the piece. Just 2 more days and you never have to hear it again! We finished with the Fantasia on Christmas Carols from Letter H; a very good start Tenors and Basses, just remember the small details with this. Keep the energy and ‘buzz’ going through the longer phrases, such as Letters N and P. I want to see everyone’s eyes at Letter U, so we can keep the excitement going together. A beautiful ending – sing it like that (if not even better) in the concert, and I’ll be a very happy man.

It’s the last time I need to say this... LISTEN TO THE CORP! Familiarising yourselves with the piece is vital. Know what’s coming up next, so we can transition straight into it.

I think many of us found that getting our head around the text with the music is one of the hardest things, but you can practice this by listening to it at home, and speaking through the text, if not singing.

Friday 16th December

This is our first rehearsal in the venue (St Mary’s Church, Chippy), as it’ll be for the concert. Please arrive for a prompt 19:30 start, which means getting there for 19:15 latest.

We’ll spend this rehearsal doing the main bulk of the programme, including the Fantasia, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and ending with Hark! the Herald-Angels.

As you’ll notice, we won’t have the time or ability to note-bash. Please come prepared as though this were the concert, so we’re able to get used to the space, rather than focusing on getting the notes right.

Saturday 17th December

This is it... concert day, wahey! All the information is below, and hopefully I’ve not missed anything.

Timings
Rehearsal time: 13:45-17:00 – ‘baton down’ at 14:00, so make sure you’re there with time to spare.
Concert: 19:10 reconvene for a 19:20 warm up in the parish rooms, and a 19:30 concert.

Venue
St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton.
Please note that parking by the church is limited, and is therefore reserved for those who are less mobile. Please make sure that when you park by the church, or nearby, wheelchairs can still get through and onto the paths.

Dressing Rooms
We’ll have the Parish Rooms, which will be locked when unoccupied, so we can change and leave everything in there while we sing. Please only take what is necessary onto stage. (NB – handbags are not necessary).

Concert Dress
Either ALL BLACK or DINNER JACKETS (black shoes, black trousers, white shirt, black jacket, black bow tie). We’ll make sure the heating is on, but it’ll likely still be cold outside, so make sure you’re wearing layers, and aren’t showing too much skin. Please also wear things like black socks or tights – it can be quite noticeable if you wear bright pink…

Running Order
This has caused a bit of confusion, and I completely apologise for this. Originally I hadn’t factored in some fabulous solos from Bernard on the organ, so to accommodate these I’ve just slightly rejigged the order of the second half. Please see below, and make sure the ‘To page...’ markings in your copies are right.

A Christmas Mass
– Interval of 30 mins (mince pies and mulled wine) –
O come, O come, Emmanuel (page 230)*
Past three a clock (page 269)
Coventry Carol (page 212)
Organ Solo
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Christmas Reading
Good King Wenceslas (page 102)*
Silent Night (page 304)
In the bleak mid-winter (page 173)
Organ Solo
Ding dong! merrily on high (page 82)
Hark! the herald-angels sing (page 107)*
Jingle Bells (page 73)**

* Audience participation
** Unpublished encore – they’ll love the concert so much the cheer for more... but we’ll keep this a secret until the night!

You’ll be given a ‘running order’ on the day, to help with the navigation of music.

Unavailability
If you know you’re unable to make the Friday rehearsal or, in the exceptional case, the Saturday rehearsal, please do let Mark know so we can make sure a seat is left out for you.

That’s all folks, see you all on Friday 16th!
– Ben

Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had a lovely week and are looking forward to a fun-filled weekend?

What we did on Wednesday 7th December

Well, I can certainly tell that my pleas for listening to the Corp paid off – you all seemed much more confident and familiar with all of the music on Wednesday, and for that I’m so grateful! Keep putting in those hours at home over the next week and the concert will be absolutely amazing!

We started with Silent Night, which I was very pleased with. Keep in mind the key change in the middle, and keep listening to it to keep it fresh in the mind. After this we did some work on the Agnus Dei – the beginning was pretty accurate, but the “dona nobis” section needed a bit of refreshing. Once we’d done it a couple of times, remembering to keep it light and bouncy (and Tenors and Basses, where your words come in that fiddly bar), it was a very tight and exciting movement. Keep the energy up in it!
After the break we looked at the Sanctus and Benedictus, and it was certainly a very valiant effort for the opening. A couple more times listening and singing through to your part will do wonders. We spent a lot of good time on the transitions between sections, so I hope you all feel a lot more comfortable with these – particularly Altos, who kick off the Benedictus on page 27. We ended with lots of good work on page 21-23 of the Credo. Remember to keep the excitement going all the way to the end, especially with this feeling of 1 in a bar.

I’ll repeat what I said last time... LISTEN TO THE CORP! Familiarising yourselves with the piece is vital. The introduction isn’t always the same as what you sing. Keep listening to it!

I think many of us found that getting our head around the text with the music is one of the hardest things, but you can practice this by listening to it at home, and speaking through the text, if not singing.

What we will do on Wednesday 14th December

Our final Wednesday rehearsal, oh my!!
We’ll be starting with Good King Wenceslas, focusing on the harmony verses. Then we’ll look at the Gloria from the Corp, and then sing through the Credo.
After the break we’ll continue a bit of work on the Credo and then sing from Letter H – End of the Vaughan Williams. We’ll finish the evening with Hark! the Herald-Angels Sing.

Please come prepared. It’s the last rehearsal before we move into the church, so everything should be pretty close to perfect. Don’t let yourself or your friends down. It just takes a spare 5 minutes here and there to stay on top of the music.

Marked Scores

If these aren’t in your copies by now I think I’ll cry...

Playlist for Christmas

It’s free to sign up... Listen, listen, listen! You can listen to it HERE.

As well as Spotify being free, you can find the Corp on YouTube too... listen HERE – no reason not to keep it fresh in the mind!

Learning Resources

As well as the Spotify Playlist above, there are a couple of helpful learning resources for our two main works in the programme:

John Fletcher Music – A Christmas Mass
This is a paid-for site, but certainly a useful one, and one of the only places you can find rehearsal tracks for the Corp. Worth investing in if you know you might need the help with note-learning outside of rehearsals.

Choralia – Fantasia on Christmas Carols
It’s very, very rough and ready, but it might help in learning the notes... take it with a pinch of salt...

RFMS Archives – Music from 100 Carols for Choirs
Susannah very kindly shared with me this website which has all of the guide tracks on for everything in 100 Carols for Choirs! Again, rough and ready, but hopefully it’ll help with the learning of notes!

Christmas in Chippy

Thank you to the 40 or so who have signed up, I can’t wait to show the town what we’re made of!

Eric will be sending an email round shortly with all of the details you need to know, but the main things are below:

Time
Rehearsal: 14:00 – 15:30
Performance: 16:30 – 17:00

Location
Rehearsal: St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton
Performance: Main Stage in the Town Centre

Music
All music will be from 100 Carols for Choirs. The running order is below:

Once in Royal David’s City (Page 260) – Verses 1, 2, 5 & 6 with descant
Past three o clock (Page 269) – Verses 1, 2, 6, 7, 8
O come, O come, Emmanuel (Page 230) – Verses 1-5
Coventry Carol (Page 212) – Verses 1-3
O come, all ye faithful (Page 226) – Verses 1, 2 & 6 with descant
Away in a Manger (Page 61) – Verses 1-3
In the bleak midwinter (Page 173) – Verses 1, 2 & 5
O Little Town of Bethlehem (Page 234) – Verses 1, 3 & 4 with descant
Ding Dong! merrily on high (Page 82) – Verses 1-3
Hark the Herald (Page 107) – Verses 1-3 with descant
Jingle Bells (Page 73)

Singers
Please find below the marked score. It’s got all the page numbers in, as well as the verses. I hope this is all clear, and we’ll go through it all in the rehearsal.

This Week’s Listening

I love the version of Silent Night that we’re doing; so simple and pure – perfectly reflecting the text of the carol. However, my favourite setting of the tune is by Jonathan Rathbone. I first did this arrangement at Magdalen, and it’s just stunning. Here, it’s perfectly sung by Tenebrae, and is just unbelievably breathtaking! Listen HERE.

newChoir Concert

If you’re free tomorrow (Saturday 10th December), do venture into Oxford to support some of your fellow CNCS friends who sing with me in newChoir. Hope to see some friendly faces there.

See you on Wednesday 14th!
– Ben