What a brilliant start we’ve had to this term. It’s lovely to see so many of you, and to have so many so enthused about this concert. Wednesday’s rehearsal went really well and we covered a lot of the hard bits of some of the trickiest pieces.
What we did on 11.05.22
We did some really good work on Zadok the Priest‘s fiddly passages, created a great sound in the homophonic passages, and worked on the style of the work (including the “Amen”s and “Alleluiah”s). I’m really impressed with the quality of the singing in Parry’s I Was Glad; we did lots of detailed work on the antiphonal and homophonic sections at the beginning. Finally, we finished with Thou Wilt Keep Him which was beautiful. We still need to do a bit of work on the style and just solidify some pitches, but the progress made in the rehearsal was very impressive.
What we will do on 18.05.22
We’ll work on the Parry from the “Vivats” to the end; Stanford’s Jubilate, looking in particular at the style of the work; and finally a bit on the National Anthem.
Updated Important Information for Wednesday 18th
A note about this rehearsal: due to the re-carpeting of the church, we thought we’d have to be in the room downstairs. However, we’ve managed to move the rehearsal to St Mary’s Church, Chipping Norton, which is much better for maintaining Covid precautions. We understand that the room downstairs would’ve been a bit cramped, so we’re delighted to be having the rehearsal in St Mary’s. See you there!
Online Learning Tracks
As I posted last week: there are some useful resources out there to help with learning the music. Choralia, the same website as last term, has some of the repertoire we’re doing – you just need to search their catalogue here.
Eric has very kindly shared another website that he finds useful for learning the music: John Fletcher’s Files. If you have any more questions about it, please do email Eric and I’m sure he’d be happy to chat about it.
Spotify Link
The Spotify playlist for the term is HERE. I hope it also helps in learning the music for this term.
Marked Scores
Here’s the marked booklet for this term. Please do put the markings in as it’s SO helpful for in making rehearsals run more efficiently. I’m sure it won’t take you much time at all.
Summer Come-and-Sing day
As I mentioned last week, we’ll be having a Come-and-Sing day on the 23rd July (venue tbc), working on Gabriel Faure’s Requiem. It’s a cracking piece, so listen here to whet your appetite. Susannah will be giving us a sign-up list so we can get an idea of numbers, in order to hire scores. More details anon...
See you all on Wednesday!
– Ben