Greetings from Karlsruhe, Germany... is what I was hoping to write. Unfortunately my connection to the internet was incredibly limited, and most of the time was spent singing; not the worst thing in the world! So, I’m writing these from boring old Birmingham instead. I’m sorry to only just get these posted, but I did have a wonderful time!
I was really impressed with Wednesday 16th’s rehearsal, not only because of the standard of singing, but of the quality and commitment by the depleted numbers who could make it, especially in the tenors!
What we did on 16.03.22
A great recap of the Agnus Dei to warm us up. I won’t cover this until a ‘sing-through’ on Friday 1st’s rehearsal, so make sure you keep it fresh in your memories.
Good work on the Credo – a few more bits to cover this week, but we did some excellent rehearsing of the final ‘Coda’ at the end.
The Gloria was great. We’ve now covered that end section pretty extensively, so will be top-and-tailing it for the remaining few rehearsals.
Finally, good work on the Verdi – it’s been a few weeks since we covered it, and you remembered it well, with some prompting, haha! We’ll keep working on this over the forthcoming weeks.
What we will do on 23.03.22
19:30-20:15 – Straight in with some hard work in the Gloria, page 21-33. Lots to cover and lots to remind ourselves of.
20:15-20:30 – Verdi, bar 143-End, working hard on pronunciation and performance.
20:40-21:00 – Verdi continued.
21:00-21:30 – Finally we’ll finish with the Credo, pages 51-67.
Another long evening, but you’re all doing amazingly and it promises to be an amazing concert.
Section Representatives
A little reminder about what was said about trialing our idea of Section Representatives.
Title – Section Representative.
Purpose – to form a Group with the MD to act as a conduit for conversations between the MD and the choir in order for both to flourish.
Scope – to be agreed by the Group and might include repertoire, concert arrangements, the location and handling of rehearsals. The Group might extend it’s scope to include the Accompanist.
Meetings and reporting – to be agreed, but should arrange to meet at regular intervals. The MD should report on the discussions to the CNCS Committee and then communicate actions via Conductor’s Notes.
Term – Our initial thinking is that people will be SRs for a year and then hand over the role to another singer from their section. We’ll get this off the ground by asking people to volunteer at the rehearsal on Wed 23rd as they sign in; if there are several names, we’ll draw one for each section out of a hat but keep the other names on a list and either nominate them next time, or, if there are several, draw names as before.
New Accompanist
It’s with great pleasure that we announce Rowena Gibbons as our new accompanist, following a very positive selection process. Rowena will be joining us at the end of April, and I’m sure you’re all looking forward to welcoming her into the CNCS Community as much as I am.
I’d like to also take a moment to thank the wonderful Bernard and Terry for their incredible work over the past term with us, as well as their many years of fantastic service to the choir!
Piece of the Week
So you can hear the sort of thing I was getting up to in Germany, the group with which I was singing – Man(n) Singt! – recorded a CD a few years ago, and it’s available on Spotify. Some of the repertoire we sang over the weekend is on the CD, including Herr, lehre doch mich and Der Lindenbaum – have a LISTEN HERE.
Marked Scores
As always, the marked scores are here. If you haven’t yet put the markings in, I’d greatly appreciate it if you would.
Spotify Link
And the Spotify playlist is HERE.
Have a lovely weekend.
– Ben