Back in action again this year, the University Cecilian Choir has begun rehearsals ahead of its Christmas concert, which will launch December’s music-making in Colyer-Fergusson.
A by-invitation choir formed from students, staff and alumni, the Cecilian Choir has sprung back to life over the past two weeks working on Part One of Handel’s Messiah for a Baroque Christmas concert that will also include instrumental works by Vivaldi. We’ve already been grappling with the tricky contrapuntal ideas so loved by Handel, as well as the bold homophony and harmonic landscape which gives the music such an invigorating quality. There’s still plenty of work to do, of course, but the Choir has made such a positive start – and it’s obvious that it takes the rehearsal process very seriously indeed…
Find out more about A Baroque Christmas on Friday 4 December in Colyer-Fergusson Hall here. The journey towards Christmas has already begun…
The Chamber Choir, phoenix-like, has risen anew once more – over half the Choir is new this year – and has been busy exploring a range of repertoire for the annual concert in the Cathedral Crypt in March. Before that, though looms the University Carol Service – always a high point in the Choir’s performing calendar – and we’re currently busy learning a fistful of pieces; this year, one of the carols is the radiantly-colourful Hymn to the Virgin written by Edinburgh-based Steven Griffin, which was originally written for the Kings’ Singers and won the Classic FM ‘Carol for Christmas’ competition in 2012. It’s nice to be exploring a different setting to the customary one by Britten, and the work’s purple-hued harmonic language is really starting to blossom as the Choir grows in confidence. This year’s student conductor, fourth-year Emma Murton, is also working on Ravenscroft’s meditative Remember, O Thou Man, for the Big Church in a couple of weeks’ time.
The Cecilian Choir has also burst into life, and is currently rehearsing Monteverdi’s Beatus Vir and Hassler’s Alleluja, two vibrant pieces which explore textural variation within the ensemble to dramatic effect; and the Monteverdi is certainly keeping us on our toes…
This is my fifth year of working at the University, and you’d have thought that I’d have grown accustomed to this situation by now. But it doesn’t get any easier; there’s so much fun to be had amidst the hard work, and so much satisfaction accrued from delivering a polished performance, that bidding farewell to the ensembles, and the singers of whom they are comprised, is difficult. There will, of course, be new faces next year, new singers and new members as the Choirs re-form and begin anew their musical exploration together – always an exciting start to the academic year. But I will miss the incarnation of each Choir; it’s been a large part of my working year, in which my expectations for them have been matched by their whole-hearted commitment.
This morning’s critical pre-performance tasks have already been achieved: see offspring off to school, iron concert-shirt, polish shoes, leap around on Twitter to promote tonight’s concert; now I can sit with the music and work through the scores, until heading towards the crypt for this afternoon’s rehearsal. The first moment we sing in the Crypt on the Friday afternoon is always a memorable moment, particularly for those members of the Choir who haven’t sung there before; the rich, sonorous acoustics take your sound and echo it around for several seconds. We’re very excited at the prospect of launching the opening of Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque into that historic space.
The moment of epiphany came during Whitacre’s ravishing Lux Aurumque; flying now without piano support, we launched into those colourful opening chords; it was fine, but wasn’t really working properly; the notes were in place, but the colours weren’t coming. ‘Listen,’ I said – ‘now really listen to one another – watch someone who comes in when you do – listen to another part and work your dissonance against theirs. Be aware of everyone around you, and commit to the sound.’
This has become particularly apparent in recent rehearsals as the Chamber Choir works on Lassus’ Chi Chi Li Chi, a cacophony of bantam-banter in a late sixteenth-century chicken-shed, written well before the modern standard system of notation. Stepping deftly between different metres, full of rhythmic interplay, the notation actually works 