Category Archives: In rehearsal

A new Dawn, a new day: the new Chamber Choir

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And rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes of last year’s Chamber Choir is the new ensemble, which met tonight for the first time.

First meetings are always tentative, with new members suddenly thrown into the fray alongside returning singers from the previous year. It’s difficult to sing confidently amongst strangers, especially when grappling with new pieces to sight-read and sometimes different languages in which to sing, in an unfamiliar venue on a campus at which you might only have arrived a few weeks previously.

And the group rose to the occasion splendidly.

After some tricksy warm-ups from Steph Richardson, this year’s student conductor, it was straight to work, looking at four pieces for the Crypt Concert in February of next year. First up, Dawn by the American composer Eric Barnum, a Whitacre-esque meditation on the rising day. We followed this with Vaughan Williams’ Sweet Day, a mock-Elisabethan part-song.

A sojourn in Italy next, with Lassus’ Tutto lo di, a deft villanelle which trips through various metric values, full of life and vigour. Some might consider not introducing the challenge of singing in a foreign language at a first rehearsal – all those tricky vowel-shapes and the minefield of pronunciation – but the group rose to the challenge with spirit.

We finished by looking at some genuine Whitacre,  Sleep, his profound and beautiful piece to a poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri. Some astonishing chords here, with consonant sonorities supporting semitone clashes that give a real piquancy to the music, some rich colours and breath-taking sonorities – we’ve begun building certain passages chord-by-chord, and the choir have taken to it straight away.

All in all, a terrific first rehearsal: well done to all the choir for their work, to Steph for leading the group through the warm-up exercises: more next week. It’s time to start getting excited about the year ahead…

Coming to terms with – the new term

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With the new academic year beginning in just three weeks’ time, it’s been a busy summer putting together programmes for the Chamber and Cecilian choirs for the coming year.

ConductingI always find this period exciting and also rather daunting – the opportunity to explore new repertoire, the search for suitable pieces that can be combined to form a cohesive concert programme, and looking at former favourites and wondering if it’s too soon to unearth them again, is fun and interesting, but then comes having to plan the rehearsal schedule, order the chosen pieces, and then seating myself at the piano to learn the pieces.

I always find that first sitting at the piano, with the pile of new scores in front of me, somewhat daunting – so much music to learn. What has rescued me was remembering a previous post I’d written about how to learn music quickly, by starting at the end and working backwards. This technique means you aren’t faced with the psychologically daunting prospect of a new page when you’ve learned the first and turn over to the next; instead, you learn the last page, then turn back to the page before and play through this and on into the page you’ve just learned.

This is much more empowering – you finish by playing the section you’ve just learned, which boosts your morale, and as you work backwards, you find that sections you’ve already learned are in fact a reprise from earlier in the piece, which means you’ve already learnt it.

I don’t actually know whether this practice actually shortens the amount of time spent learning a piece, but it certainly feels as though it does, which makes the task of moving through the scores seem much quicker.

There’s also the act of planning – with a brand-new choir, you want to rehearse pieces that they will be able to pick up quickly, so they feel early on that they have started to achieve and develop a real belief in their performing and working as an ensemble; however, there’s also the tricky question of when to introduce the harder pieces – too soon and they lose morale, too late and there’s not enough time to learn them properly before the concert. Notwithstanding the question of how soon is too soon to start working on the seasonal repertoire for Christmas ? You don’t want to start it in the late summer evenings in September, but you don’t want to leave it to the last minute either. Decisions, decisions…

This year, I’ll also be sharing conducting with a second-year student, a chance for one of the students to hone their conducting skills and perform with a choir during the year.

I’m about halfway through learning the pieces for the coming term, having prioritised those which will be worked on in early rehearsals. So far, so good. There’s a contemporary carol for the University Carol Service, some Italian madrigals, some twentieth-century British pieces, some French music, and more: I’m not going to give anything away here about the nature of the Crypt Concert in February, but I’m sure it will become clear as we follow the progress of rehearsals here on the blog.

Watch this space…

The year has ended: but the singing has not!

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The academic year has drawn to a close, the students have all left, the final-year students are waiting to graduate later in the month: but the singing on campus continues.

Following on from last year’s workshops, this year I’ve been asked to do some more choral workshops for staff, former staff, postgraduate students and friends of the University – such is the enthusiaism for singing that some members of the Chorus begin to feel withdrawal symptoms once the summer concert has passed!

Advent AntiphonWe’re now in the middle of a three-week course, which runs on Monday afternoons, for which I’ve collated some repertoire to suit. This year, we’ve been singing some plainsong, to work on flexibility and following the contours of phrases – we’re reading from antique notation, as a way of introducing the singers to it if they’ve not come across it before – as well as music by Dowland, Saint-Saens, and Tourdion, the sixteenth-century French partsong in praise of claret, which we’re singing with an English text expressing enthusiaism for English ale. We’ve been working through music very quickly, a way of keeping interest by introducing new pieces each week, but a testament also to the speed with which the group are picking up repertoire: it keeps me on my toes!

These workshops are always terrific fun: informal yet disciplined, as they are attended by people who want to work at choral singing. There’s lots of laughter, as well as lots of working on repertoire and aspects of choral technique – reading ahead, getting entries together, exploring dynamic contrasts, as well as making sure vowel-shapes are right and consonants are clear. It’s a perfect blend of working for pleasure, but with a sense of wanting to explore aspects of choral discipline.

The year may have finished, but the fun still continues…

A Greater Coming Together

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Tonight, as they say, is the night: by which I mean, tonight’s the first rehearsal in which both the Chamber and Cecilian Choirs will come together to sing the ‘Agnus Dei’ from the Frank Martin ‘Mass for Double Choir.’

I can’t articulate how exciting this prospect is, the chance to realise the full sound of the piece for the first time since we started learning it in individual choirs; this will be the first opportunity for us all to hear it properly.

There’ll be some problems, not least of which is a logistical one: some people sing in both choirs, and I’ll probably have to do some juggling in order to make sure each of the lines is strong, a fact made all the more problematic when the score sometimes divides each part into two; at several points, the texture blossoms into a rich, sonorous ten-part sound.

There’ll also be the challenge of arranging the choirs together, not just for the ‘Agnus Dei’ but also for the two other pieces we’re performing as a combined ensemble: Tallis’ If Ye Love Me and, to end the programme in cheerful manner, Dowland’s Fine Knacks for Ladies. I hope to have sopranos on each outer side, altos arranged across the middle, tenors on each outer side of the back row, and basses in the middle. It will be interesting to see if this works – as well as discovering if we can actually all fit into the performance space in this fashion, a fact we won’t be able to discover until we rehearse on the day, a scant two hours before the concert…

That’s not going to be a problem. I hope!

The Chamber Choir

The final concerts…

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As the final term gets underway today, preparations are already apace for the final two choral engagements for the Chamber and Cecilian Choirs of the year.

A titanic event looms, as both choirs combine to perform out at St. Vincent’s Church, Littlebourne on Friday 10 June; the programme includes the ‘Agnus Dei’ from Frank Martin’s sublime Mass for Double Choir, which I blogged about back in December with an audio link: it’s a dream come true, to be able to perform part of the work.

Each choir will perform some of their solo ensemble pieces, and will come together for a further two pieces during the same concert; I’ve not been to Littlebourne since last year, and can’t quite remember the dimensions of the performing space, so I’m hoping there’ll be enough room to accommodate both choirs at the same time!

The Chamber Choir will also bid farewell to the year with an appearance in the Sunday concert as part of ArtsFest on 12 June, which sees performances also from the Concert Band, Chorus and Symphony Orchestra; I can’t tell you what the Choir will be singing at the concert, as it’s top-secret – suffice to say, it’s a recent chart-topper straight from the pop charts, and is sure to have everyone singing along if they haven’t forgotten the words… (see what I did, there ?).

As rehearsals begin this week, it’s also a sign the end is in sight, always a sad occasion, as final-year students leave; both Choirs, when they return in October, will be completely different. But I console myself with the reflection that it’s the process, not the product, that is the great delight with the choirs; the year-long round of rehearsing and performing, learning repertoire, crafting the sound, and getting to know each other over the course of the year that is what choral singing here at Kent is all about. We’re lucky to have two such ensembles, indeed a vibrant Music Department, at a university which doesn’t offer a formal Music degree at its Canterbury campus: it’s been a terrific year, and although the last concerts indicate the end of another year, they will be great occasions as well. We’ll be keeping you posted here as we rehearse over these last weeks before the concerts: don’t miss them…

Carpe diem

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The day is finally here, and the Cecilian Choir concert is this evening; final preparations are underway for this afternoon’s rehearsal, ahead of the concert at 7.30pm.

All the peripherals – music stands, concert programmes, organising lifts to the venue – have now taken over from the musical preparations. It’s perhaps the most frustrating time: there’s no more music to learn, no more fine-tuning to undertake: it’s just the logistics of getting the event underway that are happening now.

We’re excited about the concert: stand by for feedback next week.

A Tour de force

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Friday looms large, and the finishing touches are being applied to the University Cecilian Choir and Brass Ensemble ‘Grand Tour’ concert at St. Paul’s Church.

Food this way, chaps!

The final draft of the programme is in place, the readings have been edited, the music has been organised, running orders printed, the choir and instrumentalists have been given their commitments for rehearsal and performance on the day; one of the altos is organising the food in between rehearsal and concert (always a crucial consideration: Napoleon may have said that ‘an army marches on its stomach,’ but he neglected to take into account that musicians also perform on theirs); the final few rehearsals take place this week, and then the concert will be here.

Over the course of this year, the Cecilian Choir has worked hard each week, and recently the sound has suddenly developed, perhaps coming with confidence as the group grows into the repertoire more; but it’s also something, perhaps, to do with the realisation that we have actually grown into a choir. The Cecilian Choir is always something of a flexible ensemble: as it’s entirely extra-curricular for the students and staff, there’s usually some ebb and flow each week as timetables for lectures change, or staff meetings crop up that mean staff singers are unable to attend. This makes developing the choir’s ensemble sound more of a challenge, as often no two weeks are ever the same; however, in recent weeks a sound seems to have blossomed: we’ve realised that we’re not just a collection of singers who meet each week, or sometimes every other week, but a genuine choral ensemble, united by a love of singing, with a fully-fledged programme, honed and crafted over the term, which is  about to be delivered publically.

We are welcoming back some alumni who have previously sung at the University on the day as well: one of the great strengths of the Choir is that it’s a chamber ensemble that alumni are able to be involved in. We’re looking forward to unleashing the spectacular programme on the audience on Friday; it’s going to be an exciting occasion.

No time to draw breath, even…

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After the success of the Chamber Choir’s Crypt concert the week before last, there’s been no time to relax and revel in the achievement: it’s still a busy choral time at the University.

Notwithstanding the fact that the University Chorus (of which many of both the Chamber and Cecilian Choirs are members) are singing the Mozart Requiem in Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday, there are still two more choral concerts before the end of term.

The Chamber Choir are in the midst of learning new repertoire for their concert at Wye Parish Church on April 1, which includes two of Purcell’s mesmerising ‘Funeral Sentences,’ as well as a surprise piece that we’re not revealing any details about: suffice to say, it’s an arrangement for the choir of a piece by someone working at the forefront of British jazz at the moment…can’t say more…

The Cecilian Choir are in action next, in their concert of European music celebrating ‘The Grand Tour’ at St. Paul’s Church, Canterbury, on Friday 25 March. This concert has involved constructing a programme of music drawn from countries visited along the route of the cultural odyssey from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The choir will be joined by the University brass ensemble, as they travel from England to Rome and back; however, time collapses in the concert as we perform music from the Italian Renaissance alongside Tudor polyphony and twentieth-century France; the choir are starting to develop a rich, confident sound: it promises to be an exciting concert.

Breathe…

Tomorrow never comes: but the Crypt Concert will!

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That’s it! The final two rehearsals this week are over, and arrangements are in place for tomorrow’s Crypt Concert.

On your marks...

Since last Tuesday, all the rehearsals have been without a piano; and we’ve found we no longer need it. This is a tremendous boost for the group. And now, after the unkind and spartan acoustics of the lecture theatre and OTE rooms in which we’re used to rehearsing, the next time the group invokes a chord, it will be in the richly reverberant acoustics of the Crypt. After all the hard work, it will be a fine reward: we just have to make sure we’re not overwhelmed by the sound, and forget all the discipline and the nuances we’ve worked to achieve.

The challenge with rehearsing and performing in the Crypt on the day of the concert, for the conductor at least, is to pace the pieces – and the programme as a whole – to take account of the tremendous sonic possibilities offered by the Crypt. We get a short time to sing through the pieces in the afternoon, before the performance in the evening, and very quickly both conductor and choir have to adapt to the new acoustic, to allow sufficient time for chords to die away and to pace phrases so that words and quicker passages of notes aren’t lost.

It’s a very steep learning curve on the day: but we’re ready for it. Here we go…

That was a week, that was…

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Nearly all the altos...

A long and hard-worked choral week, last week. With less than two weeks to go until the Chamber Choir’s Crypt Concert, we had a longer than usual rehearsal on Tuesday night, and the choir also had their second workshop day on Saturday. The Cecilian Choir suffered a blight of illnesses and looming course deadlines to be rather decimated at their Thursday session, which meant the planned rehearsal of looking at new repertoire had to be shelved: with so many members missing, it’s not worth looking at new pieces, better to wait until the group is near to capacity.

Saturday was a very long day, but an extremely useful one. Looking at the more difficult pieces in greater detail makes for long and tiring rehearsal periods, so the more challenging pieces were alternated with less difficult works, in order to provide some respite from part-by-part note-bashing and building pieces in sections. Credit to the choir: we covered eight pieces in the entire day, which is a very good work-rate indeed. And that doesn’t even include the warm-up piece, a brief arrangement I’ve made of Rusted Root’s Send Me On My Way, familiar these days as part of the soundtrack to the animated film, Ice Age.

The state of the tenor

With the concert date so close, I am playing even less closed-score accompaniments to the pieces, to get the choir used to singing without the support of the piano beneath them; throwing in the odd bar to check intonation or highlight an important part is really all I want to be doing at this stage. Some of the more difficult pieces needed more than this, but we all felt we’d achieved greater confidence with some of the works, especially the Tippett Gwenllian which offers no vertical logic at all; the voice-parts only really come together in the final three bars.

Bass desires...

We took several of the pieces out of the rehearsal room and into the foyer of the building itself; the lecture theatre in which we rehearse offers little supportive resonance, and I wanted the group to be able to sing in an acoustic with a little more reverberation; the foyer, whilst no church nave, is still a marked improvement over the lecture room. Suddenly, you could hear a little bloom around the colours of the Macmillan; as one of the basses remarked, “Gosh, it’s nice to hear the other voices for a change!” Rehearsing in tiered rows is great for visibility, but makes it difficult for the singers to hear other voice-parts.

The Sopranos...

So, a long week. Work still to do, but things are starting to come off the page really well; the English madrigals are virtually leaping out of the score, and the rich harmonies of the Jackson Edinburgh Mass are starting to become more secure. The clock is ticking…