Continuing the series introducing choral singers at the University this year. This week, second-year Biology student and alto with Minerva Voices, the Cecilian Choir and Chorus, Catriona Bradley.

How did you get into choral singing ?
I think the first time I heard Choral music will probably have been around Christmas time, there wasn’t really a choral culture back home where I lived, where pop, rap and musical numbers were more the bill, but my family and I enjoy such a wide range of music it was inevitable I’d stumble across it.

I enjoyed listening to Choral singing when I got the opportunity to, such as listening to King’s at Christmas or other events, but it was only really when I joined the University of Kent last year and I joined a full SATB choir that I fully was able to appreciate the music and get into it.

What’s your favourite piece ?
I don’t have as wide a knowledge of Choral music as I’m relatively new to it but I greatly enjoyed Verdi’s Requiem when we sang it in Chorus last year.

What’s your best/worst memory about singing in a choir ?
No worst memories as of yet (hopefully that will last a little longer), although I remember singing “Land of Hope and Glory” last summer unexpectedly with the Chorus and couldn’t look my mum (who was sat in the audience) in the face as we were both recalling my 5-year-old rendition, where I changed the lyrics from:
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.
to the embarrassing words:
My dad is snoring….
My dad is snoring….
My dad is snoring….
Please help me to sleep.
The best experience would certainly be singing Verdi’s Requiem in Canterbury Cathedral, it’s such a beautiful place both architecturally and spiritually and to be able to hear such an immense and beautiful sound echo and flow around the building really created an atmosphere I think will be hard to ever re-create.

What do you find the most inspirational aspect of choral singing ?
When I’m singing in the choir it feels very different to singing a solo, when singing alone I feel like as I sing I’m revealing a small part of my soul to a room of people with each word and note I sing. However, singing as a choir it’s like you are revealing and joining a part of your soul with those around you to form a new beautiful body that is the music you create together. It’s hard to explain such a feeling particularly when going through the rehearsal process as you only get snippets of it, it is in the final performance when all is brought together that there is that light feeling and power that comes through the words and notes that creates this body of sound that although strong and powerful is lightening to the spirit to be part of.

A lot of modern music loses this so singing Choral music is a great way to escape the bustle of modern life that I don’t like and return to a more primal, traditional, spiritual feeling that I enjoy much more.

Catriona is on Twitter @HighlandGirl95