Happy New Year everyone! I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas break, filled with joy, frivolity, and time to rest. Various things in these Notes, so thank you in advance for reading them all through.
Christmas Concert Feedback
A very big "well done and thank you" for such a great concert. I know the church was cold, but that didn't stop a good-sized audience from turning up, and certainly didn't stop you all from singing brilliantly! I was so pleased with the whole concert, and have had some really lovely feedback including how blended and together the sound was, how well you conveyed the text to the audience, and the excitement you drew out of everything. In particular, so many people have said how much they enjoyed the Britten, and how the chamber choir's separation created an amazing atmosphere.
A couple of my favourites were the McDowall, as it had such crisp-ness and energy, brilliantly ending our first half, and the White Christmas we did as an encore; everyone (choir and audience) had such wonderful smiles on their faces, it was just a pleasure. And, of course, the Vaughan Williams was brilliant too, and I thought it was an incredible performance! You'll be pleased to know that my predecessor, Janet Lincé (for those people who have joined the choir in the past 2 years), thought the concert was excellent... very high praise from her indeed!
Overall, very well done on a great Christmas concert!
What's Next
We'll be beginning rehearsals in just over a week, so here are all of the details you'll need to know for this term.
Dates:
Rehearsals start on Tuesday 17th January.
No rehearsal on Tuesday 21st February as this is the Birmingham half-term (sorry, this is different to the Oxford one).
Concert is Saturday 1st April in St Michael and All Angel's Church, Summertown. Please not this is a change from what was said before.
Music:
I'm really pleased with this programme, and I think you'll all really enjoy it. It does features one incredibly hard but very effective piece - Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae. You may want to get a heads-up on it before we begin rehearsing.
Spotify Playlist:
As with every term, you can find most of the music on Spotify (or YouTube). Here's the Spotify Link.
Scores:
I'll share the marked scores once all the music has arrived (so we use the same editions), but for now, please find most of the programme, unmarked, below.
Full Schedule:
And finally, you can find the full schedule for the term below too.
Any questions, don't hesitate to email me or Wendy, and we look forward to seeing you on the 17th January.
Really looking forward to this very exciting term.
- Ben