Sorry everyone, I meant for this to go out yesterday - I did everything except hit 'Publish'! Oh dear! Good evening everyone, I hope you're all well and have had a lovely week. Thank you all for attending the AGM last week, and a particular 'thank you for your service' to Wendy and Ann who are stepping down from the committee, and an even bigger thank you to Anne, Paola, Tom, and Eleanor for joining the committee! A reminder that we do have a rehearsal tomorrow (29th October)! I'm very sorry that it's during the school half-term, but I hope to see most of you there. We'll be taking our half-term break the week later on Tuesday 5th November. A brief one for you all today. Owing to the slightly-longer-than-normal AGM last week, James and I will be doing some more sectional work in the first half of the rehearsal tomorrow. Creator of the Stars of Night; Sectionals on Gloria and Credo from Missa O Magnum Mysterium; Sectionals on Virga Jesse; Sectionals on Victoria O Magnum Mysterium; Tutti on the above; Lauridsen O Magnum Mysterium. Please make sure markings are in your copies, it saves so much rehearsal time! Here's the marked score attachment again: Here's also the poster - please get promoting! Finally, here's the Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4rZU6uJh35VGZYPZwsDPq1?si=0733f550a89c442a  See you all tomorrow*! Thanks! Ben *LATER!

Hi all, I hope you had a lovely weekend. We've had a great first couple of weeks this term, making good headway on all of the music. Below is a list of what we've done in the first couple of weeks. Please make sure you catch up if you've missed either rehearsal. What we did on Tuesday 16th & 23rd April • In our first rehearsal, we read through the entire programme, most of it at a steady speed. I think this is really important, to give us an idea of what we're working with for the term. We especially did a little bit on the text and the motifs of the Durante/Pergolesi. • In the second rehearsal, we began with the first movement of the Gloria, working in great detail on tuning, blend, and balance, as well as ensuring notes were accurate. Some very good and thoughtful ensemble singing here. • After this we looked at the Purcell, focussing on the choral section of pages 24-26. Again, some good ensemble and tuning work here, with minimal note-bashing. • We ended with some work on the opening of the Durante, the "fecit potentiam" text, and the ending, finding the comparisons, practicing the text, and working on the notes. To catch up: If you missed these rehearsals, please go through each piece at home with a recording, and try your best to sing through. What we'll do on Tuesday 30th April - Week 3 I'd like to consolidate our work on the first movement of the Vivaldi, then look in detail at the 2nd movement. After this we'll do the first section of the Purcell. We'll end with work on the Durante, particularly the 2nd movement (Deposuit). This evening (Monday 29th April) If you see this in time, you may be interested to know that I'm playing in a chamber music concert this evening with a group called Crosswinds. It'll be an exciting concert, and is free to attend. Tickets are FREE and available HERE, and a poster is below. Thanks all, see you on the 30th. Ben

Good evening everyone, I hope you're all well and have had a lovely Easter break. Before we begin the Summer term I wanted to write to you. Below is feedback from the previous concert, the plan for this term, and the marked scores for some of the music. I can't wait to get going on this term's awesome programme. Concert Feedback An excellent concert all, very well done! I was hoping to get this feedback to you sooner but I came down with a nasty bout of end-of-term-itis, confining me to bed for a few days. This was then followed by a busy Easter, so thank you for bearing with. The concert began with a bang with Music to Hear - It came across as confident and filled with fun, and I think the 2- and 4-part splitting at the start was very effective. There was some great legato singing in this too. Then The Singers kept the mood of the concert up. I was very pleased with the energy in this, and thought the text came across really well. Adding the piano I think gave us a bit more confidence with some of the entries in the middle and helped us maintain the tuning, but it'll be good to push for an acapella performance if we do it again in the future. It was unfortunate about the start of Sing Joyfully - we had got it a lot cleaner in rehearsals, but I think nerves got the better of us and the opening was therefore rough. When more parts came in it secured itself, and there were some lovely moments in this, especially the dialogue between parts and the conviction of some of the text - "Blow the trumpet" for example was great! The ending suffered slightly from nerves and being a few sopranos down, but overall it was an alright performance... let's focus on starts next term! At this point Pete played, and I want to take a moment to say how wonderful it was to have him with us for the term! A huge thank you to Pete for his playing in rehearsals, excellent accompanying in the concert, and stellar solos. We're so lucky to work with such incredible accompanists such as James and Pete. An Die Musik was a solid performance, and the text which we'd worked hard on came across well. I don't know of any native German-speakers in the audience, but on the whole the text sounded convincing. There alway something sings was brilliant! On the whole the tuning was spot on, and the blend was lovely. The acapella sections were great and I really got a sense of the text. Well done. Then Music of Life went really well - not a challenging piece note-wise, but it has the possibility of being dull... it wasn't at all, and that was down to the good direction you gave the music. Oh, how can I keep from singing was another fine example of acapella singing in this concert; blend, ensemble, and projection of text were all great - all things I've been nagging you about all term, so thank you for pulling it all together for the concert. Admittedly the tuning suffered slightly, especially towards the end, but it didn't matter as the performance of it was great! I hasten to add that it never sounded out of tune in the choir, the pitch just dropped... so good teamwork on that, haha! Finally, we ended the first half with We are the music makers and it was full of joy. It sounded happy, confident, and was a lovely end to the first half. Most importantly, no one came in early in that entry, so thank you all for that!!! After the interval, we started with the three settings of Cantate Domino, and you sold them really well as a trio. I felt that the Monteverdi went even better than when we did it 2 years ago, and the Hassler was good too. The Gretchaninov, while being a committed performance, was a little flat in places, so that's something for us to bear in mind in the future, with post-interval pieces. Then the main work of the concert - the Serenade to Music. The choral sections were very good indeed, especially the opening and ending. The soli sections were great, and I know it was harsh of me to expect a top A from the sopranos at the end of a concert, but you nailed it!! Soloists: Nick, Simon, Wendy and Anne - thank you so much for such wonderful singing! It all came across incredibly well, and people were so complimentary afterwards! I'm so grateful for you all for doing those step out solos, and very proud of how well sung they were! Overall, despite a few rocky moments, the concert as a whole performance was a great success. The choir sounded good, the music was challenging in its own way and you rose to that challenge on the whole, and the audience went away happy! Well done! One last thing I must say is about the size of the audience... we need to ensure we get larger audiences than that! Not only do we deserve it, but it gives us the confidence to perform better as well as of course making what we do financially viable. I hope it's obvious that hiring an orchestra for the next concert is not cheap, so we can't afford to have a small audience for that! We'll need you all to work hard to sell tickets and push friends, family, and general punters to come! Next Term I'm really looking forward to this coming term as it's going to be a big project for us! The repertoire is truly wonderful and we'll be joined by a top Baroque orchestra for the concert. • We start on the 16th April, we'll be taking the half-term break on Tuesday 28th May, and the concert is on Saturday 29th June. • Our programme is Durante/Pergolesi Magnificat, Purcell Come Ye Sons of Art, and Vivaldi Gloria. • We'll have a professional Baroque orchestra for this, as well as 3 vocal soloists. • The concert is at St Michael and All Angels Summertown, so a great venue for the concert! I think that's everything you need to know, but I'll keep you updated if I've forgotten anything. Marked Scores The Durante and Purcell is below. I've not got the same edition of the Vivaldi as the ones we've hired so I'll get that to you next week. I've done a new system with the markings, in order to keep them to a minimum where possible - anything essential is in red. You must put these in! Anything in blue is a nice addition but not completely necessary as it's hopefully a bit more obvious. Please put these in if you have the time. Thank you for putting them in, it really does save time in rehearsals having the breaths in. If you use a tablet, or have printing facilities at home, you may like to consider using the marked scores these ways. That way you don't need to put the markings in yourself. As long as anything printed is destroyed after the concert this is fine. Spotify Playlist All the music for this term is widely available to listen to, but I've shared my favourite recordings on this Spotify playlist. Listen HERE. Rutter Come-and-Sing day I've been asked to share a come-and-sing day with the Oxford Bach Choir, led by the man himself! They've been waiting for 3 years for this date from him so really want everyone around Oxford, and beyond, to know about it. It is on Saturday 11th May in the Olivier Hall, St Edwards School, Woodstock Rd. All information can be found on the OBC website. I think that's all for now. Thanks for reading, and see you on Tuesday 16th. Ben

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you're all well and have had a lovely week. I hear that the rehearsal with Janet on Tuesday went really well, so a massive thank you to Janet for stepping in! Below is feedback from her (paraphrased) to help us consolidate what we did. Meanwhile, I had a lovely time in Germany - we sang two sold-out concerts, performed for a fundraising event, and did some coaching with some young singers! What we did on Tuesday 16th January • Ayres: You practised the opening section a couple of times, familiarising yourselves with the group divisions the 1st and 2nd time. You ran through all the sections, drawing attention to the key changes, though details of the 5 flats and 7 sharps will need more work. • Harris: Janet went through the context of the work and you ran through all of it. She pointed out the changes of mood as well as some of the less intuitive intervals which might catch you out. • Byrd: You practiced the 'bouncy' style for much of the piece but didn't focus on the legato sections for this first go through. You semi-note-bashed bars 1-23 to help clarify the polyphony a bit. Janet also mentioned the importance of some of the words, so this is something to work on over the term. She ended her email to me with "It was fun to be back with them!" - overall, it sounds like a great rehearsal! To catch up: if you missed this rehearsal, please look through the Ayres, Harris and Byrd, making note of some of those tricky intervals. What we'll do on Tuesday 23rd January We'll start with Hughes The Singers, followed by some work on Byrd Sing Joyfully. After the break, we'll clarify the start of Ayres Music to Hear, and finally, we'll end with a bit of Serenade to Music. Vaughan Williams Auditions As you know, there are quite a few solos in the Serenade to Music. I've marked which voice parts can sing which moments, so please do have a look through them. We'll be having two days of post-rehearsal auditions for them, so please let me know if you'd like to do any of them. The auditions will be on: • Tuesday 30th Jan (Week 4) • Tuesday 6th Feb (Week 5) I'll let people know before the half-term break on the 13th Feb, so that gives you plenty of time to practice. We'll then do some sectional work on those moments in the second half of the term too, so hopefully everyone will feel really confident with the solos! Marked Score Time to make sure the markings are in... we're coming up for week 3 now, so I expect these to be in now please, especially for the works we'll be covering in this week's rehearsal. Spotify Link Some of the music is unfortunately not on Spotify, but a link to a lot of the music can be found HERE.(https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7G9QLgDReUb4FjaoTv20NN?si=1cad84dfe39b4662) Poster Keep sharing our fantastic poster at this early stage. Make sure you also share the link to the tickets HERE.(https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sing-joyfully-tickets-795264045167?aff=oddtdtcreator) Have a lovely weekend, and I look forward to seeing you all on the 23rd. Ben

Hello friends, I hope you're well and have had a good week. It was so good to see so many of you on Tuesday, and I hope those who were ill are feeling better for next week. What we did on Tuesday 9th January A good first rehearsal back. As always, I try to get through as much music as possible so we see everything in the first week or two. Over the course of the evening, we looked at: • Gretchaninoff - Cantate Domino • Monteverdi - Cantate Domino • Hassler - Cantate Domino • Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music • Hughes - The Singers • Schubert - An Die Musik • Quartel - There Alway Something Sings • Boykin - Music of Life • Wright - We Are the Music Makers We also had a brief look at Ayres Music to Hear, pointing out the splits in the music. To catch up: if you missed this rehearsal, please look through the music above in the marked score below, and have a listen to as much of it as possible. What we'll do on Tuesday 16th January This week, you'll be joined by the lovely Janet Lincé as I'm off in Germany for concerts with Man(n) Singt! and The Acafellas. She'll be taking you through the remaining programme, and will then cover a few other bits if there's time. Please make sure you've looked at the below in advance for her: • Byrd - Sing Joyfully • Ayres - Music to Hear • Harris - Oh, How Can I Keep from Singing? Marked Score As most of you have your music now, please do start putting the markings into your copies. I've already done a lot for you in the booklets, so hopefully this won't take you too long. Spotify Link Some of the music is unfortunately not on Spotify, but a link to a lot of the music can be found HERE.(https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7G9QLgDReUb4FjaoTv20NN?si=1cad84dfe39b4662) Poster Time to get sharing the wonderful poster. Please also share the link to the tickets HERE.(https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sing-joyfully-tickets-795264045167?aff=oddtdtcreator) Have a great session with Janet, and I look forward to seeing you the following week. Ben

Good evening everyone! I hope you're all well and had a joyous and relaxing Christmas and New Year! I'm so excited to get going again tomorrow with our new term. Below is just a quick 'head's up' for what to expect. Tuesday 9th January Our first rehearsal back! I've missed you all, and can't wait to get singing again. Please note that the heating is a bit dodgy at the church due to various factors including flooding, so wrap up warm. We've asked for it to be switched on as early as possible. This Term We have a really interesting and varied programme of music for this term, all based around the theme of the joy of singing and of music, with a few works taken from the newly released ‘Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers’ which contains some fabulous pieces fitting the theme, and importantly showcases amazing music by underrepresented composers. We're pairing this with Vaughan Williams's stunning Serenade to Music, which ends our celebration of the gift of music. The full programme is: Bernard Hughes – The Singers William Byrd – Sing Joyfully Paul Ayres – Music to Hear Franz Schubert – An Die Musik Piano interlude on the theme of the programme Sarah Quartel – There Alway Something Sings B. E. Boykin – Music of Life Robert Harris – Oh, how can I keep from singing? Reginald Wright – We are the music makers - Interval of 25 minutes - Claudio Monteverdi – Cantate Domino Alexander Gretchaninov – Cantate Domino Hans Leo Hassler – Cantate Domino Piano interlude on the theme of the programme Ralph Vaughan Williams – Serenade to Music The concert is on Saturday 23rd at 7:30pm with an afternoon rehearsal from 2-5pm, at St Michael at the North Gate Church, Oxford, OX1 3EY. Marked Score Please see the marked scores below. Some of the music is printed in a couple of booklets (thank you Gerry for getting these printed), so they're already marked up, but you'll need to do the odd bit yourself, sorry! Do have a look over this if you get a chance tonight, but obviously not a problem if you dont. Spotify Link Some of the music is unfortunately not on Spotify, but a link to a lot of the music can be found HERE.(https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7G9QLgDReUb4FjaoTv20NN?si=1cad84dfe39b4662) Poster Alison has been working incredibly hard behind the scenes and has already put together an incredible poster! It's never too early to start sharing it... See you all tomorrow, I can't wait! Ben