Choir Report 2010

2010 was an interesting year, with some significant progress made, and some exciting new music in the repertoire.  Perhaps the most telling change though has been amongst the children.  Since 2008, twelve of our regular trebles have moved, either to singing lower parts, or have left the area.  The result has been a significant recruiting drive over the last eighteen months, resulting in a quite different look to the top part!  For the first time in many years, we have an equal number of boys and girls, and the average age of our youngsters has dropped from just under 14 years to just over 11 years.  This has presented some new challenges, but I am delighted to be able to report that despite its comparative youth, the children are continuing to make real progress. 

One innovation of the last six months has been the introduction of Choral Vespers on the third Friday of each month.  This short service (from beginning to end it last less than 15 minutes), is sung just by the children, and presents four trebles with the chance to sing a short solo, and two others to read a lesson.  As a means to raising confidence and encouraging youngsters to “have a go”, it has already been a great success.  So far, we have sung the service without a congregation to reduce the pressure on the youngsters, but from now on we would be delighted to welcome anyone who wishes to come along.  The next service will be on Friday 15 th April at 5.40 pm.

Musically, we have continued to try out new music, with two more new mass settings, one by Lotti, and one (still to have its first outing in a service) by Schubert.  We have introduced a small choir to sing Choral Evensong one Sunday a month, who have specialised in singing music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. We have also, thanks in some part to several young men staying on to sing tenor and bass when their voices broke, been able to undertake some pieces in eight parts.  The most spectacular of these being the “Miserere” by Allegri, which we sang on Maundy Thursday.

For Singing Week in 2010 we sang for three days in Bristol Cathedral and two in Bath Abbey.  It was a fascinating week, and included trying to rehearse in Bath Abbey whilst having a plethora of tourists taking our photos from fairly short range!  As always, it was a terrific opportunity to take our music making to a higher level, and use the time to do some intensive work on our singing.  In 2011 we shall be “choir in residence” at St Albans Cathedral in Hertfordshire, and are looking forward to the opportunities and challenges that an “away” tour will doubtless bring us!

To the future, we are looking forward to St Mary’s Festival of the Arts in early June, when we will have the chance to sing Mozart’s glorious Requiem again, but this time with an orchestra behind us. We still need to keep recruiting choristers, (particularly tenors), and aim to maintain the standards of singing and leading the worship that we have set ourselves.  Many thanks to Fr Jeremy, in particular, for his support and encouragement over the years, we will miss him!

TBP – March 2011