2011 has been a year of great highs and lows. Musically the choir has gone from strength to strength, but of course we have lost, in Fr Jeremy, one of our greatest advocates and supporters.
Nevertheless in many other ways it has been a good year, with our current crop of trebles showing increasing confidence and musicianship. It is always the strength, and weakness, of choirs that use children; you work for many years to develop the talents of youngsters, only to see them leave, and take their voices elsewhere. But that is also the fascination, because as one group leaves, so another comes along to take its place. This then, has been a period of consolidation, with few new members, but a time of development and increasing maturity. We have now firmly established the “children only” service of Vespers, and it has been a factor in helping our younger members to take responsibility for their own singing, and not rely too heavily on the adults to do the work for them! It is heartening to see this service now incorporated into the Monastic Days, where we hope it will find a permanent place.
On Good Friday we sang two shorter works, Vivaldi’s “Stabat Mater”, and “Jesu, Priceless Treasure” by J S Bach. If the Vivaldi was relatively easy to sing, the Bach was not! We knew this would be a challenging piece, and it certainly lived up to its billing! But it was worth the effort, as it pushed choristers to extend their repertoire into areas they would probably not otherwise have gone, and work hard to develop their vocal technique to cope with the demands of the music.
The choir played a central role in St Mary’s Festival of the Arts, singing in three services and a concert, and when not singing, acting as waiters, night watchmen, members of the chorus of “Joseph”, selling programmes, and anything else that needed doing.
For Singing Week, we went to St Alban’s Cathedral for a week, and had a wonderful time. We stayed at Beechwood Park Prep School, where we benefitted from acres of space, and a swimming pool. We had a visit to the local Police Headquarters, courtesy of strings pulled by Sir Trefor, and came out of Whipsnade Zoo with the same number of trebles with which we went in…just! The cathedral was a wonderful place to sing; we were made very welcome by the staff there, and were even treated to a drinks reception with the Dean. A super time was had by all, and we came home exhausted, but having greatly benefitted by the experience.
The autumn has seen us trying out new locations for the choir; an interesting journey that ended up back where it started! It was worth doing, though, and may well see other developments to the church’s sound system as a result.
So to 2012, a year in which we will need to recruit more youngsters, as a few gaps begin to appear. We still need a few more adults; we certainly could do with another experienced tenor, a plea I seem to make every year. We have inaugurated the “Friends of St Mary’s Choir”; a group which we hope will help us to raise money for the choir, and also coordinate some of the many tasks required to keep such an organisation going. If anyone would like to be involved in the group, do please let me know. We now have a new organ as well, and this can only help us continue to make progress. Our thanks for your support and encouragement, as we look forward to another exciting year.
