Choir Report 2009

 

2009 could never hope to live up to the hype of 2008; after a year of singing for royalty and invitations to major venues, it was back to the more mundane demands of “service as normal”.  But actually, it didn’t really matter, for 2009 has been in its own way a good year for the choir. 

We have introduced the idea of singing a different setting of the mass at one Sunday each month; and the settings by Haydn, Mozart and Faure learnt so far, have been well received and added a great deal to our repertoire.  We have a few more we hope to add during 2010, once the feverish preparations for Easter are out of the way.

On Good Friday 2009, we sang Faure’s “Requiem”, and in total, we have added a further eighteen pieces to our repertoire.  During Singing Week, we spent two days recording our Christmas CD, and then after singing on the Sunday morning in St German’s Church, Cardiff, sang Evensong in Worcester Cathedral for two days.

Since the start of the Autumn Term we have had an influx of new boys joining the choir (five in all) who are already starting to find their feet and show great promise for the future.  At the other end of the scale (several puns intended!), three of our older boys have had to relinquish the joys of singing treble, due to advancing old age, and have started to sing tenor.  They, of course, along with the other “older choristers” represent the future of choral singing in our church; in all too many churches, teenagers are made to feel unappreciated as they find their feet both chorally and in terms of their maturity.  We should make a special effort to encourage these young singers as they continue to give up their time (against the tide of peer example) and ensure they are able to gain enjoyment and fulfilment in their contributions to our worship.  They do also present us with a small problem, as the ever increasing number of tenors and basses mean that we are running out of space in the choir stalls.  We may have to look for a means to provide an “extension” to the choir stalls so we are able to accommodate all our choristers on a Sunday morning (what a nice problem to have!).

For the future, we will be performing Mozart’s “Requiem” on Good Friday, and Singing Week 2010 will see three days at Bristol cathedral and two days at Bath Abbey.  As the standard of singing continues to increase, we are adding ever more complex pieces to our repertoire.  This challenges and stretches us, but also encourages us to attain even more, each time we sing a new piece in public.  On Maundy Thursday this year, we are hoping to sing the “Miserere” by Allegri; a stunning but tricky piece that five years ago we would never have dreamt of attempting.

My thanks to everyone for their support in 2009, choristers, parents, clergy and members of the congregation; with your encouragement we look forward to continuing to play our part in God’s worship in 2010 and beyond.

 

Tim Pratt – March 2010