Last rehearsals before Christmas ...

Our final 2 rehearsals this year will be:

Tuesday 4 December 1745 for 1800-2000 Holden Room, 5th floor, Broadway
Saturday 8 December 1445 for 1500-1700 10th floor, 55 Broadway

I would like to stress that we will start exactly on time and notices, amendments, questions etc should be asked beforehand to save time - we only have 4 hours of rehearsal left and we need to make the most of it.

Singers must try to must attend Tuesday and next Saturday’s rehearsal. Everyone should attend at least one of these rehearsals but preferably both.

There will be no rehearsal on Tuesday 11 December.

Please bring all your music in your black folder in concert order!

Catherine Mayes

The turnout at Saturday’s rehearsal was fewer than we had hoped, but what we lacked in quantity we certainly made up for with enthusiasm; and by the end of the rehearsal we had made solid progress on learning a couple of the more challenging carols.

We started gently with the Sussex Carol – mainly to sort out which voice parts were singing which lines within the verses, but also where we will be singing in unison and where in harmony. So if you missed the rehearsal, make sure you check with someone who was there!

We then tackled The Crown of Roses, and Merel took each voice part through the entire piece individually before building back up into the full four-part harmony.  During this part of the rehearsal I was the only tenor present, so Merel “staged” verse 3 as a prominent soloist with sotto voce backing group.  We therefore need to sort out how we will do this in St Martin in the Fields, as we usually have a strong line up of tenors and we can’t all be soloists!

After the break (by which time Bob Aley had doubled the size of the tenor line) we moved on to Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.  Merel concentrated on getting us used to the rhythm of each part by speaking the words in time and encouraging us to move round so that we could hear how the voice parts interacted.  We only began to sing after we were comfortable with the words and the rhythm.  This worked really well, and means we should be able to use our limited future rehearsal time for polishing rather than note bashing. 

So, once again, if you weren’t there on Saturday, make sure you have practised The Crown of Roses and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, otherwise you won’t be able to keep up with those who were!

John Hawthorne