This is not an April Fool

What have we been doing as a choir since Christmas? We had a successful recruitment workshop at Palestra on Saturday 15 February, then a few rehearsals to get us ready to sing at the International Womens' Day event at Stratford on Thursday 5 March. We sang two sets and provided a jolly, happy background to the festivities. Our repertoire was: I Have a Dream; Proud Mary; Stand by Me; Fight Song; This is Me then I'll Be There; Don't Stop Believing; I Have a Dream; Stand by Me; Fight Song. I'm told that we sounded - and looked - pretty good.

After that, the world seemed to change and with working at home for non-operational staff and voluntary (or compulsory) quarantine for many it has taken a while for us to work out the best way of keeping in touch with each other, maintaining physical and mental health and wellbeing and - yes - continuing to sing.  So Merel proposed that we try Zoom for a get-together and sing together session and we have now done two of these. She has also produced three short videos for us to use to work on breathing and warming  up, plus a tongue-twister. Details of these are all on our new ACTIVITIES website page. 

Yesterday there were about 15 of us involved, with warm-ups, tongue twisters etc, we worked on a Dutch Grove Musiek video and then sang through ‘Why we sing’ which Merel wants to teach us for a future concert. A good time was had by all - thanks, Merel. We plan another session on Tuesday 7 April - watch this space!