A Bit Of Diversity At Christmas

On Saturday two of the Pink Insiders, as well as some other Pink Singers, went along to the Diversity Christmas Concert: O Magnum Mysterium. It was a fantastic performance, and a great demonstration of choral singing, not only in its traditional sense, but also in a modern way, with a few exciting chants and poems thrown in for good measure. The concert's eponymous piece was performed twice: at the very start in the de Victoria incarnation which I had not heard before, and at the very end in the Lauridsen arrangement. The latter is, without a doubt, one of my favourite pieces of Christmas music, and is very difficult to sing with its long sustained notes. It requires a significant amount of choral discipline to perform it without sliding down the register, and even more sweat and tears to put the emotion into it. Diversity performed it with aplomb and I applaud them greatly for it.

Sitting in St. Botolph's, I couldn't help but wonder how fortunate we are to be in a city which can sustain three major gay and/or lesbian choirs. Of course, the reason is that choral singing is a very diverse art: Diversity certainly tackles the more technically challenging end of the musical scale, the London Gay Men's Chorus has a brasher and more theatrical style, and the Pinkies, well, we try to do a bit of everything. Then there is the actual choir itself and its community which is different in all three.

Eyeballing Diversity, they are now over forty in number. When I first went along to a concert of theirs, about six years ago, they were only half that. Indeed, the Pink Singers have increased in size as well, mainly in an attempt to accomodate the growing interest in choral singing we've been having. I do wonder whether this is due to the halo effect of 'Last Choir Standing' on telly, or people generally want to get out and meet people in these financially uncertain times. Whatever the reason, all three choirs seem to be enjoying a bit of a sustained renaissance and that has got to be a good thing.

It certainly bodes well for Various Voices next year!