If you were at Verious Vocies you would have seen the professional photographers led by the lovely Joanna Plumbe snapping shots of everyone over the weekend. I only met Joanna for the first time on the Friday of the festival, but it looks like she and the rest of the photographic team fell in love with the Pinkies because there are loads of photos of us - dare I say it, even more than any of the other choirs.
The good news is that the photographers are producing a souvenir book which should be on sale shortly, and any specific prints can be purchased from them. So check out the photo album on-line and relive the experience!
We all love singing, and we love being in the Pinkies, but it isn't always easy to express why. Yes, there is the thrill I get from producing a beautiful sound, but there is the great social element to it as well.
Sadly, not all choirs are doing so well, and the BBC brings us the sad news today of a choir which has hit 100 years, but is struggling to survive. It seems that traditional male voice choirs are on the wane. Or are they?
I thought I'd write down a few of my personal observations of Various Voices which, in the interest of brevity, Hsien wasn't able to.
Social Networking Hits Various Voices This was the first Various Voices to make use of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The former two were ably run by Nathalina, and after a few teething problems, particularly to do with emails, we managed to get quite a lively community up and running there.
The one area which I think took off well was twitter though. It enabled people from different choirs to actually microblog about their experiences, and was a wonderful way of keeping track of what was going on. Most people used the hashtag #vvl, while others simply used "Various Voices". It was particularly great to actually meet the people behind the twitter handles.
Meeting Other Choristers In addition to the big joint events like With One Voice, the Big Gay Sing, Sing For The Cure and Best In Show, one good way of meeting people from other choirs was the workshops. I attended two and met some wonderful people such as Lars from Die Fetten Koketten Soubretten.
The common areas in the Southbank Centre also worked very well in encouraging interaction between people in different choirs. On one of our breaks Philip R and I shared a table with Bernd from DFKS as well. So whether you were at a bar getting a drink or having a sandwich on the terrace there was always someone you could talk to.
It certainly helped when people wore their Various Voices tags. The neck straps in particular were very obvious, and they acted as a signal to say, "Yes, it is okay to come chat with me!" I've made loads of new friends at VVL and am really looking forward to performing with them in the future.
Cabaret Stages These worked a charm! It gave many of the choirs a chance to perform in a less formal setting which suited them, but also enabled members of the public to come and see what the whole festival was about. I ran into an elderly couple who came on the Saturday and had such a good time they came for the remaining two days of the festival, setting themselves up with a table, packed lunch and a thermos of tea. They even took to the dance floor when the Gay Gordons and the Pink Dancers had the stage. Hey! That's what it is all about!
I literally cannot write about Various Voices 2009 any better than Hsien, so here is what he had to say about it:
It is so hard to describe what Various Voices is to someone who has never been to one. Once every four years, the LGBT choirs of Europe gather to sing to and show each other how far they have come. On the face of it, this is like any other choral festival, but the gays really do have all the fun, and VV is like a massive family reunion with two thousand relatives you actually like.
The journey to VVL has been a long one, and we knew we had a lot to live up to. VV 2005, my first, was expertly put together in Paris by our friends the zany Equivox and the slick Melo’men. At the end of it London and Geneva put bids in to Legato to host the next one, but the award only came a year later. It was then that Team London, the group comprising members from the Pink Singers, Diversity and the London Gay Men’s Chorus, started the wheels in motion. We’ve been meeting pretty much every first Tuesday of the month since, but much more frequently in the last year, and it was wonderful to see members of all the London choirs putting their time and effort in under the guidance of the Festival Director Martin Brophy.
The biggest coup was securing the world-famous Southbank Centre for the four days of the festival. We needed a venue where people could sing and socialize in one space, and there is nowhere so perfect. But that was just half the battle, there was a programme to plan, a registration process to set up and a million other logistical nightmares to sort out. But before I could even blink the information desk in the Clore ballroom went up and the delegates started arriving! It was time to just cross our fingers and pray that all the preparation would see us through.
Of course preparation for the Pinkies’ choral performance was also on my mind. The Pink Singers sent a large cohort of delegates and we were in the opening concert Voices Of Our City on the Friday night. It is always more nerve-wracking singing to other choristers, but we have been tweaking our repertoire since the start of the year and were ready. Besides, you could not have had a more positive audience. In particular Somewhere and Teardrop were spine-tinglingly lush, and our set was greeted with thunderous applause and a standing ovation.
In fact, the standing ovation was a regular feature of all the choir performances. VV is not about acknowledging the musical prowess of the established choirs, it is about supporting the smaller, fledgling choirs. We all understand the power of song to move, celebrate and overcome prejudice, and it is choirs like Sing Out Bristol, making their debut at a VV, but especially the women of Le Zbor from Croatia, who put up the most inspiring of shows.
Knowing that the three choirs of London have such differing musical styles, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by the variety of performances on display. From Der Homophon’s theatrical tale of Cleopatra, to the Vancouver Men’s Chorus’ tightly harmonized Celine Dion, to Rainbow Chorus’ narrative of protest songs, to Canta:re’s exploration of Robert Schumann’s music, there literally was something for everyone. And the music didn’t just stay in the theatres either, it was on the cabaret stages, it was at the bar, it was in the fountain, it was on the riverside. We sang about stopping homophobia, we sang to Remember Justin, but we sang mainly because we love to.
Like Lou T, I aimed to install myself in the Clore Ballroom for the morning vocal warm-ups, followed by the free performances. I caught the musical director of Rozenkoor taking off his shirt as a part of Steam Heat, I saw the girls of Die Rheintoechter doing their sexy, sinuous choreography. I watched our own Tanya and Cilla do their beautiful rendition of Indigo Girls. It was just so much fun!
Two events really stood out to me over the weekend. The first was the Big Gay Sing: imagine 900 gay men and women who can all hold a note, totally up for performing gay anthems, led by a choir made up of members from all the different choirs. I was sitting next to Oliver from Die Mainsirenen and he couldn’t stop singing, even in the parts where we were supposed to listen to the soloists. Our own Thomas performed a jaw-droppingly inspiring rendition of Over the Rainbow with a friend from Diversity, to a truly deserved standing ovation from the audience.
The second event was With One Voice, the performance of the from-scratch festival choir. Nicolas from the LGMC, I and Franck from Podium Paris - or "Mrs. E. G. Wheeler", “Susan” and “Tatjana" if you went by the names printed on our seat backs! - sat together. I doubt anyone could have told me just how awe-inspiring it was to be part of a 400 voice chorus performing Carmina Burana in a huge auditorium like the Royal Festival Hall. And we did it all with just 48 hours of rehearsal.
At the end of the day everyone had their own experience of Various Voices. The one moment which encapsulated it for me was when some of the Pinkies, together with Henning from Vox Homana, were in Pizza Express after the closing ceremony, having dinner, feeling a little tired and a little sad that things had come to an end. The women of Gemengd Dameskoor were at an adjacent table. Seeing us they started singing their songs to us in the middle of the restaurant, and we sang our songs back to them, to applause from diners and staff. It is memories like this which make my world a little brighter. Various Voices is a very special treasure; it has been an honour to be a part of Various Voices London 2009. Roll on VV2013!
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