Soul Wind by Andrew Swain

The Pinkies are singing this song as our joint number with Manchester Lesbian & Gay Chorus and Gay Abandon. I always like to know a little about the song, and Michael was wondering what the tempo of the song is supposed to be. We ran through it for the first time on Thursday and it sounds a bit of a dirge. So I googled its writer Andrew Swain.

Not very helpful as that appears to be a common name. What I did eventually find, after some sleuthing is a choir in London who have sung it before. They have two links to music here and here. It includes a rather wavery SATB version here.

The only other version I could find was on a CD by a Canberra women's choir call the Cyrenes.

The picture is of the image search I did. Apparently it is Megaman Soul - Wind version. Huh?

Sounding Good And Ready To Rumble!

The Pinkies ran through our entire season's repertoire and the concert yesterday. It was the first time we had properly sung through everything, and worked in the choreography and entrances and exits, and the first real chance for us to see how the whole concert comes together. It feels like ages, but it was really just in February that we started putting the pieces together, and even technically challenging pieces like Eric Whitacre's With A Lily In Your Hand are very close to performance standard. We have just two weeks to polish things up a bit, but otherwise, we are in a pretty comfortable position as things go, and will be ready for the summer gig.

Yesterday was also the AGM, an opportunity for the choir to look back on the events of the last year, and vote in the new committee. It is with a great deal of sadness that we lose Mark as our chair. Mark really has been instrumental in taking the choir in new directions. Our choir has benefitted in terms of organizational structure and better planning, and has more people involved in many more ways than ever before. Yesterday's rehearsal reinforced that level of teamwork we all feel. Our new chair is the eminently capable Max who will undoubtedly take us to new heights!

Now and then I have a tiny complaint, and yesterday's was the coffee left behind in the studio after rehearsal. Drinks are VERBOTEN, and more so if you expect someone to clean up after you!

Congratulations To All The New Pinkies!

Week 3 of the new season has now come and gone and Liang has been busy calling all the would-be Pinkies with news of whether they got through the audition or not. Congratulations to all those who did, and welcome to our little family. That said, as anachronistic as it may sound, one does not need to sing to be a Pink Singer. The Pinkies wouldn't survive without the many people who work behind the scenes making sure that the engine remains well oiled. The Pink Singers are as much about the social interaction as they are about the actual performance, and you can have the former without necessarily being part of the latter. So the invitation remains open to those who didn't get on so well in the audition - do stay and be a Pinkie! You are always welcome.

New Eclectic Season

The Pink Singers season has started again, and none too soon I might add. It was with a bit of a hop, skip and a jump that I went to rehearsal, running into Ali, Gill and Kate O on the way (the last actually missing gay Sunday at the zoo!) and it was like the first day of school all over again, but with classmates you actually like. Of course there were many new members too, some of whom looked shell shocked even before we started rehearsing! Now that we have auditions, I imagine that it is quite stressful, but I think we did our best to make them feel welcome. Fingers crossed for them. We have 4 slots in the tenors this season, but there are about twice as many would-be Pinkies for our voice part, so there has to be some selection process.

As usual, the first rehearsal is also when we get a peek at the repertoire for this season. It is typically diverse, and we sang two songs yesterday: Rutter's For The Beauty Of The Earth which is is typical saccharine sweet loveliness, and Brecht's Mack The Knife. I think we did a fairly creditable job all considered, and the latter inspired the album art for this season's rehearsal tracks. My Pink Bits is actually open for business, but I won't be posting access until the foruth week when the choir has settled down. In the interim, get in touch if you want to take a peek!

Welcome back everyone!

Various Voices: It's Starting!

It's really starting. Really, really starting! For those of us in the Pinkies who have been working on the Various Voices committee for the last four years it is with a combination of relief and trepidation that we see the fruits of our labour finally paying off.

We returned from Paris on a bit of a high, and this Sunday it was time to learn new music as well as rehearse our performance for Various Voices. It is going to be huge. Most of the pieces are in place, but there are still some people snatching the odd glance at the lyrics. Still, we are sounding better and better. We still have two more rehearsals to fully polish the pieces.

The rehearsals for the festival choir have also started, and we are performing Carmina Burana in the Royal Festival Hall. It is always interesting singing with another choir, and this time we are performing with Voicelab and the London Philharmonic choir. I thought our tenors were loud. Even the whispered start of Ecce Gratum sounded thunderous! Hard to imagine how loud it will be when the full complement of 300 singers gets onto stage!

Last night was also our only rehearsal of the Voices Of Our City joint song: All Over The World. It actually sounded really good, despite the misgivings we had. Part of this was due to the way in which the song is written, so you can't really sing it with just one choir.

I am getting really excited now - Various Voices is one of the biggest showcases of LGBT music anywhere, and the fact that we are doing this on a prestigious national and indeed global platform, on such a scale, is a tremendous achievement for us and our community!

Settling Into The New Season

This season has been moderately tumultuous, both in terms of the weather and in terms of the new members. It was clear skies when I go up on Sunday, but by the time I got to rehearsal the clouds had rolled in and it was snowing. Crazy London weather!

As for the Pinkies, well, while the altos, tenors and basses have had their numbers sorted, the sopranos have had a few ups and downs. Being in a choir like the Pink Singers is a big commitment. And when people come along for their first session, it can all be rather overwhelming. I imagine they'd be asking themselves, what would I get out of spending four hours a week in this room with these people?

Honestly though, the answer is "a lot". Ask any Pink Singer and they will tell you that the Pinkies are more than just a choir, we are a social group, and mixed in with this is our support of the lesbian and gay community, both within our little group, and London as a whole. It is just a whole lot of fun, it is about sharing experiences, and some of my best mates are in the choir. I'm not going to wax lyrical about the Pinkies as I usually do, but you get the drift!

Anyway, even if potential new members are deterred, the good news is that we have a lot of continued interest, so until last week we were still inviting new sopranos along. The numbers are now well and truly filled, and so now all that remains, for us oldies, is learning the names of all the newbies.

This last week the focus was on getting the pieces for Paris ready. It is now week 5 and we have nearly six songs under our belt and sounding okay. It is just a question of memorizing the lyrics and polishing the dynamics now. I don't think we have ever learned the music this quickly before. A mark of how the choir is improving perhaps?

And So It Begins!

No, not the snow, the Pinkies' summer season of course! I realise it is a bit odd referring to "summer" when the streets are blanketed with a few inches of the white stuff, but we are kicking off a little earlier this season for what is essentially one the busiest six months in the history of our choir. This season we have no less than two concerts in London, one in Scotland, and two overseas in Paris and Malta.

It being the first week of rehearsals we also had a number of potential new members coming along. I imagine it is all somewhat overwhelming entering an enclosed room full of noisy, boistrous Pink Singers (not to mention the odour of nearly 80 bodies in a space with too little ventilation), but I hope they enjoyed themselves. People get really worried about the voice checking, but it is as informative to the newbies, as it is to the Mladen and Michael, and being at a rehearsal is as much an opportunity for the newbie to get a feel for the choir as it is for us to see how they fit in with us. Several of them came along to the pub afterwards, and it was fun hearing their stories of why they wanted to join and how they heard about us. Judging by yesterday's potential Pinkies, it looks like a good season ahead!

Dress Rehearsal And One Week To Go!

It is now under a week to the concert and the pace is picking up. Yesterday was the dress rehearsal back at our old haunt, the Royal Academy of Music. As the choir has grown in size, so have we outgrown the rooms. One of the few spaces which could fit us all in was the small concert hall in the basement, but with poor ventilation and the cramped conditions, sitting there for two hours I caught more than an intimate whiff of eau de Pinquie.

After the break it was into Duke's Hall for the dress rehearsal. I love the venue. First of all it looks very grand, but more importantly, it is designed specifically for choral performances and is very forgiving. Unlike the rehearsal rooms at the Place for instance, all the voices are almost forcibly melded into one, and the resonance is really audible. The change in venue is significant, and it is a great indicator that we are sounding good when I suddenly feel I could cry because one of the songs we are singing is so beautiful. This certainly was the case for Midwinter: what a glorious song! The choreography was also fine-tuned by the very capable Karin and Rachel, and it is looking slick.

The other thing to say is that it is really wonderful that the formal concert gear has really smartened up in the last few seasons. Whereas before almost anything black was the norm, I noticed quite a few waistcoats and jackets in amongst the mix. That really is the way to do it: my hearty approval.

So, one last rehearsal to polish the music on Thursday, and then it is the concert this Saturday - hope to see you there! Tickets are available in the column on the right.

Playing Catch Up

There has once again been a bit of a hiatus in posts from the Pink Insider, what with being away then catching up with the day job there hasn’t really been much time to pen the odd thought. Not to say that there hasn’t been tons happening of course, and in the world of the Pink Singers not only have a come back to the usual rehearsal schedule, we’ve also had a couple of actually performances already – and it isn’t officially the Christmas season yet!

I’ve been away for the last three weeks and despite publicly professing not to miss the weekly sing-song, I really do of course. Part of it is motivated by my anxiety that I don’t yet know all the lyrics or indeed the choreography. The latter always fills me with dread mainly because I have two left feet and I am almost inevitably the one turning the opposite direction to everyone else. As long as you move with conviction and gusto, however, no-one really notices or cares. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

On Sunday only Rachel was present to take us through the moves, Tanya and Karin, our other choreographers, being unwell and away respectively. It is really tough to organize seventy singers, especially seventy noisy, boisterous Pink Singers, but she managed to keep us in check and run through the steps of both Christmas Medley and Rockin’ Round The Christmas Tree without too much disruption. This was my first run-through and I have to say that I was relieved to be able to pick the moves up without too much difficulty.

Choreography with the Pinkies tends to follow a similar pattern. Professional choreographers come in with great ideas about the kinds of things they want us to do. We try to do them. Said professional choreographers then realize we are unable to actually bend our hips at all or move in unison. In subsequent weeks moves are simplified to a level which everyone can achieve. Okay, I am exaggerating somewhat, but I do think that this year, with the in-house talents of Karin, Rachel and Tanya, we are now dispensing with the usual first week anxieties and going straight in at an achievable level.

As for the singing, well I must say that I am really impressed at how far the choir has improved over my last three weeks in absentia. Songs such as Good King Wenceslas/ Ma’oz Tsur and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, about which I feel jittery actually sounded quite acceptable, and most of the other songs are coming along nicely. Nothing is quite at performance standards yet, but there are a few weeks to go before the concert, and while some degree of vigilance is still required I’m feeling a whole lot more relaxed at this point than normal.

The Pink Singers’ Christmas Concert 2008, In The Pink Midwinter, happens on the 13th of December 2008 at 7pm at the Royal Academy of Music. Tickets are now available on-line (or even better via a Pink Singer!)

From Bass To Soprano

I have always sung tenor voice, initially by default since there weren't enough tenors in my choir before the Pink Singers, and then because it really is the range I am most comfortable in. The upper tenors are honestly a bit of a stretch for me and I do find getting to an A or B flat in head voice a real struggle, especially if I do not yet know the notes and am having to think about it. All in all though, on a good day I think my range spans a comfortable two octaves from chest voice to head voice, with an additional octave in falsetto.

Some people, however, have ranges of four or even five octaves as this article in the BBC about Yma Sumac suggests.

Such a range is so unusual because the human voice is very limited and we use only a small part of it. This makes it very difficult to expand the vocal range and articulate such high notes.

Exploiting the range we do have comes down to physical aspects, like body structure, the length of vocal cords, technique and psychological attitude.

What I like is how they quote a vocal coach as saying that some people have "a fear of using their voice". I can attest to that on a Sunday when we sing, "Angels and archangels may have gathered there" in Mid-winter. I generally just chicken out and go to falsetto. Perhaps I'll work up the courage to sing it normally one day!

P.S. If you're wondering why there is a dearth of posts it is because I'm in the U.S. Congratulations Obama!

Have You Heard The Angel Voices?

This picture is not entirely gratuitous. We actually rehearsed Rutter's Angels' Carol yesterday, and there were indeed angel voices to be heard, all the way from our new-found butch basses and their low F rumbling, through the choir to the marvellous top sopranos who were delicately hitting the high G at the end. For a first run-through, and considering that we had the open meeting right in the middle of the rehearsal, I think we did a really creditable job of it. Certainly, we sounded much better than many of the recordings you see littered across YouTube. I'm scared to link to them because some of them are just so bad. The tenors still have problems getting the 'Glo-o-o-ri-a-a-a i-in ex ce-el-si-is!', but we are getting the hang, I think, of spreading three words or 7 syllables across 14 notes.

Part of the speedy take up this time round is due to the new Pinkies who are just wonderful, quick to learn and enthusiastic. This is the first week with confirmed members, and there are so many of them! I've still not had a chance to meet all the new basses yet, and as always I will probably only get a chance to speak to the new altos towards the end of the season. That said, they are all really friendly and haven't seemed to have had any problems at all fitting in. I know that to new Pinkies Mladen and Simon both look like they have fierce bites, but I also know what big softies they really are! Liang, the biggest softie of them all, keeps referring to the newbies as his 'babies' and to a certain extent they are. He certainly impressed me yesterday by going through all their names.

I won't talk much about the open meeting, apart from to say that it always amazes me how divergent people's opinions about certain topics in the choir are. The open meetings are a really great opportunity to talk about things, and I have to congratulate Mark, our fabulous chair, for keeping it moving along, making sure everyone who wanted to say something could, and coming up with action plans. The one I am really waiting on is Karin, Mel and Liang's proposals for our new informal outfit. Can't wait!

Glo-o-o-ri-a-a-a i-in ex ce-el-si-is!

Welcome To The Family!

Well, the first three weeks of term are out of the way, and the new members have now formally joined the Pinkies. As I mentioned previously, it has been a bit of an odd season already, particularly since the interest this year has been so strong that we couldn't really accomodate everyone who wanted to join. The final tally came to 35 people who expressed an interest, 29 people who actually came to the rehearsals and 2 people who decided that the choir was not for them (it is a huge commitment!) So of the 27 who were voice-checked we could offer places to 21, as that takes us to the full complement of 18 per section, or 72 in total.

On Sunday I just couldn't believe how large the choir looked. On that day alone the tenors occupied three rows, and the number of newbies nearly outnumbered the oldies in that section. And they were all incredibly talented as well. I sat next to a young bloke called Oliver who quite easily sang through Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day without problems, and some of the new tenors like Gareth, Simon and Tom have outstanding voices.

This does have significant implications for our voice checks of course. As Michael De says, our voice checks are just that - they check whether you can hit a note and what your range is. They also reveal whether you have insight into any errors you may make, and whether you can learn to correct them. These are the basics of being in a choir which are essential to all singing members. However, we are not a pro choir, and we do not have auditions where traits such as vocal quality are assessed. That said, even based on the simple criteria we do use it is possible to see who has a better range and who learns the music faster and is more self-aware, and in the situation facing us this season, with a limited number of places, these things do count.

I am very happy for the newbies who made it through to the singing group, and I am sure they are elated about it - I know I was. However, I think my heart really goes to those whose vocal range was just that little bit too narrow, or whose notes were just that tiny bit off, to join the choir. In no way does this reflect on them; it is just a result of the overall higher standards this season.

The other thing to reiterate as well is that while one would assume that the choir is just about singing it is not. We have a very active social scene which encompasses the non-singing members of our choir as well. This includes all those people who help with staging the concerts and organizing events, the 'choir camels', as Martin (Philip R's other half) refers to them. And who is to say that next season there won't be more opportunities for the non-singing members to join the singing group?

Welcome, singing and non-singing members to the Pink Singers family! We are very pleased to have you here.

A Busy Weekend - Sunday

Saturday's description was posted just before this, so read that one first. this is about Sunday which was really important because it was also the proper start of the new season. In a way, the seasons are starting to bleed into one another, partly because we have gigs throughout the breaks. Still, not having rehearsals is a welcome change to the weekends, even if after a while I start to itch to get back into the swing of things.Liang, our new members' rep., has been a super busy-bee in the break. Who knows whether it is because of the promotion of choral singing by Sing London, or shows like Last Choir Standing or The Choir on TV, but there has been huge interest in joining this year. On Sunday we had nine new attendees. They all seem really friendly and according to Mladen and Michael De had good voices. It can be hard for new members to feel at home, but I think that the Pinkies generally do a good job of welcoming them. On my part I think I have to rein the friendliness in just a tad to avoid sounding a bit too leery.

This season we are singing Christmas songs which makes a significant departure for us from the usual. I know many of the pieces already, at least by ear, but singing them is quite a different story. We began with Britten's Ceremony of Carols, and I can recall when we last did this two years ago how long it took to learn the timing and notes of This Little Babe. This time everything seemed to fall into place beautifully. I'm not sure whether this causes consternation to the new members who may feel that this is how the choir always sings.

Thankfully we put that impression right by our total massacre of Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day. There was no hope in hell of us getting this right first time, especially at the pace at which it has been written, and for once the tenor line is not particularly melodic. I'd not heard the carol before, which helps in a way because I don't have a tune to forget.

Mark, our new chair, is currently away on holiday, so Ben P, the new U.K. concerts co-ordinator, gave us a little talk in the break, as did Simon our new treasurer. The atmosphere of the choir is changing because of the change in the executive committee, and I can see many Pinkies wanting to participate in how it is run. This can only be good for the choir. We're still looking for a secretary, which should hopefully be filled soon.After that it was off to the pub. As usual, we had the upstairs area to ourselves and there was a great buzz. There were many members of the choir I hadn't seen in the last two months, so there was loads of catching up to do. I also had a chance to chat with Karen, a new alto this season who is also going to be in charge of publicity for the Pinkies. I can only admire someone who we unfortunately had to space for last season, yet who stuck around till there was. Some of the newbies stayed right to the end, which is either a sign that they like being in our group, or that they're alcoholic, or both! There are allegedly another ten newbies coming next week, and the week after that. Good luck to them all!

Dress Rehearsal Yesterday, Concert Tomorrow!

Things really are hotting up! Yesterday after work the majority of the Pink Singers trooped back to our old hunting rounds, the Royal Academy of Music, for our dress rehearsal in advance of the concert on Saturday. It was a chance for us to fine tune the choreography, especially in the context of the risers on the stage, and for the soloists to check out their projection as well. Thankfully nothing was disastrous, although there was much which was improved. Certainly America and There Is Nothing Like A Dame felt better for having run through it on stage.

I also took quite a few photos, with the intention of adding to our collection of publicity shots. The lighting in the Duke's Hall is good, but still rather dim by photography standards, and because we actually move around a lot on stage, it was difficult to avoid blurring (example above). I have tried to use a flash before, but the flash on my camera is too feeble to fill the hall and I end up getting dark, underexposed shots. Anyway, while most of the photos weren't horrible, it might be an idea next time for us to pose rather than dance our way through the photo shoot!

The show starts at 7.30pm at the Royal Academy of Music. Get your tickets now: we're going to have fun and I know you will too!

It's That Motown Groove

Sunday was choreography day and we spent the entire first half of the rehearsal shakin' our booties. Of course, this being the Pinkies, some of us shake much more vigorously than others, but I do think that after years of adding a little movement to our songs we are getting more experienced at it.

We've embellished our moves from a fortnight ago and I have to say that Forever Motown is looking a million times better, although I will also say that since this is our first time, I know that in future performances it will just get more elaborate as people relax into the song.

We're also jazzing things up for America and Son Of A Preacher Man. But you won't see any of these moves on the Pride stage because it's too small. So come to the concert and see us perform in our full glory why don't you?

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

For me choreography is the biggest mountain to climb in the run up to the concert. Yes, it was shake-your-booty time yesterday, and the Pinkies explored the moves to Forever Motown. By now we have a particular way of doing things: as we sing the song we have ideas of what we'd like to do, and it really is the role of the choreographer to take it and expand it. Usually, this translates to something which we can never achieve (or at least the two left-footed Pink Insider can never achieve) and after a few revisions it gets dumbed down to something accessible to all.

We had a new choreographer this time round, and perhaps she was advised to keep things very simple because the moves were (to put it mildly) very rudimentary. Some of the moves were quite fun - like swapping between the sopranos and altos, and the tenors and basses - and I also generally liked snap-fingers-chassée bit at the start, but most of the sequences consisted of rocking back and forth. I never thought I'd ever say this, but as the choir has progressed over the years I think we are capable of more challenging choreography, and the current moves as they stand are a bit too basic. I'm sure that in future rehearsals we will Motown-ify and Pink-ify them!

Epiphany

Every season there comes a time when things finally come together, when the choir moves from simply learning the notes to actually starting to polish the performance, and this certainly was the case this Sunday just gone. I've been away for a couple of weeks, and the change really was noticeable. Most of the Pinkies now know the music and the majority of the lyrics, which means that we are listening to each other more, blending better, and even, as in the interchange between the basses and the altos in our version of West Side Story's America, having a little fun!

What is even better is that this season, the change has happened with five weeks to go before our summer concert. Normally, things only start to fall in place with a few weeks left to spare, and with an even smaller repertoire. The fact that we are now start polishing the performance with so much time to spare, and with nearly twenty songs to learn, is a real testament to the dedication of our choir members, and an indicator of how much tighter as a choir we are. I think people are really feeling it - I know I am!

Another thing I noticed, which I am incredibly proud of, is how we learned the music to Ave Maria within a fortnight. We are singing Schubert's version of Ave Maria, kindly and expertly rearranged for the Pink Singers by Michael Derrick. If you haven't sung it before, you won't have realised how difficult the rhythm is in this piece, particularly since there are multiple accent beats and irregular bar lengths. In any case, with the rehearsal tracks and Mladen bashing us through both verses, we are, dare I say it, actually beginning to sound reverential.

In the nick of time too! We are backing Gari Glaysher at IndigO2 at the dome in a couple of weeks, so really do need to sound our best. Gary came along on Sunday to rehearse with us, and this time we actually got to hear him sing with us. And sing he did - what a voice! I've been in a choir for many years now, and I know my own voice is okay, and has a certain timbre which I am fairly happy with. In fact, I know my voice is more suited to musical theatre, but there are also times when I wish I had the ability to sing one of the really big operatic tenor arias. Unfortunately, such a voice is a rare find indeed, and is a convergence of good coaching and incessant practice, but most importantly, raw and natural talent. This is something Gari has in spades!

We heard him sing Ave Maria with us, as well as a bit of Nessun Dorma, and the "One Voice In A Million" moniker of his concert is entirely apt. It was beautiful, expressive and well-controlled, and evoked quite the feeling of jealousy from almost the entire tenor section! Without overstating it, I think the Pinkies are very priveleged to be sharing the stage with Mr. Glaysher, and you would be a fool to miss this performance - get your tickets now!

Taekwondo, Opera and the Pink Singers

Three things which you aren't likely to put together, but you would be surprised. At yesterday's rehearsal we had a surprise visit from an ex-national taekwondo champion, a chap called Gari Glaysher. The link is that he is also an up and coming operatic tenor and the Pinkies have been asked to perform as the backing chorus for him at his launch concert.

My guess is that his dropping by yesterday was a chance to scope us out in advance of the gig. He sat at the back of the room listening while we basically murdered Italian Salad and tripped over Come What May, so it doesn't surprise me that when it came to the end and he introduced himself, he didn't actually say very much. Instead his (I assume) manager managed to eke out words to the effect of "you are one of the best choirs I have heard in a long time." I know we are quite good, but methinks the man does not hear choirs much!

Anyway, although very few words actually came from Mr. Glaysher, I had already heard his voice by visiting his website and his MySpace page. He is a powerful tenor with a warm timbre which, in my view, leans more toward a Luciano rather than a Placido. And his version of Volare even has elements of Tom Jones - which just goes to show how versatile he is. One thing which I find somehat infuriating is that the song samples are all neapolitain songs or pop-ified pieces - I just think the operatic voice makes the delivery of the songs a little bit too melodramatic. Anyway, I strongly suggest you wander over there and take a listen to Mr. Glaysher, because he really is very good.

The MySpace page also has the obligatory headshot pictures (I've included one here) with him gazing into middle distance, pictures of him in Italy and with his dog. In real life, and possibly because of the great weather we have been having, he is significantly more tanned and has a few tattoos too! Not quite what you expect from an opera singer, but I guess that is the taekwondo speaking!

So, if you are interested in hearing the Pink Singers perform, both as a choir singing Dies Irae from Karl Jenkins' Requiem, and as a chorus backing up Mr. Glaysher, then now is your once chance in a lifetime to hear that one voice in a million.

Gari Glaysher (and the Pink Singers!)
Friday 20th June 2008 / doors open at 19:00 / £10.00 - 20.00

Please note, all indigO2 shows are aged 18+ (unless otherwise stated).
Under 18's must be accompanied by an adult. Photographic ID will be required.
Valid forms of ID: Passport, Driving License or ISIC Card

Kings Row: Please note, no under 18s permitted in Kings Row.
Ticketmaster 0844 844 0002
SEE Tickets 0870 405 0448
Ticketline 0870 444 5556
More information.

Start To The Summer Season

Apologies if the last post was rather YouTube intensive. As you can see we have a significantly larger repertoire this summer, with many new pieces, in the main because we are performing by ourselves. The even better news is that for the first time ever, nearly all the pieces of music were ready for collection and I can start practising. Well done to whoever organised that. I will be lucky if I can learn two pieces of music per week, so I need all the time I can get!

Returning to rehearsal is like returning to school - you just don't get to see everyone in the choir over the break, although, like in the holidays, you do meet up with some friends. It was wonderful seeing familiar faces, especially of people who spent last season out and have returned. There was a lot of chatter and a lot of laughter.

We also had our first open meeting of the season, and I think of the year, where several important things were discussed. The one which has most impact on me was on the use of digital materials in promotional and private use. It is something which we needed to talk about, because as we enter the digital age, there question of what people should be able to do with their photos and videos has arisen. Everyone was very sensible and expressed their needs and concerns in a very logical way. In the end I think we were pretty much on the same footing, so it will be good to see what policy eventually comes out of this meeting.

The other topics at the meeting covered possible overseas trips to Reykjavik and Malta (woo hoo!) and our increasing involvement in Various Voices. Adam has really taken his role on board, and it is good to see that he is disseminating information of where we are and what is needed from the choir so authoritatively. Michael also gave a brief on the slightly revamped small group: by giving everyone a chance to rehearse in sets of three, the intention is to not only improve your individual sound and improve blending, there is also a greater incentive to learn your line and your words. Great for the individual, but even better for the choir as a whole.

Singing-wise, we started both Italian Salad and Somewhere. Somewhere is particularly beautiful, and as we are doing it a capella, will make a fantastic number when we finally polish it. As it is we have already gone through half of it.

Not that many new members joined at this first meeting, although we allegedly have 22 on the waiting list. The majority are said to be coming next week - how exciting! We really need more basses.

Summer Season Starts!

The sun is shining outside, spring has sprung, and the Pink Singers summer rehearsal season starts this Sunday, so if you are interested in joining the Pink Singers, now is your chance to do it. New members can only join the choir in the first three weeks - basically because learning the music after that is really too difficult! - so let us know now. Best thing to do is get in touch with Ed, the new members' rep. See you at one of the rehearsals on Sunday 24th February, Sunday 2nd or Sunday 9th March 2008.