Going for a Song

Today

I had a long day yesterday. I drove to Leamington Spa and back for the purposes of an English Concert Singers rehearsal. We're all off on a concert visit to Salzburg at the end of next month and there were a lot of new pieces to sing and our conductor Roy had to weld us into some kind of ensemble.

We meet irregularly, usually for a few Sunday rehearsals, before a big concert. Yesterday there were about seventy of us.

The members of this group also permeate the English Concert Chorus which provides the vocal element to a range of classical "pop" concerts in London and Birmingham and also the British Choral Institute which offers various choral workshops during the year. People travel from all over the country, although there are clusters from Essex, the Midlands and Sussex, probably reflecting places where Roy has lived and worked.

So how I did come to be involved?

In My Day

At one time, back in the 1990s I was secretary to my local choir. This entailed, among other things, receiving large quantities of junk mail relating to musical events all over the country. In 1994 I was all prepared for a week away covering for the regular choir at Exeter Cathedral. I'd done this the year before at Gloucester and had a splendid time. So I was very disappointed when the Exeter event was abruptly cancelled.

There I was, all dressed up with nowhere to go, so to speak. I disconsolately leafed through the junk mail and noticed a flyer for a choral study week at a very posh girls' school near St Albans in Hertfordshire. There were chamber choirs, opportunities to learn singing in foreign languages and advice on choir administration. I called and was told that there was a place left. I booked and went off, entirely alone and not knowing a soul.

This event was run by the British Choral Institute, director Roy Wales. He had gathered around him a creme de la creme group of conductors and vocal trainers. It was clear that Roy had a passion for choral singing. His wife Chris did all the administration and smoothed many paths and ironed out all difficulties. The sun shone all week and I had a lovely time. We all sang together every night (I've never known the reason why Roy chose a requiem each evening...) and gave our closing concert in St Martin-in-the-Fields. I went home feeling refreshed.

After that, I contacted Roy to see if he would do a vocal techniques day for our choir, this he did, staying overnight at our place.

I soon discovered that, once on Chris' mailing list, you were never off it and my next adventure with BCI was the first Alfriston Choral weekend where about ninety of us sang Israel in Egypt with a string orchestra, entirely filling the little church. I found that people whom I'd last seen in Hertfordshire greeted me like an old friend. So I kept on going year after year. The events gave me an opportunity to sing the "big" works which were unsuitable for my smaller choir.

Chris Wales never missed any opportunity to advertise other events and I soon became aware of ECC events. In 2004 off I went to sing in "The Glory of Christmas" at the Barbican and Symphony Hall, Birmingham. While I wouldn't call these cultural high points, they were great fun and I began to cement a few friendships.

Finally I was allowed into the hallowed inner circle of the ECS. I've sung with them in Dubrovnik, Yarm, Peterborough, Leamington Spa and Birmingham, to name a few places and the repertoire has been wide and quite different from that of either Laetare or Cantilena. I never cease to be fascinated by Roy's passion and energy and amazed to the point of intimidation by Chris's efficiency. And I'm really looking forward to Salzburg.

All of which makes a mere five hours' drive and another five singing seem a mere trifle compared to the rewards.