Two Choirs : My 2nd first

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away ... O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon 1919

Siegfried Sassoon wrote this following the Armstice. He had been a soldier, an anti-war protester and an acclaimed war poet. He wrote later how the words had come to him. Perhaps they are an expression of the end of war or inspired by the singing in the trenches but it is a poem that has always resonated with me. Music and singing in particular can be comforting but can also encompass sorrow or, in this case, horror and when you share the emotions via music rather than another person they can be magnified, triggered and sometimes dispersed.

I joined Kensington Singers a few months after my Mother died. I had been thinking about joining a choir since stopping shiftwork. Unemployment, loneliness and the need for belonging to a group prompted me to get on with it. My criteria were simple. No auditions, friendly, near home & not on a Tuesday (clash with Portuguese classes). Kensington on paper (sorry web-page) met all of these plus the web-site said pub afterwards. Now I wasn't in the mood for the pub afterwards & a few years on, I still haven't been but I reckoned that a choir who makes a point of this must be friendly.

When you join a choir, one of the things is that you have a responsibility to the other members and the choir director (Hannah Brine in our case). There are the common things like being on time, remembering your music, helping set up and putting things away. You should also do your homework. Hannah records MP3s for each song and each part. This could be up to 8 if each of the parts split (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). She also sends round a newsletter highlighting what we have done each week and what we should work on for the next week and there is also a concert at the end of each term. This means that you need to spend time outside of the rehearsals practising and getting to know the songs.

For the first term, I failed miserably to do this for about 7 weeks. I was enjoying the new experience of being part of the group but it wasn't working for me. Then I tried to get my mind around a complex arrangement of A Partridge in a Pear Tree. I started crying and I realised that I was struggling because I couldn't face Christmas as my Mother had left such a hole in our family and she so enjoyed Christmas. 2017 was better but again I struggled in 2018 as not only did my Aunt leave another massive hole in our lives but 22nd December was the anniversary of her death.

But still I persisted. Spring and Summer terms have been fantastic. (with the possible exception of singing "Requiem" in the first rehearsal of the term following my aunt's death!).We've sung so much with a great range of genres and works by Eric Whittaker, Bob Chilcott, Billy Joel, arrangements by the King Singers and songs from musicals incluing Sunday in the Park with George. My favourite has to be Baba Yetu from the video game Civilizatin IV. This led to an invitation to sing the Napa High School Alumni Choir at St John's Smith Square. 

A huge highlight for me was being part of the hastily put together WI Choir to perform at the Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. (spoiler : there isn't a WI choir). We were the choir accompanying the stars and writers of the musical Calendar Girls. We sang Yorkshire. It's not the greatest song ever written but I have now performed with the legendary Gary Barlow! Waiting to make our entrance I was lucky to be at the door where many of the stars came in including Glenda Jackson, Ian MacKellan, Brian May and his wife Anita Dobson. I had the pleasure of singing to the back of Mark Rylance's head. If I had been on the lefthand side of our entry, it could have been Andrew Lloyd-Webber. No pressure!

Why two choirs? I decided last Summer to try Sing Broadway at Citylit. I like Citylit (more another time) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked singing with a different group, was slightly scared at doing a solo number for the first time. I discovered I thrived from group dynamics, I can deliver a performance but my sense of timing is dreadful.

Working part-time, I don't do Mondays. Other people may not like them but I don't do them so I decided to try out the lunchtime choir. The first week it worked out fine. The repertoire works for me. One hour at lunch and then 2 in the evening is fun. Different styles but similar techniques. New group. I think it will be just fine.