Choir News
October 11th 2011: SCHOOL COOPERATION SCHEME
Our collaboration this time was with Pate's Grammar School. This time we added the 'A' Level piece In ecclesiis by Giovanno Gabrieli. Four brave soloists from CBC stood up to sight-read it, putting the choral section in context.
One common response from the Pate's pupils was that it was great to sing on the inside of a big choir that knows the music. There were students from Pate's in all four sections of the choir - including tenors!
October 1st 2011: VOCAL WORKSHOP
50 singers gathered in Christ Church Hall for a vocal workshop with Debbie Miles-Johnson. Debbie had arrived with plenty of material for us and we started the day with exercises. The pacey and fascinating day produced a huge improvement in the sound we made and we all felt as though we had made progress. The event was in collaboration with 123Sing!
The weather was lovely: we ate lunch outside in the sun; there was lots of tea, coffee and cake - and we had a delightful day.
March 2011: SCHOOL COOPERATION SCHEME
Instead of our usual journey to St Edward's for our Tuesday rehearsal, we recently made our way out to Bishop's Cleeve, to Cleeve School. Mrs Helen Taylor, member of CBC and Head of Music at Cleeve, had mustered some 40 young singers from the school to join with us for our rehearsal. In the spirit of true cooperation the music for the evening was a compromise: Cleeve students had prepared the Benedictus from the Will Todd Mass in Blue; we dusted down Bruckner's lovely gradual Locus iste, which appears on the GCE Music syllabus, and we had all taken our Messiah copies for a good spot of Handel.
The evening was directed by Stephen Jackson and gave all of us something new:
CBC members showed their commitment to broadening musical experience in the community;
Cleeve students had the opportunity to sing with an experienced, high-quality choir, where there was a whole section of tenors!
The average age was reduced by... errr... some years.
Our Making Music representative, Emma Reed, obtained some extremely positive feedback on the evening as we socialised over coffee.
December 2010: EPIC WEEKEND FOR CHELTENHAM BACH CHOIR!
Not to be thwarted by the weather, members of Cheltenham Bach Choir managed to honour not just one but two commitments over the weekend that The Snow arrived!
On Saturday, 18th December, a skeleton choir - now to be known as the 'Sherpa Choir' - succeeded in getting over or round Cleeve Hill to Winchcombe to provide the choir for a wedding at Sudeley Castle. Incredibly, we had four parts and a pianist (there is no organ in the Chapel at Sudeley) which we considered to be something of a triumph.
On Sunday, 19th December we gave an extremely well-reviewed performance in Cheltenham Town Hall, of music by Bach - Christmas Oratorio parts I and II, and Magnificat. Members made some incredible arrangements including, it is rumoured, the hijacking of 4 wheel drive vehicles, in order to be there. We weren't far from full strength. Tribute must be paid to all those (including our conductor, Stephen Jackson, who came from London - and had to 'return home by another way', starting off by going to Bristol) whose sterling efforts made it all possible. Musicians of Corelli Orchestra came from as far afield as Birmingham and Cardiff. The warmth of our reception by the audience, who braved a perishingly cold evening to be there, served to sustain us all at the start of Christmas.
Friendships were forged or strengthened as beds were lent, transport was shared and a renewed sense of comradeship pervaded the weekend.... along with the smell of mulled wine and mince pies.
Tribute also to Robin, now our accompanist, who played at the wedding on Saturday, but who didn't manage to get home until Tuesday!
"Snow, ice and Arctic temperatures did not deter the Bach Choir from ending the year in a blaze of glory, aided and abetted by the Corelli Orchestra" ...... "The performance, especially of the Magnificat, was superb". (Roger Jones, in Gloucestershire Echo, 21.12.10)