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We did it!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:54:32 +0000

The birthday moment was great! I was part of the choir singing a specially-arranged version of Happy Birthday To You featuring singers, percussion instruments, motifs around the words '1, 2, 3, 4, 5' and improvisation over the top provided by Andy Sheppard. What a great thing to be a part of! There was a lovely atmosphere on the concourse followed by cake and fizzy, then we went straight into the rehearsal for our concert tomorrow evening.
The final rehearsal with the orchestra in the Hall always feels exciting but it also really helps to get your head around things like where we're going to be sitting, where we come onstage from and working out the exact number of chairs we'll need. Tomorrow is the last I'll see of the Chorus until the New Year so it feels a bit like the last week of school at the moment! Tomorrow will be busy with our Daily Ops meeting to ensure all teams in the building know exactly what to expect with our concert, catching up on last minute changes and checking interval times etc (very important to get the ice-creams out at the right time, it's a delicate business!) then we'll prepare for the evening.
The celebrations just keep going over the weekend!

Its our Birthday... nearly!

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:57:24 +0000

Full steam ahead across the building for our Fifth Birthday celebrations tomorrow, and we had a great rehearsal with Simon Halsey last Thursday for our special birthday concert on Friday night in Hall One.
I love concert weeks with the Chorus, we learn so many new techniques from Simon: we will usually go through the entire work, with Simon telling us what his take on the music is so we're all thinking the same thing when singing it, where to breathe in the music, where we need more intensity in a section, or where we need to be joyous and loud. Simon always gives us his ideas and put his stamp on the work making us excited to perform in the concert on Friday and some really great techniques about producing a lovely sound: sometimes if you're thinking about a high note its better to 'think down' so you don't sound strained, or really listening to each other in order to stay in tune - SImon has a great way of making us sound coherent and as one voice. It's a really exciting process!
Some concerts recently have involved the Chorus being involved in movement onstage, but not this time: we'll be on Level 2 behind the stage for Tevener's The Lamb in the first half, then we're onstage with the orchestra for the Britten St Nicolas; really close to the orchestra and that bit closer to the audience.
Tomorrow night we'll have a big rehearsal with Simon, Northern Sinfonia and Quay Voices on the stage in Hall One in preparation for Friday where we'll go through the whole piece. Lots of our members performed the Britten just a few years ago so it really helps to have that extra layer of assurance underneath: I'd never sung the piece before we started rehearsing it in November but it really helps when so many members are already sure of it, the rehearsals have gone really well, Simon was very happy with us on Thursday last week! On the concert night, Alan Fearon our Chorus master will warm us up and make sure our voices are ready for the task ahead then off we go!
Being part of the Fifth Birthday celebrations is so exciting and lots of the Chorus are looking forward to it too; we have members were original singers in the Chorus when we were formed by Alan Fearon 35 years ago!
After the Britten some members of the Chorus are performing Carols on the Concourse as another part of the Birthday Celebrations which will hopefully delight the departing audience and fill us with Christmas spirit.

I did some vox pops with Chorus members a couple of weeks ago: here's a small selection, more to follow tomorrow!

091122 Katie 2 edited.mp3

091122 Marion edited.mp3

091122 Geoff Hughes edited.mp3

A weekend of Inspirational singing

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:32:12 +0000

Most people think of Friday as the end of the week but here at The Sage Gateshead it's just getting going: tomorrow is the incredible Inspiration Choir who are doing two performances of their Christmas spectacular to two packed-out Hall One audiences, followed on Sunday by Come & Sing Hallelujah: over 400 people singing Handel's instantly-recognisable humdinger from the Messiah, alongside Christmas carols and other favourites.