An ending and beginning

An Ending

Yesterday was our final session with the school choir club.  As always, we finished the year off with the usual choir club party complete with a lovely selection of cakes, sweets, crisps and all the things that kids love! After a bit of a sing-a-long the children who wished to, volunteered to sing solo's on stage in front of us all. The choir party is always popular and they really look forward to it after the hard work they've put in throughout the year to prepare for the Summer concert.  Both Jo and I were given some lovely thank you gifts which is very kind and we really appreciate.  This year we seem to have amassed a plentiful supply of chocolate so looks like I'm going to have to run even more over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, on the flip side of all the fun and food, we have to say goodbye to our year 6's, some of which have been with us since year 3.  Obviously, we'll be really sad to see them go but they're ready to move on as were our own daughter's last year.  We wish them the best of luck at High School and hope they continue singing and all thing 'music'.

A Beginning

It's hard to believe that it's been two and half months already since we performed our ladies choir concert 'Film Fantasia'.  After a committee meeting last week we began rehearsals again last night for a new concert.  I have to say that I found the work on last years songs particularly hard, not only writing and re-writing harmonies but also painstakingly teaching the songs note by note to the ladies.  I think this had a lot to do with the pressure from our business at the time along with home, life etc.... So this time we decided that in addition to some new selections we would re-use some of our old material as over the years we've sang some wonderful songs and it's such a shame not to resurrect them.

We finally went with a theme of musicals and asked the choir for suggestions regarding their favourite song choices.  Some were VERY popular so we've made sure that these have been included along with some less used numbers and some new ones to keep things fresh.

First rehearsal went very well indeed last night (despite me being on 'piano duty') with two songs learnt in full in 3 parts.  We have a couple of new members two which is always nice and only helps to enrich the overall sound.  Here's hoping that next week's rehearsal goes even better, it's always so much easier to teach the parts when I can wave my arms around rather than hammer the piano keys :).

Youth Onstage do HSM!

Back in January 'A' joined a group called YouthOnstage in Birmingham.  The group had been recommended by a lady called Jude Petty who just happened to be attending one of the courses we deliver.  'P' mentioned to her that 'A' loved singing, dancing and acting and she thought she might like to give it a try.  At first, although she enjoyed rehearsals, I think she found it a little hard joining a group where she didn't know a soul and we were extremely proud of her for giving it a try and continuing to attend each week.  What probably didn't help was our holiday back in February that took her away from rehearsals for 3 weeks, but unfortunately this had been booked and paid for long before 'A' had ever decided to join Youth Onstage.  However, a few weeks into her return and we could see her confidence was beginning to blossom and she slowly started to speak of new friends and good times.

Last week Youth Onstage performed High School Musical at the Old Rep theatre in Birmingham and what a superb performance it was.  We'd already seen the group perform their pantomime back in December so we knew what they were capable of but it was great to see even more talented youngsters taking the lead the parts.

It never ceases to amaze me that a group of youngsters aged 9 to 21 can have such power when they sing and I know many adult societies who could take a leaf from their book.  The whole cast has such an enthusiasm for what they do and you can see their enjoyment as they perform.  Music for the show was directed by Andy Johnson and the trickier numbers such as Stick to the Status Quo were handled with ease.  Suzy Petty was in charge of choreography and as with the pantomime it was great to see the whole cast taking part in many of the dances along with the more challenging routines that the cheerleaders and basketball players had to learn.  Direction was by Deb Brook and was fabulous, nothing was over played, the actors and actresses reactions were timed to perfection.  Our only fault with the show would be that in some of the songs the backing music was a little loud which meant that it was difficult to hear the soloist at times.  On many occasions however, the soloist was then joined by chorus which meant the track volume was required to be louder to compete with their fantastic volume :).

There were far too many talented individuals to mention them all but we were really impressed with Alick Draper and Georgia Towler who played Ryan and Sharpay.  Their comic interpretation of the characters was superb, especially with Alick 'camping' it up whenever he possibly could.  Hannah Brook and Adam Brown did the roles of Gabriella and Troy justice and were careful not to overplay the parts - their voices combined wonderfully.  Hannah Thomas playing 'Kelsie' was also a hit with us - we also couldn't believe how much she looked like the actual 'Kelsie' from the film!

It was a tiring week for 'A' with dress rehearsals on both bank holiday Monday and also Tuesday evening and then the show itself began on Wednesday evening and ran till Saturday.  But however tired she was her enthusiasm didn't wane and we could tell she'd thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience of being on stage and the atmosphere that goes with being part of a cast and show such as this.  She's made some great friends and is always keen to tell us how pleasant and friendly everyone is - she can't wait to return in September when rehearsals start for 'Hairspray'.  She actually asked me this morning, "Is it YOS tonight?".........I think she has the bug!

School Choir

As most of you know my friend Jo and I set up a choir at our daughter's primary school in 2007 as we felt this was something the school lacked.  The choir has gone from strength to strength ever since and we now have 38 members.  This number will no doubt grow in January when we have an intake of Year 3's.

In the run up to Christmas we keep to our Year 4, 5 and 6's. The children perform at the 'Young Voices' event in Birmingham and this can be a very tiring and long day, and would be especially so for Year 3.  We took part in Young Voices for the first time last year and the experience was amazing!  We always give Year 3 the opportunity to join in January when we start work on our Summer concert.

This year we will also be taking part in the Merry Hill Choir Competition for the very first time.  We're very excited about this as are the children!  We have to perform for 15 minutes and include at least 3 Christmas themed songs.  We've chosen to perform two of the Christmas songs I've written (one of which Jo and I jointly wrote lyrics to) and also our 'signature' tune, Now's the Time, as we felt these would be new and original and help to set us apart from the other choirs taking part!

I can't believe we only have 4 weeks to get the children to learn these new songs - what a challenge that's going to be!