Berberis' World

Saturday, 17th November 2012, Great Hall, Goldsmiths College.

Mozart: Mass in C Minor
J S Bach: Jesu meine Freude
Beethoven: Choral Fantasia

Sopranos: Rachael Austen, Louise Kemeny, Helen Meyerhoff
Tenor: Thomas Herford
Bass: Philip Tebb

Forest Philharmonic Orchestra

Piano: Nico de Villiers

Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

This was the first concert I did after I rejoined the Lewisham Choral Society. I’d briefly thought about going back after the debacle with the LPC but, whenever I did, I imagined returning would be a public admission of failure: I’d failed my re-audition with the LPC, and there were a number (albeit a small number) of people who would know that I’d failed. Also, I’d been part of a choir who’d failed to win a singing contest. I was going back because I just wasn’t very good.

I’d left LCS just before Stefan Reid departed. His successor – Dan – was one of the people who’d coached the hospital choir to our joint 2nd place at Llangollen, and it was Dan’s suggestion that I rejoin LCS. His enthusiasm was sufficient for me to think that it wasn’t out of pity, but a genuine belief that LCS was a very good choir and that I might enjoy it.

The bit of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia we performed sounded remarkably like an early draft of the last movement of his Symphony No. 9. Bach’s ‘Jesu meine Freude‘ is much nicer. It’s not Nänie – what is? – but I preferred it to the Beethoven. It was written for a 5-voice choir (!) and I don’t know whether or not this was the reason for omitting bars 123-146 and 277-405. It surely couldn’t have been because it’s difficult to sing, because there are longer semiquaver runs in the B minor Mass. Perhaps it was for time, or the overall feel of the piece.

The Mass in C is not as instant as the Requiem, although that’s probably because I’ve sung the latter half a dozen times, and it’s used in dozens of films, documentaries, adverts, etc. However much I prefer the Requiem, I’m not on the committee so the Mass in C is what we got. My score has yellow highlighter all over the first half, and then – apart from a few scribbles in pencil – there’s nothing. This probably reveals more about my frame of mind than anything to do with the music. A safe, if unmemorable, return.

Saturday, 30th June 2012, The Great Hall, University of Reading.

Schubert: Der Wanderer D493 – Gareth Rhys Davies (Baritone) and Edward Reeve (Piano)
Schubert: Fantasy in C Major D760 ‘Wanderer’
Solo Piano Improvisation: Edward Reeve
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor Op. 27 ‘Choral’

Soprano: Fiona Harrison
Mezzo Soprano: Louise Ratcliffe
Tenor: Philip Lloyd Holtam
Baritone: Gareth Rhy Davies

Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra
Leader: Neil MacLean
Conductor: Andrew Taylor

Not sure why I decided to do this. However, it was a day away from London, the weather was nice, and I enjoyed singing the 9th again.

Thursday, 1st March 2012.

Congratulations on being chosen by Gareth for the Lewisham Hospital choir!

We are emailing your line manager with all your rehearsal dates – on the condition they are happy to release you for these, you’re in the choir! If you don’t hear back from us, then please assume everything is OK.

FIRST REHEARSAL
The first choir rehearsal is taking place tomorrow, Friday 2^nd March, 12:00 – 14:30 in the Lessof Auditorium. This is located in the Education Centre at the main Lewisham Hospital site. There will be a 30 minute break in which you can go and grab lunch half way through the rehearsal.

Gareth also has something planned for the choir in the evening and you will need to be available 17:30 – 22:00. You will be given more information about this during tomorrow’s rehearsal. It would be a good idea to have something to eat before your evening with Gareth begins – for those who can make it, there will be sandwiches available at 17:00 in The Lewis Club (at the main hospital site).

REHEARSAL SCHEDULE
Attached is a rehearsal schedule with a few tweaks to the dates. We’ve added the weekly Tuesday rehearsals to this schedule, so these are now all the dates you’ll need to be available for. Please note that most of the Tuesday rehearsals will take place 16:00-18:00. Please have a look and, if you haven’t let us know already, please let us know ASAP if you think you’ll have any problems attending any of these dates/times.

Finally, Gareth has asked if you could come to the rehearsal with the names of some songs that you would like to sing in the choir. These could be anything from personal songs that mean a lot to you, to songs that you think might be appropriate for you to sing as a group.

Many thanks and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Congratulations once again
The Twenty Twenty Team

Tuesday, 28th February 2012.

So, an audition. For a choir. If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll be aware that the last audition I had went very badly, and resulted in me having to leave a choir with whom I had (largely) hugely enjoyed singing.

I say ‘largely’ because there were times when I felt wholly inadequate and thoroughly isolated. There was even one occasion when I allowed myself to be bullied by a couple of stuck-up, sarcastic women who thought they were a cut above the vast majority of the rest of the choir, who were at least polite and friendly.

It was the end of 2008, and we were rehearsing Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem for a concert the following April. Due to ongoing building work at Bishopsgate, we were at Henry Wood Hall, just off Borough High Street, and I’d decided to sit in the front row. Not sure why, but it was probably because I was expecting Steph to turn up and we’d have a giggle. But she didn’t – I don’t remember why – and I ended up next to two people I normally avoided.

I threw myself into the rehearsal, using the glorious music to express the maelstrom of emotion I’d been bottling up since my mum’s death a few months earlier, as well as the unexpectedly hurtful things my brothers had said to me in the months before she’d died. After one particularly loud and cathartic section – Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? Holle, wo ist dein Sieg? – I overheard one of these women say to the other that I was “a bit loud”, in a tone which made it clear she wished I wasn’t. The second said to the first to keep her voice down in case she was overheard.

Instead of responding with a “too late for that”, which might have shut them up, I kept quiet. Unfortunately, in doing so, all my energy disappeared… along with my voice. To add insult to injury, the second woman then quipped that the first’s comment had at least had the desired effect. After the break, feeling thoroughly deflated and even more isolated without my singing partner-in-crime, I returned to my seat (and to this day I still don’t know why the hell I didn’t move to the back of the hall where there were plenty of empty chairs) and left the rehearsal depressed, and angry at myself that I’d allowed someone to make me feel that way.

The point of this tangent is not only to tell what happened but also to try to give some indication of how much my singing and my overall mental health are linked (and I’ll accept that this is a link I may have embroidered since a GP suggested singing as therapy). If I can’t sing, I feel anxious. However, the converse is also true, and it’s that that affects me at auditions… which is why I try to avoid them.

But this particular audition couldn’t be avoided. Given that most people I work with knew I was in both LCS and the LPC, it was assumed by pretty much everyone that I’d apply to be in the hospital choir. Rowena, one of the nurses on the children’s ward, gave my name to the Comms office even before the all users email had gone out and three of the 20/20 film crew were in the office within about an hour. I was going to have to audition or spend the rest of my life trying to explain – mainly to myself – why I’d chickened out. I did manage to convince 20/20 (well, Pete and Charlotte) that there was absolutely no chance of me singing on camera in the seminar room but I knew I’d have to do it eventually. I tried to push the thought to the back of my mind – being incredibly busy helped – but it was going to happen no matter how I felt.

And the day duly dawned. We were auditioned in groups of about 20, and there were 10 groups. My group was the second up and we all gathered in the former Children’s Surgical Ward just before 10am. There were obviously departments where more than one person had been chosen, but I couldn’t see anyone I knew. We were called in and I trailed in at the end, taking a seat at the end of the front row.

Gareth introduced himself and the film crew, and we all did likewise. We warmed up our voices and then were invited to sing the refrain from ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’. Helps the medicine go down. Hospital choir. We all laughed, albeit nervously, and sang along. Then Gareth said for the back two rows only to sing, then the front two rows, the left hand side, right hand side, you four… you two… you.

Which meant me. He decided to start with me simply because I was on the right hand end of the front row. So I had to stand up and sing. In front of 19 other volunteers and a film crew. And Gareth Malone. My knees felt as though they were made of water, and I was sweating and shaking. Having sung the refrain once, and not very confidently, I had to sing it again and again – first quieter, then louder, now in a lower register, now a higher register – as he made notes. Then I had to sing one particular note in a three-note chord. By the time I sat down, I felt as though I’d run a marathon.

And that was that. The rest of the process was a bit of a blur. I remember two people particularly: a consultant sitting in the back row who turned out to be tone-deaf and someone who said “I can’t sing that because I’ve got laryngitis” before launching into ‘Girl from Ipanema’, her laryngitis clearly not a problem with that particular arrangement of words and music.

As to whether or not I was successful in my first audition since being rejected by Neville Creed 372 days – one year and one week – ago, I won’t know until the end of the week.

Thursday, 23th February 2012.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“…if possible, please also send an audio/video clip of yourself singing.”

No. It isn’t. Thus I managed to avoided doing the one thing last Thursday that scared me. There wasn’t much I could do to avoid this…

“To Michelle,
GARETH MALONE

SING WHILE YOU WORK

CONGRATULATIONS!

We have had a huge response from people right across the Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust who want to be part of the workplace choir with Gareth Malone, and we are pleased to invite you to an audition on: Tuesday 28^th February at 10.30am.

Your audition will take place in the former Children’s Surgical Ward, on the second floor of the Women’s and Children’s Wing (Green Zone), University Hospital Lewisham.

You will be auditioned as part of a larger group and the audition session will last around 1 hour. Please arrive 30mins before your time slot to register (i.e. you should arrive at 10.00am for 10.30am audition).

To confirm that you are available to attend your audition time please email lewisham.auditions@twentytwenty.tv by 2pm on Friday 24th February, 2012.”

I did, Eleanor. And it bloody did.