Welcome to the inaugural Oriana blog! We all hope that this is going to be a fantastic year for the choir, with lots of great music covering a vast range of musical styles, from Monteverdi to choral arrangements of pop songs. The variety and quantity of the music we perform, and the flexibility this asks of us, is one of the reasons Oriana is such an exciting choir. And although when I first joined the “excitement” regularly tipped over to some frantic rehearsing as the concerts approached and yet more pieces appeared, I’m now very used to us pulling it out of the bag by the time the concert arrives!
In true Oriana style, we're still finalising the programme for our early spring concert - largely because we're still being inundated with invitations to sing. So last week, our first rehearsal back after Christmas (and an unscheduled snow break), we tried out a lot of music, ranging from Frank Martin’s glorious Mass for two choirs, to our conductor’s own arrangement of a Beth Neilsen Chapman song. The sight-reading of the choir has really improved since I joined, and we were singing so well that our conductor spontaneously decided to record a piece – his arrangement of A Mystery Piece by A Mystery Author – to refer to while programme planning. Which is of course where it all went wrong, and much as I hate to admit it, it was us in the Soprano 1s that let the side down! We were fine until the last page, when we got an entry so gloriously wrong we had to stop and try again. And again. And again. While the little electronic “recording” light shone at us in a censorious manner. If the recording ever sees the light of day we’ll just have to blame the snow. But by next week, of course, we will be note perfect!
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