Live Singing started ... stopped
18 May 2021
Last night we had our first live rehearsal for over 400 days!
Fifty of our members were part of our first step back, with many
more following live on Zoom. We were guided by a risk assessment
which would stand alongside The Brothers Karamazov in its scope and
depth. Alongside our own risk assessment, we worked with the
management of The Old Savoy, our Covid-19 secure home, who had their
own in place. We are hugely grateful to the team there for opening
up for us, for installing an ethernet cable for our Zooming and
other systems, as well as managing the specific seating plan,
temperature checks, paperwork, and all the facilities.
Warming up alongside our friends on Zoom
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The View from Below - it is a vast space
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It was such a delight, and a relief, to find that we were still
in remarkably good voice! Perhaps some of the vocal stamina will
take some building back up, and getting used to singing in masks
will take a little while, but it was all so much more comfortable
than we had feared. In particular the tuning and blend was
excellent, and we relished beginning to make subtle adjustments
again to music by Elgar, Mahler, and Vivaldi. Our MD even wore his
special “no mingling” t-shirt!
The Choir Return to Singing
We were heartbroken, truly, this morning to discover that the
long-awaited, long-promised Step 3 guidance now means that we have
to return to Zoom, or perhaps to outdoor rehearsals. No reasoning
has been given for this, and it seems baffling especially when we
have demonstrated that we can return to sing with the safety of our
members as our first and foremost priority.
Lee and Ivan - reunited
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Another View from Below
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We will report fully as soon as we are able, but the whole choral
community in England is truly in uproar about not only these
guidelines, but their late delivery, and lack of rationale. In the
meantime we are glad that we at least had one opportunity to meet
again, and sympathise hugely with the hundreds of choirs, including
our friends in Huntingdon, Leamington Spa, and Wellingborough - as
well as the Northampton Male Voice Choir - who weren’t even able to
get the single session.
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