Porthkerry Community Choir and Chapter Singers plus 6 choirs represented at the “Choir Clock”
Cardiff’s first ever Festival of Voice.
I was asked very late notice – about 6 days before the event – if my choir could do another slot at the Choir Clock event – as another choir must have dropped out. I realized that it might be a bit much to expect the Cardiff Canton Singers to turn out in force later in the day – but also so thought it would be a very nice idea to include more singers in the performance and spread the joy a bit. Anyway I came up with the idea of asking all the local choirs led by the 4 sing for Water Cardiff people of last year – Pauline, Sue, Celia and myself and seeing if we could share the song leading in the spirit of keeping the concept of Sing for Water Cardiff alive while we take the year off. Anyway after a few panics and sleepless nights it appeared that there may be indeed enough singers to make up a choir to sing at the event – except sadly not the leaders.
The arrangement sent out by the choir leaders was to turn up at the Capitol Centre at 3.15 wearing blues/purples in any combo – where they would spot me and we could warm up and get into voice parts – go over the more difficult songs – get to know each other etc! Anyway we were asked to “warm up” upstairs in the centre which possibly lead to a little confusion as some singers didn’t find us until Anke (who will be leaving Cardiff for Germany soon!!) did a search to round up any lost singers. Quite a difficult task I imagine if you have not met them before – you end up trying to ask anyone who happens to be wearing blue or purple to come and join the choir!
Anyway the singers started to build up and we had an amazing amount of sopranos and tenors – 4 male basses from Cardiff Canton Singers came to join for their 2nd ”Choir Clock” of the day as well as about 5 other singers – we totalled a magnificent 34 singers! I was quite apprehensive going through the songs at first but then it became very apparent that it would all be absolutely fine – the singers knew the songs like the back of their hands – despite not having sung them for a year and despite the fact that they had not sung with each other as a choir before!
The performance went swimmingly well, it was all very exciting with the camera crew and sound team etc – the venue was unexpectedly satisfying too.–
Thanks to photographer Jon Ratigan http://www.jonratigan.co.uk/Home.html for the photography!
The other huge positive for me is the ongoing connection between the choir leaders and choir members! – A real building and extending of communities and trust.
Feedback from Ramzi – the organizer of our sections of the Choir Clock.
“Thank you so much for yours and the choir’s contribution to choir clock on the weekend. Both choirs were amazing and had such a positive energy and appeal.!”
Choirs represented were as follows:-
Porthkerry Community Choir of Barry
Chapter Singers of Canton
Cardiff Canton Singers
Grangetown Community Choir (led by Pauline Down) https://www.facebook.com/grangetowncommunitychoir/
Cardiff/ Splott Local Vocals http://www.singplicity.org/regular-groups/local-vocals/
Sound Women of Penarth
Cyncoed and Llanishen Singers led by Sue Ellar http://cyncoedsingers.weebly.com/
Oasis singers – volunteers at the music project at the Oasis refugee Centre Cardiff
Betws Community Choir Bridgend
(The latter 2 choirs are supported in their weekly sessions by Valley and Vale Community Arts http://www.valleyandvalecommunityarts.co.uk/ )
