Last night was Elliot’s penultimate evening with us and he took us through three more wonderful arrangements. Elliot with the amazing Georgia Louise, who 'for one night only' joined In Flagrante for our Christmas concert in 2019. Georgia has recently been playing lead roles in the West End and on tour, including Sandy in 'Grease' and Sophie in 'Mama Mia
We started with The Sound of Silence, a Simon & Garfunkel song. In some ways it is more challenging to sing a well-known song as we all tend to sing it in our own way, but a choir has to learn to sing with the same phrasing that has been arranged especially for us. It is critical to get us all to finish at the same time when words end in ‘s’. The song builds up gradually with the verses having longer and longer gaps in them, so a lot of counting is needed as well as a lot of breath to sing!
Vincent, by Don McLean was next. Another beautiful, gentle song. Here the tenors could shine with them mainly having the tune (a very rare occurrence) with the first verse unaccompanied by any other voices. The altos and sopranos joined in later. Even on the second verse the tenors had the tune and the soprano ones sang their oohs, while the second sopranos had a surprise and sang the second alto oohs. It did cause a little confusion, but Elliot soon led them through the piece and we were all in harmony.
A short break for tea, coffee or wine and a social gathering to catch up on each other’s news then back to finish Vincent and then move to Scarborough Fair. This starts with the sopranos with the altos joining in the second verse and building up with the tenors adding their depth and strength, patiently waiting until the third verse.
We have all been advised to listen the tracks in Dropbox to practice for our mini concert next week that we are performing for an audience of one; Elliot. He will know if we don’t get it quite right! No pressure!
Updated: Oct 28, 2021
While Eamonn O'Dwyer our Music Director is busy writing music and lyrics for Beauty and the Beast in Kingston and Brief Encounter in Newbury, we have Elliot Clay to lead us for the next few weeks until he leaves us to perform in the West End in the cast of The Mousetrap.
As we have such talent teaching us with such infectious enthusiasm, we can’t fail to enjoy every minute of our time together
After a fun warm up, Elliot took us through our paces tonight with the beautiful Fields of Gold followed by the haunting harmonies of She Mov’d Through the Fair. Each part of Tenor, Alto and Soprano was taught in easy stages and gradually built up so we all sang in harmony. Once the notes are learned we are then guided to put expression into our singing, usually with humorous ideas to help us remember.
Then time for break to mingle with tea, coffee or a glass of wine in hand to chat about anything and everything. We are a friendly bunch!
We then resumed our places and sang the upbeat Side By Side, which on the surface seemed a simple, jolly song, but had some quite tricky parts. Might need some more on this next week!