All Change

Wanted! Soloist for the circle game. There is an opportunity for choir members to put themselves forward at the beginning of the rehearsal next week if they would like to sing a solo/duet.  Alternatively, the verses may be sung by the different voice parts.

Changes in our membership with a bitter sweet very funny and sad farewell resignation letter from Michael Daly, who has decided it is time to leave us, although he will stay in touch and, hopefully, come to our concerts.  His presence and bass voice on a Tuesday night will be sadly missed.

As we get used to a new style of Musical Director, there will be changes to the repertoire.

Keep your eyes open for these in Dropbox this week and the relevant backing tracks.

With the change of style, we have only completed one song, which is the Finnish

Reindeer Call, Ole le Loyla. This is a song used to summon reindeer. It's Close, and who doesn't love the Kinks?

It is familiar to some choir members who have performed this in 2022.  It is sung in three parts and can be done with the Sops starting and singing it all the way through and the second time round the Altos join in and the third time the Tenors and Basses join in.

An alternative is to have the Sops sing the first line and the Altos singing their first line as the Sops sing their second line and the Tenors and Basses joining in with their first line as the Sops sing their third line and the Altos sing their second line and just keep going!

We revisited Fairytale of New York and Downtown and will hopefully complete them next week.

Happy Together is a song written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon and recorded by the American rock band the Turtles. Bonner and Gordon composed the song while members of The Magicians. Its lyrics are about an unrequited love, despite the joyous sound. The composition was rejected by many artists, before being accepted by The Turtles, who were passing through a lowdown in their career.

In Flagrante Choir sung the beginning of this song confidently as this is one from our back catalogue and the majority of us have sung it previously in 2023, so it was fairly fresh in our memories. We will probably complete this song next week.

The Circle Game is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell composed in 1966. It is one of her most-covered songs and was originally recorded by Ian & Sylvia in 1967, and then by Buffy Sainte-Marie the same year,

The song shares a title with an award-winning collection of poetry from 1964 by fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood. However, Joni Mitchell has said that The Circle Game was written as a response to the song Sugar Mountain by Neil Young, whom she had befriended on the Canadian folk-music circuit in the mid-1960s. Neil Young wrote Sugar Mountain in 1964 on his 19th birthday, lamenting the end of his teenage years: "You can't be 20 on Sugar Mountain". The Circle Game offers a more hopeful conclusion: "So the years spin by and now the boy is 20 / Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true / There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty / Before the last revolving year is through."

The song inspired David Clayton-Thomas when he was writing Blood, Sweat & Tears' 1969 hit Spinning Wheel. The line "The painted ponies go up and down" gave him the idea to write "Ride a painted pony let the spinnin' wheel spin"

In Flagrante Choir sang this in the Summer Concert 2022. Alternatively, the verses may be sung by the different voice parts.

Keep a positive attitude, even if results don’t seem to be occurring as quickly as you want them to, we will get there!