Dear Ladies,
you will have had time to recover from the concert on Saturday. There have been some technical IT hitches at this end, which has delayed this newsletter. Sorry.
By all reports, the concert was described as excellent and special with some lovely comments from the audience. One, in particular, was “The concert was excellent and worthy to be heard in the Albert Hall/and radio with a ticket price three times greater. Well done ladies for singing your heart out and pulling out all the stops. There were no moments of angst and it gave me the opportunity to enjoy the singing. Thanks to Judith and Katie for pulling off the Benedictus after one short rehearsal together before the performance. You sang very well. The concert was longer than anticipated due to the extra solos by the lovely Abigail and the congregational carols so you would be obviously tired at the end but I hope it was a happy tired. If anyone wishes to share some feedback that would be good as I am usually the last one to hear.
Thanks to the lovely Cath who delivered flowers from all the choir. They are beautiful, very Christmassy and I am hoping to keep them going for several weeks. Thank you everyone.
The results of the survey was revealing and very interesting.
Music for the Nov/Dec concert was easy. Most votes were for another Mass, this was a popular choice. Choosing music of this calibre is valuable and very worthwhile and helps to keep standards up in keeping with those set by Oswestry Choral Society from which we emerged in 2016. The other outright choice was for another Christmas Cantata. So next Christmas, such a long way away, is settled.
For the summer concert the majority of votes went to a G&S Evening, which, if you can think back about ten years, this was a very successful concert with standing room only, while others were happy to sit on the floor.
Next was Night at the Opera (1 vote less). There were few or no votes for Songs from the Shows/Film Music/Joint MV Choir concert.
So, I think we will go ahead and prepare for a Double Bill of G&S and Opera. This will have professional soloists both male and female. This will create a performance of variety and interest hoping it embraces the choice of most of the choir.
Choir rehearsals resume on Wed 10th January 7.30pm. Our most urgent task is recruitment of new singers especially sopranos. On Wed 13th Dec with so much illness within the choir and the sudden withdrawal of some singers at the last minute, there were only 3 sopranos left. That caused me several sleepless nights. However, by shifting several choir members I found a workable solution and the rest is history.
Please tell everyone you meet that you sing with O.L.C. Tell them that we sing everything and anything and encourage them to give us a try. The success of our next venture depends on having many more sopranos.
In closing, we are left with happy memories of a fab. concert, Well Done ladies !! and thanks for giving so much pleasure to your audience.
Have a Happy Christmas and All the Best for 2024
Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Dawn