Summer Break

Liquorice Singers have begun an enforced early summer break. Work is being carried out at the meeting room where we rehearse and picking our way through builders paraphernalia was proving tricky so we decided to call it a day until they complete the works. An extension is being erected which will house a new office for the Almshouse Trust and additional storage space including a chair store which with luck will give us a little more space. 

We aim to restart singing on 20th August all being well.  
  
New singers are always welcome and remember there are no auditions to worry about.  Hope to see some new faces on 20th August.  Enjoy your summer and keeeeep singing.

Events

I cannot believe it is mid July and my last blog was way back in March.  It seems a little late to be giving feedback regarding the music festival after all this time but we had some lovely comments from the adjudicator who persuaded us to enter a competitive class next time.  We have started our rehearsals for this already!  

We also have a few event dates listed below.  The Thorneycroft Centre have been asking us for a while to come along and perform at one of their functions and it has proved difficult to find a time when we have a full compliment of singers (they will keep going off on holiday).  The summer is now upon us and we are having a break for August so we have arranged a date for September and fingers crossed this will go ahead as planned.

•    6th September 2014    Concert (tbc)
•    18th September 2014  Thorneycroft Centre
•    10th February 2015     Arthritis Care
•    13th March 2015          Pontefract Music Festival

We will also be singing a selection of WW1 songs as part of the WW1 commemoration year during October and November in the Market Square, Pontefract.  So Pack up your Troubles and if you are still A Long Way from Tipperary you might want to come along and join in with Oh it's a Lovely War and if not I'll wish you Goodbyee.

Pontefract Music Festival

It's that time of year again and decision time - do we compete or enter for fun?  The first time we entered Pontefract Music Festival we entered the Sing for Fun category, then last year we had to drop out because we had no MD or accompanist.  This year with so many excellent choirs competing we decided to once again opt for the fun category; we are after all a singing for pleasure group and not particularly competitive.  We are looking forward to taking part and hearing the adjudicators comments.  We love our Wednesday choir sessions but it is always good to have an audience and we have been practicing our two numbers so we can sing - wait for it - OFF THE BOOKS!  Never did I think I would utter those words, whenever I have broached the subject in the past the look of horror and the shouts of protest meant that I had more or less given up on the idea.  So I am not sure how we find ourselves singing without looking at the music but I have to say I am made up and a very proud woman.   It makes such a difference to the sound and lovely to see peoples faces rather than looking at the tops of heads.

This will be my first festival as choir conductor so it is a bit nerve wracking for me, I will just have to pretend it is a normal rehearsal night and hope for the best.  I will however have the support of 12 lovely singers all looking and smiling and singing their best.  Bring it on!!!!

Musical Directors x 4

We have been very fortunate in our relatively short existence to have had some very talented folk helping us out along the way.  Becki Woolfe, a teacher, started the choir in 2010 when her school advertised for singers to start a community choir and she nurtured us in the early days.  When she had to leave we had the very talented Andrew Booth of fono-productions with us for a year and he made a valiant effort to knock us into shape musically.  He helped us to improve our singing and taught us some lovely songs.  David Gilson helps us out occasionally and he has done a couple of arrangements for us.  When we found ourselves without a leader we asked the local newspaper to do an article and we were fortunate to find Elaine from this publicity. See the article (and hear us sing) here dated Nov 2013 only problem was they printed an incorrect email address but fortunately new singers and an MD still found us. 

We are very grateful to everyone who have given their time and expertise and kept us singing.  The choir would not have progressed and grown in the way it has without your input.  

Allsorts of songs

Have you ever been asked ‘what kind of music do you like’?  You probably had no trouble with it but I was never sure how best to answer such a seemingly simple question.  If I’d been into punk or folk or been a rock chic it would have been ok but having such a wide range of music likes I couldn’t find the words to describe it.   Who would have thought I’d be faced with a similar dilemma when people making enquiries about joining our choir ask me ‘what kind of things do you sing’....hhmmm, good question.  It’s obvious really that people want to know before committing themselves what kind of songs we sing so why do I struggle so much with it.  It might be witty, given our name, to say we sing allsorts of songs but not really very helpful so I usually end up just giving them a list of our repertoire.

So what will we be singing in the new year given that our Christmas music has been sorted and stored away for next year (well it will be when I get round to doing it).  We have a lovely Gershwin Medley arranged for us by David Gilson which includes I Got Rhythm, ‘SWonderful, Nice Work If You Can Get It, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, Embraceable You and Shall We Dance which I can’t wait to get started on.  Another one David arranged for us is the Minstrel Medley which we all like and plan to keep on singing. Elaine our MD brought us You Raise Me Up which was sidelined due to needing to rehearse for our Christmas performances so that is another to get to grips with.  We started singing A Small Part of the World a few weeks back which we all immediately fell in love with and we will keep working on that.  Then of course we plan to revisit some of our favourites from our varied repertoire, one of our singers heaven help us even suggested we resurrect When The Saints Go Marching In which should be fun or maybe not. We never really mastered that one even though Becki took us through it over and over again.  When we got it right it was lovely but we mostly got it wrong and we lost heart and gave up on it when Becki was no longer there to prod us on.  So watch this space, it will be interesting to see whether we manage to crack it second time around.

Turkey, turkey and more turkey!

It's been a quiet Christmas for me this year, my daughter and grandson have been away and our Christmas Day lunch was a very nice steak in red wine sauce and jacket spud.  I've had plenty of turkey though and three Christmas lunches in one week so I don't feel deprived.  I mentioned in my last post that we had sung to the Pontefract and Ackworth Almshouse Charity residents and I was lucky enough to be invited to stay on and join in with their meal. Then a couple of days later the Liquorice Singers, well 13 of us, met and had a Christmas lunch and I tried to order pork for a change but they had run out so it was turkey again.  A couple of days after that I attended a celebratory meal which had been booked for months and guess what I had ordered.  So not being a great lover of turkey I couldn't face it on the day itself hence the nice steak. 

It was the first time the singers had arranged a meal out and we had a lovely time and will certainly do it again next year.  

It was special for me too as they presented me with a lovely bouquet as a thank you for keeping the choir going.

Waving or drowning? No she's conducting the choir.....

Should a person with no musical knowledge be conducting a choir?  Probably not, but no one is complaining (yet) and I have been watching from the other side of the fence since 1993 when I joined my first choir, well a barbershop chorus to be precise, so I must have picked up a few tricks even if subconsciously along the way.  Anyway the choir like someone out front to keep time etc and if I am honest I love the chance to do it and besides which there's no one else.  So that's why you find me out there waving my arms around pretending I know what I'm doing and wondering if my bum looks big, no not really, I know my bum looks big.  

We have sung in two performances this month, one to residents of a local residential care home and the other to residents of the Almshouses and had a lovely time.  I hope that our Christmas repertoire helped get our audience into the Christmas spirit especially as we had been practicing the songs since the beginning of September and have been in and out of the Christmas spirit (mostly out) a few times ourselves.  Although I have enjoyed our festive singing I will be very happy to sing something else when we restart rehearsals in the new year.