MD'S CONCERT REPORT TRURO CATHEDRAL 30/10/10

Mabe Ladies Choir singing at Truro Cathedral on Saturday 30 October 2010

 This was something different for the choir - in several ways.  Firstly a lunchtime concert, rather than a more normal evening engagement, and secondly, the venue, Truro Cathedral, is a on a scale completely outside our usual experience.  I normally don't get nervous before concerts - keyed up & excited yes, but I was unusually distracted & withdrawn prior to this one - I even had trouble sleeping the night before!  I was grateful therefore that prior to our 1pm concert, the cathedral allowed us to practice in the space for an hour or so, giving both the choir and myself a chance to get used to the feel of performing in such grand surroundings.

         

 It certainly is an amazing experience to sing in such a vast space.  A cathedral scale acoustic can make you feel very exposed and alone (there's not much sense of your own or the rest of the choir's sound returning to you), and yet you also feel a great sense of intimate togetherness with your fellow singers, accompanist and conductor.  The hour's concert went by in a flash, with every piece seeming to have a new sense of discovery about it - the choir were completely focussed and sensitive to my every move, allowing me to colour pieces in a way that seemed deeper and more profound than ever before.  I often record rehearsals and concerts, so that I can review pieces' progress and hear if anything needs fixing or changing or indeed spot anything that is going particularly well.  I record and listen after the event because I am very aware that the memory of performing  'live' (with all it's attendant excitement and adrenaline) can sometimes differ from the true musical heights attained.  There is no doubt that amateur choirs are generally having a lovely time when they perform - it's what keeps people in choirs for years on end, but there isn't always a correlation between the degree to which the choir are having a lovely time and the standard of the music they are producing.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with that - if you're going to give concerts, the whole point is about entertaining the audience, moving them in some way, whether it be joyful or reflective and you don't necessarily have to be note or pitch perfect to achieve this if you can carry the audience with your emotional and narrative conviction or indeed by the force of the loveliness of the time you are having...but if you can do both (ie: have the lovely time and the high standard of musical accomplishment), it will propel things to a different level.  

However, having said all that, I have to confess that I deliberately did NOT record the cathedral concert.  I suspected that the entire experience would be very special, and actually, I didn't want there to be anything to spoil my memory of it - ie: listening back to a recording that clearly shows how flat we went, or how we failed to end a phrase exactly together, or the entry that the altos were uncertain of is bound to pop your balloon - I'm not so deluded as to pretend  that we were musically irreproachable that day - I was there, after all, but those flaws are eclipsed by the magic and wonder of the memories I now carry with me...the sheer awe of the space and the excitement of sending our voices out into it; the billowing waves of sound filling the cathedral as Rico played the Rachmaninov Prelude; the moment of absolute silent stillness from both choir and audience at the end of I Know Where I'm Going; the tears on the faces of many of the ladies and audience when we sang Calling My Children Home; the touching warmth of Deep Peace; the overwhelming, soaring power of the ending of Crossing the Bar; the complimentary enthusiasm of the various audience members' comments after we'd finished;  the unadulterated happiness and thrill on the choir's faces as we were leaving, which is a far more eloquent expression of the way they felt than any words they might say, or I might try to write here.    As I said to the Ladies when I emailed them later that evening......."what a buzz".  And it's a buzz that is going to take a long time to wear off.