West Cork Choral Singers in a time of Covid.
There have been times over the past few months when we would be forgiven for thinking that the world of choral singing was over. Following my appointment as the new Choral director in January this year we started working on a programme entitled ‘A Breath of French Air’ to include Fauré’s gorgeous requiem and some other French delicacies. This was not to be as the choir, along with so many others, went into lockdown so that rehearsals and the programme went into a state akin to suspended animation.
As the summer advanced we felt the need to connect and to sing in spite of continued uncertainties and measures to control the spread of Covid. Zoom came to the rescue. Although it’s not designed for singing together it has allowed us to meet up and to work on some new repertoire with the intention of introducing a programme of a capella music to perform outdoors in 2021.
National Singing Week
We had the first taste of how this might be when Sing Ireland invited choirs across Ireland to contribute videos of themselves singing as part of National Sing Week. We only had a few days to produce something so I came up with the idea of creating a mini documentary. This involved creating backing tracks, collecting recordings and holding recording sessions in various locations across West Cork individually and in small groups. The tracks were mixed together and photographs taken. The result was a video slide show documentary and performance of a piece by William Byrd, Non Nobis Domine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W70WBPPm27o
Click on the link above to see our efforts.
Best wishes
Susan Nares, Choral Director
Poem by Margaret Newcombe
The West Cork Singers just love to sing, Good four-part harmony is their thing, But now we must all stay at home on our own And practice online or over the phone. It isn't the same as the all-around sound Which lifts our spirits and makes our hearts pound. But we'll stick to the rules, keep washing our hands And wonder what's happening to all the live bands. One day the world will find out how to cope With this virus, till then we live in hope Of the day we can all cheer and say Hooray! And joyfully get back to singing Fauré.