For the second year running we put on a concert at St. Paul's Church in Craig-y-Don as a preliminary event prior to our foreign tour. This time it was the premier performance of our full Summer 2007 programme, Come ye Sons of Art, which includes madrigals by Thomas Morley, works by Renaissance composer, William Byrd, and some Baroque masterpieces from Monteverdi and Handel as well as, for the sake of contrast, some more modern pieces by Vaughan Williams and Britten before the feature piece, Purcell's Birthday Ode to Queen Mary II: Come, ye Sons of Art, Away.
The day started at 3:20 PM when we assembled to set up the instruments and begin rehearsing. It's always a little bit of a surprise to me how the acoustic of a building can alter the way one performs especially in contrast to our regular rehearsal room. But we were soon acclimatised and we could begin rehearsing in earnest. Last year we'd rehearsed for quite a lengthy spell, almost up until showtime, so it was nice to be able to knock off earlier this time and have a decent break to get ourselves ready for the performance.
Considering this was our first full run-through of the programme with both choir and orchestra in front of an audience, everyone performed extremely well. Even items that had needed extra rehearsal time earlier in the day passed off hitch-free. It was especially good to hear the positive noises coming from Nigel both at the interval and after we'd finished.
We had a good audience too - although it would have been nice for there to have been more of them - who seemed to appreciate the concert very much and who were very generous with their applause. It would certainly be interesting to hear their opinions.
From my own personal point of view (but please bear in mind that it's difficult to objectively hear the performance of every individual from my position "in the thick of it" too) my favourite solo performance was Meinir's rendition of Strike the Viol, it really sent tingles down my spine. Although I think everyone really stepped up and gave great performances which, as Nigel said, seemed to get better as the concert progressed.
Roll on Saturday (14th July) and our contribution to the Llandudno Festival and Elgar, Elgar and more Elgar!
Carmen. (Soprano)
Considering this was our first full run-through of the programme with both choir and orchestra in front of an audience, everyone performed extremely well. Even items that had needed extra rehearsal time earlier in the day passed off hitch-free. It was especially good to hear the positive noises coming from Nigel both at the interval and after we'd finished.
We had a good audience too - although it would have been nice for there to have been more of them - who seemed to appreciate the concert very much and who were very generous with their applause. It would certainly be interesting to hear their opinions.
From my own personal point of view (but please bear in mind that it's difficult to objectively hear the performance of every individual from my position "in the thick of it" too) my favourite solo performance was Meinir's rendition of Strike the Viol, it really sent tingles down my spine. Although I think everyone really stepped up and gave great performances which, as Nigel said, seemed to get better as the concert progressed.
Roll on Saturday (14th July) and our contribution to the Llandudno Festival and Elgar, Elgar and more Elgar!
Carmen. (Soprano)
