Welcome to February News ...
Bedford Sings News
We have started programming the 2024 and 2025 festivals. Bedford Sings 2024 (Oct 24 - early Nov)
We would love you to be involved.
The theme for 2024 is Youth so that could include:
Local choirs working together with young people
National and International Youth Choirs (and we hope to bring over an outstanding award-winning youth choir from Portugal)
Repertoire based on Youth
The work of young composers/songwriters
The early work of composers/songwriters
Young conductors/directors
So put your thinking caps on and contact us.
Upcoming Concerts
Bella Ciao!
We have just launched the new festival Bella Ciao! which celebrates the Italian Community and Italian Culture in Bedford and it was received with great enthusiasm. There are 30 events over two weekends with something for everyone’s taste.
Special events involving singing include:
Sat 20th April
The world renowned I Fagiolini will give two concerts:
17:00 in St Paul’s featuring Monteverdi Madrigals
18:30 Robert Hollingworth, founding director of I Fagiolini and choral Podcaster in conversation with the festival curator
7:30 in St Paul’s they sing the fantastic Benevoli Mass for 4 Choirs (one of which is our local Goldentones) along with some wild pieces by Berio and Berberian. Italian devotion to text and texture over the centuries.
21:30 in St Paul’s an event of Mindful Night-time chant. Candlelit and reimagined chant.
Sun 21st at April
14:00 Quarry Theatre. Duo Petti. Come and enjoy an afternoon of cool jazz with Erica (voice) and Manuel (accordion)
Fri 26th April - Bedford remembers Opera night
19:30 Opera Night, St Paul’s. Bedford Town Band, Andrea Tweedale, Harry Bagnall, Lottie Greenhow, Matthew Palmer and the Bedford Italian teenagers filmed in 1973 for the BBC coming together again to sing.
Sat 27th April - The SInger’s Bel-canto Secrets
15:00 Barbara Gentili explores the world of Bel-Canto and lets us in on a few trade secrets
Full programme here
Order your tickets here
Interesting things to listen to or watch …
Robert Hollingworth’s wonderful podcast Choral Chihuahua. Latest episode
Jacob Collier, the jazz/music genius who gets crowds singing here in a stunning atmospheric performance of Little Blue
Without doubt one of the best collegiate choirs in the world at the moment, Trinity College Cambridge who live stream their services have a new conductor in Stephen Grahl (from the Christ Church Cathedral in the other place!)
And for sheer glorious pizzaz the London Gay Men’s Chorus
The Big Questions …Erica Mandilo
This month is the inspirational founding director of the Lisbon based youth choirs Coro Infantil, Erica Mandilo. These exceptional choirs who create integrated muse en scene for their work will be visiting Bedford Sings this year.
Favourite warmup? A warm-up that connects the support, activates the air column, and warms up the resonances at the same time - so a very physical warm-up, in which we mobilize the body at the same time as waking up the voice.
Best advice I was ever given? When we're trying to create something, it's usually at the most critical points, where we don't see an immediate solution, that we come up with the best ideas.
Best performance I ever gave? A concert in a church in San Sebastian (Basque country) - where most of the group was sunburnt after four hours in the sun - somehow despite the extreme physical tiredness, we made magic the whole time. I felt I managed to shape the group's sound, from the first note to the last!
Best I attended? The best musical experience I've ever been to, and actually had the privilege of taking part in, was a production of Berlioz's “La damnation de Faust” with Lawrence Foster conducting and the Concertgebouw orchestra. The staging, the singers, the orchestra, the energy of the choir, it was an experience that really marked me.
Favourite venue? The great auditorium of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, not only because of the personal history I've experienced there, from all the concerts I've seen since I was a child, both because of the countless wonderful programmes I've sung in (as part of the Gulbenkian choir) and later the concerts I've directed with my choir - but also because of the magic of seeing the garden and the lake through the mirror at the back of the stage. The connection between music and nature is very strong.
Favourite piece at the moment? The Ballad of Little Musgrave / B . Britten
Tea or coffee? Coffee… definitely
Bach or Handel? Bach… But I Love Handel.
Beatles or Beyoncé? Beatles!
What will I be doing in 5 years’ time? Hopefully what I do today, but better 🙂
Thought Piece …
In a recent conversation with an International Choral Festival the director said that one of the problems in his country was that many choral directors were proprietorial and were difficult to collaborate with. In many cases they had created their choirs and were protective of their brand or in some cases livelihood. It’s very tempting as a choir leader to use the sports model and to compete, if not literally in choral competitions, then be competitive with other choirs. I have heard several conversations with leaders who are comparing who has left which choir to join another. It might be that we get rather sensitive and defensive. On the other hand there are many leaders who spend years learning from others. The wonderful rich and noble cathedral and collegiate tradition in the UK would be nothing without the gentle handing on of technique, tips, repertoire, approach and tradition.
It would be rather easy for a choir to get attached to its leader, to project onto or idealise them rather like the football team who identifies with their manager and falls apart when they leave until a year later when they forget they ever had another manager. So the question is how do we as choral leaders continue to learn? How do we succession plan for our choirs? And as importantly how do we get our choirs together to sing and share and learn together.
There are always suggestions in our news of other choirs to listen to. If you are barbershop listen to one a part madrigal ensembles, if you are gospel choir try a chapel choir, if a choral society try an African school choir. Her constantly on the look out for how to earn and improve and just enjoy singing together. I have always found that the better you aim to be musically the better the fun and enjoyment.
