#Vy musicality full
#Vy musicality professional

#Vy musicality full

To subsidise the costs of the charity events and to raise funds towards the running of the choir, we normally mount two paying performances a year one in the summer and one just before Christmas, with the winter concert being full of Christmas cheer and audience participation. We’ve performed in a number of churches at funerals, weddings, carol concerts and light a candle services. We’ve performed in music venues, pubs, community halls and in the open air. We’ve featured drums and guitar on a couple of occasions. And we’ve collaborated with other musicians: brass bands, percussionists, recorder players and other choirs. We’ve performed for a variety of charities and community events. After one performance, a surprised audience member was overheard to say: ‘They’re like a proper choir, but more fun.’ I don’t know what her expectations of us or her experience of other choirs had been, but it feels like we should wear the comment as a badge of pride. The sense of fun, though, does seem to show through to our audiences. They will be working on something quite complex and suddenly it all slots into place and there’s a beautiful sound.’ Greg again: ‘Sometimes the people in the choir seem to surprise themselves. But equally, there has been the joy of us suddenly mastering something, out of the blue it seems, that we could have been expected to find difficult. There have been times when Greg (I suspect many musical directors will recognise this) has wanted to tear his hair out because we’ve had trouble with something that should have been straightforward. There have been times when we’ve struggled, when things haven’t turned out quite right. Of course, as with any choir, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Greg has gone on record as saying: ‘There’s a continuous enthusiasm and sense of fun from the members that makes the choir a pleasure both to listen to and to be part of.’

What hasn’t changed over the years, is that we still get to have fun, too. Fortunately, though, we were lucky enough to find Jennifer Demicheli, an experienced musician in her own right and an excellent accompanist and assistant musical director. After seven years, sadly, Peter moved on. So, we’ve learned a lot, come a long way and things have changed. Over time we’ve developed and broadened our repertoire so that it covers pieces that range from Greensleeves to Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’, taking in spirituals, Christmas numbers, Bowie, Gershwin, Lloyd Webber, Leonard Cohen, Billy Joel, Abba and the Beatles along the way. Gradually, with Greg’s help and the help of Peter Colby (who at the time was our accompanist and assistant musical director), we’ve evolved from a unison choir into one that takes six part harmonies (almost) in our stride. He has since said, ‘I knew from the moment I first heard the choir that it had the potential to be something quite special.’

#Vy musicality professional

So much so, that we eventually reached the point where John felt that if we wanted to develop further, we needed to make use of the services of someone with more professional musical skills.įortunately, with John’s help, we found the person we needed, in the form of Greg Watson, an accomplished and versatile musician and musical director who has a talent for making learning fun. With John’s help, we began to evolve into a choir rather than a group of people who just got together to have a sing song. Somehow, though, it started to come together. Some of us hadn’t sung as part of a choir before some had quite a bit of experience in other choirs. We were led initially by John Fletcher, an expert on the history of nearby Clumber Park and an amateur musician. It wasn’t always like that, though.īased on the edge of north Nottinghamshire, close to the Derbyshire and South Yorkshire borders, it all began when a group of people from the local U3A got together in November 2011 just to sing. We are now an independent community choir with a wide repertoire of music and experience of performing in a variety of circumstances and venues. In the course of our short existence, though, we’ve come a long way. As choirs go, The Musicality Singers is relatively new.