Singing in a choir is great…but shouldn’t it be even more rewarding?
Picture the ‘typical’ choral scene, you’re standing there with a load of other people, one eye on the music and the other on the conductor trying your level best not to goof up the whole shebang. Important thing is, keep your head down, do not under any circumstances stick it above the parapet, just in case you sing that entry half a beat before you’re supposed to therefore exposing a life full of inadequacies in one brief musical meltdown moment. Eek!!
You’ve probably been working on this piece for a few months now and finally the day of judgement has arrived in the shape of a concert. You’re standing together uniformly on a precarious platform, white blouse freshly pressed with appropriate chiffon purple scarf wrapped elegantly around your shoulders and neck. It’s not often, you think to yourself that you can wear a 1980s throwback in a room with 50 other woman with the same outfit on and get away it!
The conductor then comes on to rapturous applause, turns, gives you the evils as if to say “watch me or you’re dead” then lifts his eyebrows high into his already high hairline in a last ditch effort to make you aware of how flat you sang in the afternoon rehearsal.
As the conductor’s baton flicks up in what maybe the first and last upbeat of the evening, you’re solely transfixed on dots, flapping arms, the final furlong and not messing up.
No doubt the concert will be successful with no serious casualties and there will be enough friendly and family fire to keep everyone sweet.
But, and this is the big BUT, could it have been even better? Were you totally engaged in the music? Were you physically engaged with the singing? Did you get the most out of yourself and did the chorus sing, move, breath as one? Answers on a postcard!
We believe at Singing Holidays that you can have a far more rewarding and indeed more fun experience in a choir (or on your own) if you are given tools, which enable you to sing and perform in a way that is both vocally better and physically more engaged. That’s why we’ve introduced SingingWorks into our 2012 calendar.
It’s a week focused primarily on establishing techniques that help you become a better singer and performer. It’s the culmination of our training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, our past work running an experimental opera company that focused on the collaboration between opera singers and physical theatre actors and our knowledge of how the body and breath works via our training in yoga, theatre and voice. It’s a holiday that will inspire, lifting you to new heights and allowing you to feel the true magic of singing in a way that is physically and emotionally engaged.
It’s part holiday, part course and because of its unique format it’s for all levels from beginner to professional, from totally inexperienced to very experienced.
We stay in inspirational and off the beaten track surroundings often within a National Park high up in the mountains. Clean air, clean water, stunning nature, wonderful food, the best Umbrian wines and no tourists.
It’s a unique taste of real Italy and in itself it is the perfect backdrop for a transformational week of singing.