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| Joining the English Chamber Choir | ||||||
| Our Members | Although some members do work within the Square Mile of the City, others travel in from all over the home counties. Many have professional backgrounds in accountancy, banking, law, medicine, teaching and IT, but we also have actresses, artists, conservation experts, restaurateurs and scientists, among others. Typically, our members will have experienced choral singing to a high standard at school and university (several are former choral scholars) and we require a high standard of sight-reading as we get through a lot of music! We are very definitely not ageist – we have a few members who have qualified for their bus passes but our youngest member is just 19, and we have all ages in between. | |||||
| What we do | All our members are encouraged to take part in all our concerts (we are not a ‘list' choir). Our current membership totals about 45, but we usually perform with slightly fewer than that. Members who are unavailable for a particular concert are encouraged to come to rehearsal anyway, as repertoire does get repeated and time spent learning it is seldom wasted.
We have a special relationship with the Church of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe and the adjacent Parish of St James' Garlickhythe, whereby we provide singers for services from time to time in return for our use of the building. Most such services do not require a large Choir and we aim to share them among the membership over the course of the year. Similarly, some of our events leading up to Christmas require smaller forces, so we share those too. We are not a ‘Church' Choir and we do not require any religious affiliation (our members embrace many different beliefs).
Our performances with the Belmont Ensemble at St Martin's include many instances of either Messiah or Mozart's Requiem, but the repertoire that we perform there has widened considerably in recent years, to include such rarities as Handel's Theodora and the less familiar pieces from Mozart's Solemn Vespers. Of particular note has been our participation since 2009 in several of the Belmont Ensemble's Easter Week Handel Festival concerts, and we will, in early June this year, join them in a concert to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of HM The Queen. For repertoire that is familiar, rehearsals may just be on the day of the concert. In this case we do welcome a few extra singers – generally either ex-members or partners of current singers who are not available for regular Tuesday rehearsals. |
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| Rehearsals | Rehearsals are held on Tuesday evenings from 7.15 to 9.45 at the Church of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, Queen Victoria Street , London EC4. (Click here for Map) Nearest tube is Blackfriars(currently closed for renovation so District Line alternatives are Temple or Mansion House), or if the Central Line is more convenient, it's a short walk to St Paul 's. Occasionally extra rehearsals will be scheduled near a concert, and we usually take a short break after Christmas and Easter. We do not generally rehearse on Tuesdays in August For a video excerpt from a recent rehearsal (of the Victoria Requiem of 1605), at St Andrew's click here |
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| How to Join | To become a member of the Choir you have to pass an audition and pay a subscription! | |||||
| Auditions | Prospective new members are encouraged to come along to a Tuesday rehearsal and get a feel for the Choir. They can then either audition after the rehearsal, or arrange a mutually convenient time with Guy Protheroe. The audition consists of a piece of your own choice (can be anything – classical or popular – whatever you feel shows off your voice best; if you don't want to sing off by heart, please bring a second copy for the pianist), a few vocal exercises to establish range and a short series of graded sight-reading tests. Good sight-reading and vocal technique are essential; if you haven't sung for some time, are therefore a bit ‘rusty', but show promise in the audition, you may be offered temporary membership ‘on probation' with a re-audition in three or six months. | |||||
| Subscriptions | Members of the Choir pay an annual subscription (currently £190 per year, payable either in full in October or in two instalments in October and February). New Members joining in the course of the year pay pro rata . There is no formal concessionary rate; however, it is the policy of the Choir that no-one should be excluded from joining on purely financial grounds. If you are encountering financial hardship you are encouraged to speak to the Treasurer and come to a mutually acceptable agreement. | |||||
| Your music | The Choir does have an extensive library of its own music, to which it is continually adding new works, and it does also hire sets of copies from time to time as required. Members are not expected to pay for their own music as a matter of course. However, many do prefer to voluntarily purchase their own copies of standard works so that they can keep them at home and use them elsewhere. Our normal practice is to bulk-purchase 50 copies of the same edition so that we can obtain around 20% discount and then sell them on to individual members at the discounted price. Anyone not wishing to purchase their own copy can use a Choir one. Those who do take up the voluntary option, however, enable the Choir to re-use the funds to buy other works. | |||||
| Dress code | Dress for concerts for men is sometimes all-black ( black open-neck shirt and black trousers), sometimes black-tie (DJs, black bow-tie, black tousers). Concert dress for women is long black. The women usually brighten up the black with small touches of red (jewellery, hair accessories, small corsages). Touches of red for men are usually restricted to cabaret performances! There is a small Choir collection of black items which are available on loan to new members or anyone who is temporarily lacking their own suitable black garments. When singing services and in sight of the congregation, dress is lounge suits and ties for men, smart equivalent for women. When singing services up in the gallery, any reasonably smart clothing (no trainers!) is fine. | |||||
| The Committee | The Membership elects a Committee at the Annual General Meeting. The Committee is responsible for the overall policies of the Choir, although the Musical Director has a final decision on matters concerning personnel and repertoire. The day to day management of the Choir is carried out by the manager, Ann Manly.
The present committee is: David Jordan, CBE chairman Tim Johns vice-chairman Francois Boucard treasurer Zoe Triggs secretary Robert Moffat librarian David Lowe Marianne Aston Karen Bloomfield Simon/Nicky Archer Andrew Trinick Michael Roskell Chris Turner The Committee can, and does, co-opt additional members, especially if someone has relevant skills for a particular project. There is no restriction on the length of time a member has been with the Choir before they can be voted or co-opted onto the Committee. |
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