The whole thing was audio recorded, to capture the reactions of Fraser and members of the choir to the experience of rehearsing Rebecca’s sketched opening for the work. Above all she wanted to collect the actual sounds improvised during the workshop, the effects generated as snatches of words and music were tossed around using different voices, dynamics and spaces. At one stage, four different teams of mixed voices were working on vocalising their own compilations of sound effects and note clusters, all in the same room! It was hard work but fun, and everyone enjoyed themselves. Each of the resulting individual team ‘performances’ was received with bursts of sympathetic and appreciative applause from the rest of the group, and seemed to be of real value to Rebecca, who heard a whole lot of inventive variants on her musical ideas to take home and mull over, before turning her final selection into a fabulous opening movement for the new piece!
This latest taster session means that the Festival Chorus and/or East of England Singers have now heard sample sections of three different movements from the new work. Good progress but still some way to go! Next time round, EOES will try out a draft of the completed choir parts – in mid April – before the vocal scores are made ready to send out to the whole Festival Chorus for test-driving in the sectional rehearsals in May. That celebration concert in June really isn’t very far away – excitement is already mounting!Click here to see some photos from the rehearsal>>
