I don’t have much going on at the moment to write about, but I see that someone searched this blog for references to the Exon Singers, so here is an account of my connexion with them.
Some years ago I was recruited at short notice to sing in the Exon Singers’ summer West Country tour, conducted by Christopher Tolley. Over the week I was with them, we performed in venues including Buckfast Abbey, Truro and Exeter Cathedrals, and the barn at Buckland Abbey.
It was clear that the membership of the choir was pretty stable, and for some years afterwards I had fun picking out the voices of people I recognised when the choir sang their Choral Evensong broadcast at New Year. There were also a lot of couples in it, which may have been connected to the fact that the free board and lodging laid on for us in Tavistock was only available to singers.
Most of the music we performed was new to me. I recall three (very diverse) pieces in particular: Byrd’s Laudibus in Sanctis (done on minimal rehearsal as everyone else had recently sung it with the choir), Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden (since learning which I’ve never had problems pitching augmented 4ths/diminished 5ths), and a setting of part of Dr Seuss’s Sleep Book by Roderick Williams.
The week was hard work because of all the new music, and in those days I was relatively inexperienced, but I enjoyed being part of such a good choir. I occasionally look back on it with nostalgia, especially at times when singing at that standard isn’t available to me. I see from the website that now Jeffrey Makinson, whom I knew in my Manchester days, plays for them, but they don’t seem to assemble at Tewkesbury over New Year any more.
i remember that tour – around that time there were indeed a couple of weak sopranos who owed their places in the choir to being married to a tenor or bass we really wanted!