I bet the auditorium to the Victoria Rooms in Bristol is the only concert hall left in Britain with a notice inside indicating which way to go out to find telephones. The concert hall is due to be renovated shortly so that it can double as a lecture theatre, and I expect this antique notice will disappear at that point [later note: it hasn’t!]. Probably at the same time they will fix the staging so that it isn’t quite so noisy as the performers walk on to it.
I performed at the Victoria Rooms once (with the Brandon Hill Singers, to conference delegates) but had never been to a concert there before. Wednesday lunchtime, the usual recital slot, was difficult for a long time. But I finally got there to a recital by the University Singers, of mostly Marian music which they are about to record. The recital was well attended, and I suspect there is a loyal regular audience on Wednesdays.
I noticed that the choir was not top-heavy in numbers and as a result the tenor and bass lines didn’t sound as under-powered as student choirs often do. The performers stood in their sections for all pieces except the last, when they were jumbled up. The repertoire was by Victoria and Guerrero, with more recent pieces by David Bednall, John Pickard and Pierre Villette. On the whole I thought the more recent repertoire came off better, with more expressive singing. The choir was conducted by David Allinson and the ubiquitous David Bednall.