I didn’t attend the workshop which invited others to join the Bath Camerata to rehearse and perform a short programme, but came along to the concert at the end. Partly because it was local, but also to meet Camerata members whom I hadn’t seen for a while. There is still a core of people from the now rather distant time when I sang with the choir, although they don’t necessarily remember me or if they do, are a bit hazy about me. I’d like to think I’m still on the register of former members, although the admin of the choir has been overhauled recently and it’s a bit hard to find out about this list. It would be good to join again in an expanded-choir Good Friday concert – perhaps for the choir’s 30th birthday in a couple of years?
The assembled singers performed a sequence of pieces from various times and places. A few weren’t known to me. I particularly enjoyed a section from Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine, depicting the machine in flight. Though it was missing the bump when it landed (I write as an aviator’s daughter here). It shows Whitacre (perhaps unlike Lauridsen) has a variety of strings to his bow and doesn’t just write the same piece over and over. The extra singers seemed to fit in well with the regulars, though I couldn’t help noticing the bass section made a noise out of proportion to their numbers!
‘admin being overhauled’ is one way of putting it. A good demonstration of why it’s not always a good idea for the conductor and choir administrator to be married to one another….