It’s been announced that Nigel Perrin will be standing down as musical director of the Bath Camerata in April this year, and the choir is advertising for a replacement.
I sang for a short time with the Camerata when I first arrived in Bath. At that time the choir was expanding and contracting in size as Nigel Perrin looked for the optimum number of singers. I was dropped because I wasn’t so good on the lighter jazzy repertoire he used (fair comment).
Nevertheless, I was invited back for some concerts where former singers were included, and greatly enjoyed these. I was sorry recently to learn that there won’t be any more because there is now no register of former singers.
It will be interesting to see how the transition is handled. Will the existing singers be loyal to the choir, or will some decide not to sing for the new director of music? I recall with sadness how the Brandon Hill Singers failed to survive a change of conductor. I doubt that this will happen with Bath Camerata, because there aren’t comparable choirs around here that might indulge in a spot of poaching. Will the new musical director decide that they want a change of personnel in the choir? Will the sort of repertoire it performs change? Will the choir perform more often in Bath than it now does, or less? Will it go back to making recordings (I think their last one was a decade ago)? Will there be changes to the way the choir is publicised? And will the new conductor try to revive the Bath Festival Chorus?
It’s hard to imagine Camerata without Nigel, but we’ll see what happens. And I think it’s in general good to have changes on Bath’s choral scene; I remarked back in 2009 that most choral conductors in the city had been in their posts a long time.