About a month ago I auditioned for the chorus for the Three Choirs Festival 2016, to be held in Gloucester, and have now heard that I have got in. It’s a big commitment for three months, and people from the Festival’s Artistic Director down have been surprised at my willingness to undertake the amount of travel involved. (I’m still working out how to get to Hereford for a Monday evening, but I’m sure a way will be found.) My answer is broadly fivefold:
- It’s not quite as hard to get between Bath and Gloucester as people think, especially if you start from the north side of Bath. Not really any harder than getting to Gloucester from (say) southern parts of Bristol.
- Bath lacks the venues for major choral works. The Abbey isn’t quite large enough, the Forum is not designed as a concert hall, and Wells Cathedral has posed practical problems for choirs in recent years.
- No invidious comparisons of choirmasters/conductors, but since the demise of the Bath Festival Chorus a decade ago it’s got hard to find an opportunity to perform with outfits of the calibre of the Philharmonia round here, at least if you’re not in the Bath Camerata.
- I know several people who do more extreme musical commutes: from Cumbria to a choir based in Reading, or from western Wiltshire to London.
- the pull of the music was just too strong. It comprises:
- two works I adore singing, both of which I happen to have done recently
- a piece I sang as a student, but haven’t done since
- a piece I tried to sing a few years ago, but the programme was changed
- a piece I’ve hitherto spent my musical life avoiding
- a piece I don’t know at all