At last – some eight months after I auditioned – the rehearsals for the Three Choirs Festival Chorus are starting. Easily the biggest single choral undertaking I’ve ever been involved in. I have cleared my diary, bashed as many notes as I can (and I have to learn an awful lot of them for the first time), pencilled in all the markings and am ready to go.
I’ll be reporting from time to time, but because I don’t report on how things are going overall, it will mostly start off by being about my experience of learning Dona Nobis Pacem, Carmina Burana, The Kingdom and Walton’s Festival Te Deum – and that of re-encountering Elijah after many years. Perhaps contrary to the experience of others in the choir, Mahler 8 and the Grande Messe des Morts will be light relief to me, as those are the pieces I already know.