This week I was all primed to go to two choir practices: over to Gloucester on Thursday for Gloucester Choral Society, and then the return of my church choir on Friday. Next week I was expecting to go to a rehearsal of Bristol Choral Society.
All of this has been put on hold because of the ruling of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. If you want to see anger and frustration on Twitter (more than there usually is there) just search on ‘@dcms’ and ‘choirs’ right now. Not only are the rules more restrictive than last autumn, but they were apparently announced as an afterthought, a day after other rules were generally relaxed and some time after choirs had to book rehearsal venues and make other preparations in the light of what we’d been led to expect would be possible.
For myself, I had mixed feelings about returning to sing. As explained in the previous post, I’m reluctant to sing wearing a mask, which two of the choirs required, and I also want to feel confident that all around me are respecting whatever rules have been imposed. And there were no plans to sing the large-scale repertoire that I’ve really been missing. But I’d been within touching distance of choir rehearsals and they have now retreated out of reach. A particular annoyance is that not far away in Wales it is possible for up to 30 to rehearse together.
The online discussion shows up some curious views, as it always does. Someone confidently asserts that ‘most choirs are fully vaccinated’. Do they really think that only the over-60s sing in choirs? Because people younger than that will probably only have had one jab, and those under 40 none (or had one so recently that it will not have taken effect). Bristol Choral Society at least has many in its ranks (I’m happy to say) who are too young to have been vaccinated.