So we get to the end of 2023, and if it wasn’t one of the most vintage years it had some remarkable and unexpected highlights. And it included the 20th anniversary of this blog, which I’m afraid passed without comment from me. The 1000th post isn’t far off, either.
I thought I’d been saturated with foreign choir tours but then came along the performance of Gerontius in Rome with the Parliament Choir in April, which brought with it as a bonus my début in St John’s Smith Square.
I sang again in the 3 Choirs Festival Chorus, with a rather lighter workload of less standard works than last time but plenty to learn: my first performances of The Apostles, music by Francis Pott, Eleanor Alberga, Holst and most strikingly Vaughan Williams’ Sancta Civitas.
More first-time pieces came my way in performances with Gloucester Choral Society: Donald Swann’s Requiem for the Living and Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio. But I didn’t sing anything from my wishlist this year.
Cathedral visits were to St Edmundsbury, Gloucester and Canterbury with three different choirs, but I didn’t make any during the summer, for the first time in many years. My busiest time of the year was the autumn, especially October when amongst other things I sang on one day of the recording of Bristol Choral Society’s new CD.
I didn’t go to many performances given by others, but I did make it to a first night at the Royal Opera House and to two especially moving performances of Bach’s St John Passion and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
2024 doesn’t at the moment promise any outstanding events as yet, although plenty of good repertoire, but who knows what it will bring.