VHK's singing

Gradually the lockdown is thawing, churches are opening and organs being played. The jury is still out on the dangers of singing but outdoor performances by professionals are permitted in certain circumstances. Possibly similar criteria will be applied in due course to indoor performances. But who counts as professional? I see a spectrum rather than a sharp dividing line, but the following would all seem to qualify:

• salaried lay clerks in Cathedral choirs
• freelance deps paid by the service to sing Cathedral services
• freelance paid singers in churches such as those in London and some in Oxford
• parish church singers paid to sing at a wedding

The business model of amateur concert-giving choirs doesn’t allow for paying them. And the same parish church singers singing for nothing at a service in their church don’t qualify either. But what if the church pays them a nominal sum, say £1 per singer? As I wrote below, how does Covid-19 know when you are being paid to open your mouth, and how much?

[The following is the text of a letter to my MP, Wera Hobhouse. It is mostly my own words, though I have used some wording that was suggested to me by a choir I sing in. I have lightly edited it to remove a personal name but local people will be able to reconstruct it.]

Dear Ms Hobhouse,

A letter was recently printed in the Guardian highlighting the great damage that the current emergency is doing to choral music in the UK. The letter is signed by some of the most distinguished names in British choral music, several of whom I have had the privilege of singing for.  They include a resident of Bath who is director of a local choir.

Your native country sets a high value on musical culture, and the German government is making a special effort to help classical music ensembles survive lockdown.  To date I have not seen anything like the same commitment from the government of the UK.  The department for ‘Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’ in practice does not pay much attention to culture compared with the other three parts of its remit.

Britain has a world-class tradition of choral singing by both professionals and amateurs, built up over centuries.  Not for nothing is our oldest music festival (founded in 1715) called the ‘Three Choirs’.  Large numbers of people of all ages and backgrounds participate.  As well as singing in Bath I travel to Gloucester and Bristol each week during the concert season, and to Reading some 10 times a year, in order to sing in the choirs which are right for me.  This level of commitment is not exceptional.

Bath as you know had a flourishing choral scene prior to lockdown, with enough singers and audience members to support many choirs.  The centrepiece of the International Festival and the Mozartfest, which bring large numbers of visitors to stay here, is usually a choral concert in Bath Abbey. Indeed, one aim of the Abbey’s Footprint project is to make it easier to stage large-scale concerts there with choir and orchestra.  

The longer the cesssation of choral singing lasts, the harder it will be to restart it, because of financial losses and lack of continuity in choir membership.  Audiences thereafter are likely to be smaller because of social distancing measures and lack of confidence among potential audience members. There is a real risk that many musical ensembles will cease to exist, and with them the livelihoods of professional musicians, many of whom rely on conducting, accompanying or playing for amateur choirs for much of their income.  The wider effects of this loss are far-reaching: less money coming into our city from visitors attending concerts, damage to the morale and even the mental well-being of singers, and an impoverishment of our national cultural life.  The reinstatement of public singing as soon as it is safe to do so should be considered therefore as a matter of urgency, no less than re-opening pubs and resuming sporting fixtures.

I understand that there is to be a British scientific study of the likelihood of transmitting COVID-19 by singing.  This is good, as the evidence about this to date has been essentially anecdotal rather than scientific. There is also currently talk of permitting public vocal performance by professional singers but not by amateurs.  There is no medical rationale behind this as COVID-19 cannot tell when you open your mouth whether you are being paid to do so.  

I would be  grateful if you, as my constituency MP, would press the Department for Digital, Culture Media, and Sport, along with the Department of Health and Social Care, to

• consult widely with senior members of the music profession (such as the signatories to the letter mentioned above)
• urgently issue guidance to choirs and choral groups of when and how they may safely resume activities
• when it is safe to give choral concerts, make it clear to the general population that they may attend them without undue risk to themselves

Yours etc.

[This was almost immediately overtaken by events as the day after I sent it over £1 billion was pledged by the Government to support cultural venues. However the points about scientific research into the risk of singing, and about convincing the public to return to concerts, remain.]

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and I have been thinking about how mental health issues can play out in choirs (under normal circumstances). Not so much mental health benefits to choir members in general, but to what extent choirs can include the mentally ill without serious disruption.

Years ago I was in a choir with someone who was said to have a bipolar condition and who frequently criticised other sections in the choir (and by implication their individual members) out of the hearing of the conductor. This didn’t actually harm the choir’s performances, though it may have driven away some singers over the years. I didn’t feel able to send any friends to dep in the choir, as I wanted them to stay my friends!

In the same choir there was another singer with a drink problem, who was thrown out when it became too apparent in rehearsal. The first singer was critical of this decision, as (perhaps because of the part the choir played in their own life) they felt the other was only more likely to turn to drink without choir to hold them together.

I don’t know what I’d have done about these two if I’d been in charge of the choir. There is some sort of balance to be struck between artistic standards, social benefits for all and therapy for some. It was relevant in this case that there were teenagers (and younger!) in the choir. And it was large enough that the first singer couldn’t do too much harm, especially as no one else seemed to share their often-expressed views, so their behaviour was tolerated. You just had to develop a thick skin.

Turning to the present, the theme of the week this year is ‘kindness’. Somehow I feel things have gone badly wrong if we need to state the obvious in this way. Surely all members of a choir should feel welcome and wanted? Choir committees, which I wrote about recently, have a part to play, and I think much that I wrote here, in regard to the workplace, also applies in a choral context.