CONCENTUS CATCH-UP You will be pleased to hear that Concentus is alive and kicking! Although they have not yet met in person for rehearsals since shortly before Lockdown started, strenuous efforts have been made to keep the choir community in touch and functioning. Committee members have used great ingenuity, skill and a lot of hard work to support members in these strange times, keeping the friendly, caring spirit of the choir alive. At the start of Lockdown, a telephone cascade was initiated, so that every member was contacted several times ensuring support towards any help they might need and providing a friendly person to connect with. Right from the start of this period Adrian White, Musical Director, encouraged members by looking ahead with anticipation of lockdown affects eventually lessening. This involved setting out goals to aim for and providing structure to ensure the choir would be in good shape when circumstances allowed them to rehearse and perform together again. In March, Adrian embarked on a series of emailed newsletters, ‘Chorusing Weakly’ to keep members informed of general choir matters. Space was also included for people to describe what new things they were achieving in all that spare time! Unfortunately, choir engagements throughout the summer had to be cancelled including the choir’s biannual dinner, the Hippodrome concert with Paul Potts, Concentus’ two Summer concerts, the choir’s annual BBQ, and various singing engagements supporting local outside events. However Adrian refocused members sights in anticipating starting physical rehearsals again in September (should this be possible) and also devised the programme for the Christmas concerts. Luckily for all he always included some of his (in)famous jokes! Music for the Christmas concert pieces was sent by email to members, and Lou Soper (Assistant Musical Director) and Jo Fowler (Assistant Conductor) made, then posted/personally delivered the practice CDs to members, enabling them to start familiarising themselves with the music at home. Behind the scenes plans were afoot to develop a trial ‘pilot’ scheme to enable choir members to rehearse online! Jo (very conversant with all things digital) and Lou investigated the scope of Zoom and sent out joining instructions to members. They organised two online meetings to help members set-up
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the IT equipment, with several internet-savvy people providing online and telephone support in assisting Zoom beginners. Shortly afterwards, Concentus piloted bi-weekly ‘Zoom’ rehearsals, interspersed with bi-weekly ‘social’ meetings. Adrian kept members up-to-date each week on choir matters at the beginning of each Zoom meeting. Jo and Lou widened the scope of the Zoom pilot study in exploring the ability for the four voice range groups to split off into separate ‘rooms’ to rehearse before coming back together for combined singing, while their latest refinement has improved the delivery of the backing music enormously. The committee is now seeking funding opportunities to help expand the scheme to take these virtual singing sessions out into the community. The purpose is to encourage non choir members to explore the social, health, mental and well-being supportive benefits that can be gained in counteracting the negative experiences of loneliness and isolation that so many suffered due to the effects of Lockdown. This will encourage the wider community to try something new and experience the ‘feel-good’ factors that come from the joys of singing together, whilst remaining in the safety of their own homes with our IT and musical direction teams providing full supporting mechanisms behind them! Friendship groups within the choir have used phone and internet to remain in touch with each other and once groups were allowed to meet outside again, the varying ‘coffee groups’ then met in person; albeit in smaller numbers than usual and abiding with social distancing requirements! Adrian is working towards the choir being able to meet and rehearse safely before too long, so that Concentus is able to perform their Christmas music in some guise or another, or at least be able to sing outside to support local Christmas events. However as changing circumstances evolve, Adrian and the committee will strive to ensure that Concentus will return with increased energy and enthusiasm in taking their collective singing forward into the future! Watch out for further announcements about singing and community involvement developments on social media, in the press and of course on our website: www.concentus-sings.com.
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