- Join us online this spring for some glorious singing
-
Date Posted: Thu, 7 Jan 2021
This spring the choir are going to be singing Mozart's Coronation Mass, at our Thursday night online sessions. In the words of our MD, Harry Bradford, it is a wonderfully joyful piece, complete with a variety of exuberant vocal lines and musical textures. It's probably Mozart's most famous setting of the Mass, so why not come along to find out why?
We invite you to join us from wherever you are, starting on 14 January. Subject to lockdown rules we should have specially recorded learning tracks as well as professional soloists for the online concert on Thursday 25 March. Rehearsals are live online and include sectionals with Harry and our accompanist, Colin Spinks. Harry is now most accomplished at these sessions, having been doing them since last March, and makes them fun and interesting.
We shall also be singing Durante's Magnificat and Haydn's Te Deum.
The fee is £35 for rehearsals, tracks and concert. To register please mail info@nhgs.org.uk
- Christmas Charity Appeal
-
Date Posted: Tue, 1 Dec 2020
The North Herts Guild of Singers' Christmas appeal 2020 was Haven First (formerly Stevenage Haven and North Herts Sanctuary) which provides support for the homeless. Please follow the link for more information, and to make a donation
virginmoneygiving.com/fund/nhgsCarolConcert
- Keep Music at Benslow Alive
-
Date Posted: Fri, 4 Sep 2020
STILL KEEPING MUSIC AT BENSLOW ALIVE
The generous gift of a five-figure donation gave Peter Hewitt, Benslow's CEO, the confidence to believe that the £200,000 target would be reached sooner than expected. Writing in The Buzz, Benslow's newsletter, Peter said: "Thank you to everyone who has been so very supportive of our appeal... our gratitude to all who have donated small and larger amounts alike, sometimes several times over, knows no bounds."
However Peter stressed that they were not out of the woods and he was writing before the second lockdown in November when Benslow was again forced to close its doors to courses and concerts. With uncertaintly over restrictions in 2021, Benslow is still in financial difficulty and the appeal remains open.
To donate, search for Keep Music At Benslow Alive on JustGiving or click the link.
https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/KeepMusicAtBenslowAlive
- Requiems at Home
-
Date Posted: Fri, 10 Jul 2020
The Self Isolation Choir began during lockdown and rapidly built up a huge following of thousands of subscribers all over the world. We were very proud when our Music Director, Harry Bradford, was appointed as their Course Director for a new series of Requiems at Home including the Faure, Brahms, Verdi and Durufle Requiems, with a cathedral organ/piano backing and his own Recordare Chamber Choir.
Harry has been honing his online skills with our weekly choir sessions over the last few months and we can vouch for his skill and talent in this medium.
In January 2021 the Self Isolation Choir will start work on the Mozart Requiem under Ben England.
https://www.theselfisolationchoir.com/requiems-at-home
- NHGS meets online
-
Date Posted: Thu, 11 Jun 2020
The essence of a choir is to gather together to make music; to rehearse and to perform. Every Thursday the North Herts Guild of Singers rehearses, and we have a concert four times a year. We have not been able to do this since March. However, we are meeting together online, as many as 80 of us at a time.
Every Thursday evening we join Harry Bradford and Colin Spinks from our homes. During these sessions we have continued to work on music which should have formed part of our concert programme, such as Bach’s wonderful B minor Mass, scheduled for the spring of 2020, and the Rossini Petite Messe Solenelle which we had planned to perform in July. We have sung rounds to videos of ‘The Four Harrys’, and we always have a warm up, which no doubt attracts the curiosity of our neighbours on the warm evenings.
Other sessions have included an overview of sight reading and Colin’s ‘Debunking Choral Myths’, American choral music and close harmony, as well as some early music, the whole of Haydn's The Creation and of course lots of carols in December.
We are still making plans for our 2020/21 season, and look forward to seeing each other and our audiences before too long.
