Hi everyone Thanks for another brilliant session this week with great attendance. Keep up the good work! If you didn’t make it, here’s what we covered: We Wish You a Merry Christmas: this has some pesky areas, but I was pleased that we covered it all in the allotted time. Some more home practice will really embed this. Christmas Calypso: this is all done really, bar the last couple of bars. Joyful Joyful: sounding gorgeous. I absolutely LOVE this song and wish we could sing it all year round – which technically we could because it’s not really a Christmas song… Wonderful Christmastime: a bit sketchy because we skipped a week on it. Next week it’s all the old Christmas faves: Santa Claus in coming to town, Winter Wonderland and all the other stuff on your booklet. Interesting to hear that now the tenors are in the middle they are struggling to keep their harmonies clear! But they were missing several members this week so that didn’t help. Perhaps we’ll put the sops in the middle next week and see how that works out. Surely if anyone can hold their own, those divas can?! See you then xxx |
Hallo Vocallective Friends! Thanks for your interest in our choir. We had to let you know that our Summer Showcase tickets are now on sale. "Viva Vocallective!" is taking place on Friday 5th July at 7pm. The venue is the Westwood Theatre at Sydenham High School. It's a fantastic 150 seater - a far cry from our showcase two years ago at the Corbett Library, and a step up from our Catford Studio Theatre show last year. We are really excited to be producing the show ourselves. It's our first chance to inject some real creativity in terms of lighting, design and choreography to really make the repertoire sing! We have two guest performers to open the show: an emotive folk singer by the name of Leah Blakelock and a young singer-songwriter called Lila Harrison. Our Catford Fringe Show sold out last year and many were disappointed. Book your tickets now to avoid being turned away: theatre policy means that no tickets can be sold on the door. Online bookings only! Follow the link below. Viva Vocallective! Celebrate Summer with Vocallective and Special Guests We look forward to seeing you. Help us celebrate eight glorious years of friendship, diversity and inclusion wrapped up in song! |
This term has been incredibly busy! What with my new "day" job with Hummy Mummies (where I'm thrilled to have nearly 60 members across the branches), 50% growth in my local day choir "Vocalise" and 15 new members at Vocallective, I've barely had time to catch my breath! Thank goodness half term is here to give me a chance to catch up with everything. The most exciting thing about the next half term is that Vocallective are producing our first Choirfest. Our first experience of this was a few years ago when I got chatting to a member of the East Dulwich choir, Note-Orious, in a cafe. He told me that a few local choirs were getting together to sing for each other and raise money for charity, hosted by Note-Orious. They were kind enough to let us join in and we had a great night. Two more choirfests of a similar nature followed, but we didn't feel we were ready to be the hosts of one. Were there any suitable venues in our neck of the woods? Who would do all the organising when we were a non-committee choir? It felt too "big" and we forgot about it for a while. Eventually we got a stage where I was able to ask founder members Pippa Philips and Jana Smith to look after events and admin respectively, and it wasn't long before Pippa brought up the idea of a choir fest. We thought about it for a while and then decided on a date. We booked a local church as a venue as this had always worked well for similar events we'd been part of. Then a few choir members and myself went to see the all-female choir Lips sing their tribute to Amy Winehouse at the Amersham Arms in New Cross. It was brilliant, and the idea occurred to me that THIS was the place for a choirfest! I wanted a bit of an "edge" to the proceedings and this place was perfect for it. We let the other venue go and it was full steam ahead. Thanks to the incredible work of Pippa (who I shall be calling "Tenacious P" from now on!), her husband Phil and the fantastic marketing talents of Jana, we're virtually ready with a few weeks to go. The mix of choirs we have curated will be so entertaining: Take Note, the Kender Grove Singers, Felix's Rock Choir, Telegraph Hill Community Choir and Tongue and Groove. Each is unique with their own particular brand of musicianship. We're really excited! With tickets at £2 each it is a bargain and profits are going to Tommy's, a charity very close to many of our hearts. I hope to see you there. It's going to be quite a night! |
Yes - still catching up! I shot some vox pops at the end of the summer term and pledged to turn them into some sort of promo. I finally got round to it in September and really enjoyed doing it (even though I'm not very competent and it took hours!) I recently realised I'd shared it in a few places, but not here. So here it is! I think it says a lot about who we are, what we do and how much we love it. x | |
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Hi everyone! Week 2 was a storming session – what a huge sound! Loving it. And yet another newbie in the form of Sian, who will singing tenor – welcome Sian! Absentees – we got all the way to the end of Survivor and it’s in very good shape already. We’re slightly ahead of schedule, which is brilliant. This coming week we will be revisiting Cough Cough as well as honing Survivor, so please revise accordingly. In fact I will very likely take some sectionals so the newbies can join in with their harmony mates before throwing you all together. So newbies – the more you familiarise yourselves with it the better...it is challenging in parts but once you get used to it, it’s rather fun. I like to call it our “Bohemian Rhapsody”! SING OUT LEWISHAM Our festival has grown. We now have SIX choirs performing and will be joined by Tongue and Groove, Kender Grove Singers, Take Note, Felix’s Rock Choir and Telegraph Community Choir. Big thanks to Pippa for all her work thus far. It’s going to be quite a night! We have two events (Ideal Home Show also) in the diary for this term, but we are actually much more in demand than that. So far this term I’ve had to turn down several gigs because they clashed or were simply too early in the term to do us justice. Beckenham Place Open Day, Lewisham Remembrance Day at the Broadway Theatre, and the Cake&Bake Show at ExCel so far. This week I was also approached by Rosamund at the Ella Roberta Foundation https://www.justgiving.com/ellaroberta-familyfoundation who are holding a fundraising concert that clashes with our Ideal Home Show. It’s such a shame as it’s a local charity led by the mother of a 9yr old girl who died of asthma five years ago. Rosamund has led an amazing campaign for research into air pollution and it’s effects. The Guardian wrote a piece about her work last week. She was lovely about me saying no, but asked if I would get you all to sign her petitionht for a new inquest into her daughter’s death. They are trying to get 200k signatures. That’s it till Tuesday. Look forward to seeing you all! Have a great weekend xx |
Hi everyone! Well what a magnificent start to the term – we couldn’t have asked for more. First of all I’d like to say another warm welcome to all our newbies: Irene, Lin, Vanessa, Sem, Davinia, Jacey, Charlotte, Kay and Maggie and welcome back to our lovely “returners” Annie, Fiona, Hope and Catherine. As you can see there’s a distinct of lack of testosterone in that line up..! We are about to start a little social media campaign targeting men, which has been long overdue but brought into focus due to the sad departure (due to a house move) of Chris Crawford – a baritone who had been with the choir for nearly five years. We’re going to miss him (although he can now watch guilt free footie on Tuesday nights). If you know any men who could be persuaded to come and try us out please get them in! We will also send the flyer out so you can splash it across your social media. So back to this week. We had a lively warm up and settled the newbies into their correct harmony groups, then we managed to get more than halfway through Survivor which was great. Here’s a little clip of that: https://twitter.com/VocallectiveLDN/status/1042368263387324416 SING OUT LEWISHAM – NOV 10th We will be performing four songs: Survivor, Love The One You’re With, Days and Cough Cough. Please don’t wait until the day before we start re-rehearsing them to revise the two songs from last year’s rep! Newbies – I’m going to email you separately about this, but you have now been added to the harmony lines of all the songs except Days, which isn’t quite finished yet. HUMMY MUMMIES On a different “note”, I had my first proper week as a Hummy Mummy leader this week and, though it’s been exhausting sorting out my new schedule, I am loving it! If you know any mums of young children/toddlers who love singing and live in SE London, then do point them in the direction of our website www.hummymummies.com. Here’s a little clip of one of my classes this week, singing “Torn” - so sweet! https://youtu.be/ALJiEcCgS1E Have an amazing weekend and I’ll see you next week! xx | |
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Yes, finally I've had the call from Richard Curtis and Phyllida Lloyd. They're making a movie about us, using our songs to turn it into a musical! OK, you've rumbled me - that was just bants. Well it's been on my list all summer and this weekend I finally got round to making a little promo. I'm not well versed in iMovie, so I was really proud to have done this all by myself! Hope you like it - I shall be grabbing more vox pops so I can keep swapping and updating. Thanks to everyone for their contributions! Send the link far and wide! xx | |
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5 Reasons Why You Should Join A Choir TodayThanks to choirplayer.com for this great article!Are you a shower crooner with a secret desire to sing in public? Maybe there’s a community choir in your area and you’re toying with the idea of joining? Or perhaps you’d love to sing but were always told you don’t have a voice? Here we offer five good reasons why taking the plunge might be the best thing you ever did.
So, what are you waiting for? |
SUMMER WORKSHOP Well, what a blast we had on Tuesday night! The brief for this year's workshop was "perfection". We chose two contrasting songs at an intermediate level of difficulty: Joyful, Joyful - a gospel arrangement of Beethoven's iconic composition and Iqude, a traditional Zulu women's work song. Numbers were kept small in order for the singers to work more closely with each other. Then everyone learned their parts thoroughly in advance to enable us to spend most of our time working in detail on expression, performance and dynamics. We only spent two and half hours together (with plenty of space for a chat and a giggle) but we still produced two fantastic stand alone pieces of work, with a little choreography thrown in for good measure. I think it's true to say we were all thoroughly pleased with the results! Check out the links above to see video clips. It's a little early to be thinking about content for next year's session but I must admit I'm already looking forward to it. I can't help it, I'm a self confessed choir boffin... | |
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For more information, see: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3tNqRBZwFI |
Following the success of our Open Night in July where we sang songs by the Jackson Five and Destiny's Child whilst quaffing Pimms, it seemed rude not to do something similar at the start of the new Autumn term! So I'm happy to announce that on Tuesday 11th September at 8pm there will be a Taster Night for all those who didn't make it last time, and of course all the other fresh newbies who want to sample the delights of Vocallective. It's a chance to for you mingle with regular members, find out more about membership and (of course) SING! It's the perfect opportunity to get a feel for the way we work. Then if you want to join us (and I'm sure you will!) you can do so at the start of the term the following week. This is a crucial time to join the choir as we will be approaching the limit of our membership numbers very soon. Miss out and you may end up on the waiting list! Book your place here for the Taster Night. If you're not available that night, you can book a regular taster session after term starts (providing there are still spaces to be filled in the choir). Book a regular taster here. This is the one of our favourite times of the year - it's so much fun sharing what we do with new people. We look forward to meeting you all! |
Following the success of our Open Night in July where we sang songs by the Jackson Five and Destiny's Child whilst quaffing Pimms, it seemed rude not to do something similar at the start of the new Autumn term! So I'm happy to announce that on Tuesday 11th September at 8pm there will be a Taster Night for all those who didn't make it last time, and of course all the other fresh newbies who want to sample the delights of Vocallective. It's a chance to for you mingle with regular members, find out more about membership and (of course) SING! It's the perfect opportunity to get a feel for the way we work. Then if you want to join us (and I'm sure you will!) you can do so at the start of the term the following week. This is a crucial time to join the choir as we will be approaching the limit of our membership numbers very soon. Miss out and you may end up on the waiting list! Book your place here for the Taster Night. If you're not available that night, you can book a regular taster session after term starts (providing there are still spaces to be filled in the choir). Book a regular taster here. This is the one of our favourite times of the year - it's so much fun sharing what we do with new people. We look forward to meeting you all! |
I am thrilled and excited to announce that, in addition to the work I love at Vocallective, I am joining the Hummy Mummies! What is Hummy Mummies? Read on: Love singing? Tired of endless rounds of ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’? Hummy Mummies is the modern, daytime choir for mums and carers of young children where you can let your little ones play while YOU sing, without being glared at if they make a noise. No audition needed, just a sense of fun, enthusiasm and willingness to get involved. Hummy Mummies has been established in East Dulwich, Peckham, Brockley for several years and I've been handed that baton, but I'm also bringing it to Catford! It's taking place at Abbotshall Healthy Living Centre, Abbotshall Rd SE6 on Wednesdays from 10-11am from 18th September. So if you're a mum who could do with some singing "therapy" then go to the HM website and join the mailing list to get all the updates - such as details of the special introductory session I'll be running in September. Or you can email me on selondon@hummymummies.com Check out the video - so cute! xx | |
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For more information, see: | hummymummies.com |
Many thanks to Sarah Williams -sarahlwi11iams on instragram for this great pic of the gig at Beckenham last month! |
For the fifth year running Vocallective sang at the Annual War Memorial service today. Although it can be hard to perform in the sweltering weather, it's an honour to be asked back every year and we really enjoy the chance to sing something in complete contrast to our usual repertoire. This year we performed the choral piece "In Flanders Fields" and a medley of "Pack Up Your Troubles/Tipperary". We also lead the hymns (songs that many of the choir hadn't sung since they were children - it's amazing how it all comes flooding back). Having said that, Guide Me O Though Great Redeemer was an easy rendition for the footie fans! |
As a little treat for all our hard work this year, I booked the wonderful percussionist Rob Davis to come and lead a drumming workshop at this week's session. We got stuck right in with traditional hand drums and tambourines as well as recycled broom handles and pool supply tubs (who knew?). It felt great to make lots of noise and sounded so cool. So much fun! A great way to focus on rhythm without having to think about lyrics and melodies too! |
You are cordially invited to:
The Vocallective Open Night! 3rd July, 8-9.30pm at Seniors, 260 Stanstead Rd, SE23 1DD For the first time, we'll be hosting an Open Night! Join Vocallective for a free informal singing session, full of the joy of the choir... ninety minutes of fun songs and, if our usual sessions are anything to go by, plenty of laughs. You'll even get a snifter of Pimms to whet your musical whistle...! It's the perfect way to sample what a great team we are. Come on your own, with a friend, your mum or anyone who may be curious about the Vocallective choir experience (or fancies a cheeky yodel themselves). Spaces are limited to 15, so book yourself a place here or just turn up on the day (but bear in mind we had to turn people away from our sold out show at the Broadway Theatre last month)! We can't wait to meet you... |
Well it's safe to say that we're just a teensy bit excited about the show tomorrow. We've had to beg the theatre manager to squeeze some extra seats in to the auditorium, but as they can only give us five we've had to turn some people away! Such a shame, but they can catch us at the Beckenham Place Park Flower Show on the 23rd! https://www.beckenhamplace.org/event/beckenham-place-park-flower-show/ | |
For more information, see: | www.catfordfringefestival.co.uk |
Hi guys Here's the show's programme - front you can see here, the back is attached. Please let me know if there are any problems. I have only included the names of those of you who are actually performing, rather than the whole choir. Speak tomorrow x | |||
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Oh yes, things are really hotting up at rehearsals now! Costume decisions made, choreography and concepts being finalised and songs being tweaked here there and everywhere! No lyric sheets are allowed from next week (gulp) so it's about learning those "lines" for the final time! Super strict rehearsals are need now to get the best out of our performance, but it's all for the greater good: A SHOW TO REMEMBER!! | |||
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This was the best thing about the wedding! The last handsome bearded man on the right at the back is Mark De Lisser, who wrote the Could it be Magic arrangement we did and I did a gospel workshop with him a few years ago which inspired I’m Going All The Way. The dynamics are sublime. He arranged this too. Simple but gorgeous. https://twitter.com/skynews/status/997803590990249985?s=12 | |
For more information, see: | https://twitter.com/skynews/status/997803590990249985?s=1 |
Thrilled to launch the choir's new flyers for 2018. Designed by our very own Sensational Sop - Jana Smith!! We needed a fresh new look and this fits the bill perfectly. Everyone looks fab, but if you're not featured, don't worry...lots of new photos will be added to the site very soon. Thanks again Jana, you're a star xx |
SPRING TERM 9TH JANUARY-27th March And what better New Year's Resolution than to give yourself all the benefits joining this choir can give you?
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