The NORTH CAMDEN CHORUS is an amateur choir in the true sense:
we sing for pleasure. We have rehearsals on Tuesday at 7.30pm
during two or three terms
each year.
Membership of the choir is open to anyone with or without choral experience. We aim for high standards, and of course strong singers are always valued — but you don't have to be able to read music, and there are no auditions (if you're not sure whether you are a soprano or alto, just ask our director to make the call). Students are particularly welcome.
We've started our Spring 2010
session with a rehearsal on Tuesday 19th January. You can
still join us if you come along on the
26th January or 2nd February: but meantime contact us to join our mailing list and get
a reminder sent to you.
Our choir is friendly. Our musical director is
Ian Gibson. But we remain true to the philosophy of our
former director Neil Bowman, who instructed us:
If you can make your mistakes loud enough, you'll
get better...
We learn each piece of music thoroughly. Sectional rehearsals (you never have to sing on your own) help you to learn the music one part at a time; then we come together as a full choir to put it together.
We sing a rather eclectic mix of classical
music —
as you might see from a
list of past Concerts. We do
a short summer season of less-classical pieces.
We're based in North London. We meet at William Ellis School, which is on Highgate Road, London NW5 1RN (click for map), between Kentish Town and Highgate (Tufnell Park is the nearest tube).
Or get a map from google. On foot or by car, come in through the school entrance opposite Croftdown Road. Follow the drive up until the school main entrance is on your right. Go in, turn right and immediately up the stairs. On the first floor you'll find the school hall in front of you, and that's where we'll meet.
If you come by car there is parking in front of the school and by turning right from the entrance drive, just before the school buildings. There's also parking available on Croftdown Road (opposite) and other local roads.
We moved in early 2009 from Parliament Hill School, where we met for many years — William Ellis' site adjoins Parliament Hill School's, to the north. We're grateful that William Ellis are so helpful to a community (rather than a school) organisation.
Just turn up at William Ellis school on one of the first three Tuesdays of any rehearsal period: please contact us to be put on our email reminder list for next term.
Before you come to rehearsal please download, print and complete a registration form. Filling in the form in advance saves time and shortens queues.
We meet to rehearse on Tuesdays from 7.30-9.15pm. But we start at 7pm on the first week of a new program to allow time to pay your fees and get your music.
There is a per-term subscription: for 2010's spring term it will
be £30 for non-student members (free to full-time
students). Bring cash or your cheque payable to North Camden
Chorus
.
Bring a pencil and eraser so you can make notes on the score.
Rehearsals will be on Tuesdays starting on the 19th January and running until Tuesday 23rd March (except for 16th February which is half-term week.) Since the concert itself is after the Easter break, we'll have two pre-concert rehearsals on Tuesday 20th and Thursday 22nd April.
We're singing Brahms' Requiem in an English translation. We'll use a Novello edition.
We'll perform our pieces in a concert at All Hallows Church, Savernake Road, London NW3 2JP to be held at 7.30pm on Saturday 24th April 2010.
We put on two public performances a year, at the end of our spring and autumn terms, usually accompanied by a small orchestra. The evenings are informal and great fun but it's real music done well. We often mix the choral pieces with performances from local students, and end the evening with food and drink.
In addition to our two major concerts we have a social evening in the summer where we eat, drink and do some singing. Many choir members take part in an annual evening of carol singing in Hampstead, raising money for the children's Christmas party at the Royal Free Hospital.
You can see and marvel at all we've sung in the last many years.
Ian Gibson has been our musical director since 2006, and was our
accompanist and occasional conductor for the previous decade.
Ian's interest in singing began as a chorister at the Parish Church Choir in Enfield. He was educated at the Latymer School and was a Junior Exhibitioner at the Royal Academy of Music. Ian studied music at St Catharine's College, Cambridge where he was President of the College Music Society and a Choral Exhibitioner. Here, he conducted the College Orchestra and was soloist in Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto.
Ian is Assistant Director of Music and a Year Head at University College School, Hampstead where he conducts the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. He is also Director of Camjam, a Saturday morning music centre run by Camden LEA.
Ian plays in the Enfield Chamber Orchestra and aside from his musical interests enjoys foreign travel, watching football and playing tennis.
Mark Denza is our regular rehearsal pianist and section director (which seriously understates his remarkably wide range of musical skills).
Philip Godfrey is well-known to us as a stand-in pianist and section director, and the composer of one of our Autumn 2009 pieces.
The North Camden Chorus was formed around 1978 to allow parents and students of William Ellis and Parliament Hill Schools to perform major choral works. We're less connected with the schools these days and don't have many school-age members, but local school students still perform solos in our concerts.
The choir has benefitted from a sudden surge of interest in choral singing (TV programmes may have helped) and we have 110 members registered this term. We have an age range from under twenty to over seventy (we're pleased to have many more younger singers than a couple of years ago).
Previous conductors have included Colin Durrant, John Madden and Neil Bowman. Soloists have included Andrew Carwood, Mark Wilde and Michael Palin!
Call or email our secretary on 020 7226 0032 or email us. Or you could join our facebook group, which is also called "North Camden Chorus".
Download the Brahms: I'm not able to recommend anything sung in
English (there are two US recordings in English, but using
different translations to ours, expensive, and hard to find).
Once you decide it will be in German, ClassicsOnline have
many choices, but I'll vaguely recommend two classic recordings
both at £4.99: one is by the Berlin
Philharmonic (1955) with Rudolf Kempe and Ditrich
Fischer-Dieskau, the other is the Vienna
Philharmonic (1947) conducted by Herbert von Karajan with
Elisabeth Scwarzkopf. For a more modern recording you might go
for Simon
Rattle/Berlin Philharmonic, £7.99.
No doubt there are many versions on itunes, and
lots of CDs.
"MIDI" is a music format which stores a sequence of timed piano keystrokes, and can be played back through a computer-synthesised instrument: standard Windows computers can play these files. With a suitable keyboard and computer a good sight-reading pianist can enter all four vocal parts for a piece: then tweak them into versions where one part plays alone or much louder than the others. These can be useful learning aids.
For Brahms' German Requiem there's a set of free MIDI files for the voice parts from the Royal Free Music Society. You can play part online (but not download the files) from Cyberbass.
Local choir the Royal Free Music
Society has an excellent web site with help for singers.
I particularly like the look of their music guide
aimed at beginner and less-experienced singers.
Finchley Chamber
Choir: regular concerts in Trinity Church, North Finchley,
N12 7NN with this smaller and more expert choir. A good
local place to hear choral repertoire.
music&friends
run choir festivals and international meetings.
RunBySingers set up
musical holidays, which always sound very tempting.
The London Sangerstevner
is a series of choral festivals.
Small Choirs
Website claims 200+ free pieces of music for church choirs,
and occasional festivals.
Philip Norman Music Services
do a lot of internet/email promotion of amateur music events
— several of the above are from them.
Marije Rommes runs
individual and join-in group singing courses.
The IMSLP / Petrucci
Music Library is an excellent place to find free downloadable
music scores.
Debora Collister runs a singing group every Wednesday 7pm-8.30pm at Kings Cross Baptist Church, Vernon Square, London WC1X (close to Kings Cross Station). To book call Debora on 07985-439-657.
A "webring" which links different, related pages. Follow "hub", "next" or
"random" below to find other sites:
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Website built and maintained by choir member Dominic Sweetman. Thanks to Ralf Bächle for hosting us for free.
