Treasurer’s Report – Brad Poulson

This Report, which was due to be given at the AGM, can be seen by following this link: BDCS Treasurer's Report 2020

Membership Subscriptions 2020/2021

Although no new members will be enrolled at the moment, we hope that as many as possible of our current members will be with us in our determination to resume singing.

Because we will not be able to carry out our previously planned programme, the Committee has decided that for the time being there will be no Membership subscription and the current costs will be covered by our reserves. Clearly, this will be subject to review as circumstances change.

Appointment of Examiners

David Morgan will continue as an examiner. Very sadly, Pam Brooks, a member of the Choir for very many years, died in September 2019. Huw Cadwallader has been appointed to become an examiner in her place.

Pam Brooks was born into an RAF family in 1948, travelling widely as a child and thereby acquiring a number of foreign languages. She trained as a nurse in London and also gained a degree in history and politics. She learned to fly planes and helicopters and also trained as an accountant. She had to retire early from her teaching job when, aged just 45, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She was a committed member of the Choir for very many years, as well as being an Examiner of our accounts. She immersed herself in many aspects of village life in Cotgrave - the Church, the Ladies’ Fellowship, the Advice Centre, school lunches and the British Legion (often as a flag bearer). She was an avid reader and story-teller. When she was no longer able to drive herself, Ziad would bring her to rehearsals and to the Church. She became very ill in June 2019 but, after seeming briefly to recover, died in QMC in September 2019.

Pam was always a very friendly and warm person whose presence was a great asset to the Choir. Despite her illness and disability, she was never heard to complain or show any self-pity. She set a wonderful example and is sorely missed.

(Thank you to her friend, Anne Toombs, for providing the biographical details)

Read the Music Director’s Report

Usually this report would appear spoken at the AGM and then in print in the Annual Newsletter. This year – along with many other things – it is a bit different.

But the first part of it is normal – a look back on our achievements before life went crazy.

It seems an age ago, but the 2019 summer concert needs an enthusiastic mention. You will remember we did a selection of folk songs in a St Mary's Newark lunchtime concert. It is great to take part in these - it is our second time, and Stephen Bullamore always makes us very welcome. And of course these performances cost us nothing, which added to the pleasure.

This was of course our last concert with Ed Turner as accompanist. Michael has become so much part of the furniture – in the nicest possible way – that it seems odd that Ed was still with us only just over a year ago.

It was an enjoyable programme, well performed, though members' opinions varied about the inclusion of the African pieces from Alex Lestrange's Zimbe
Then came the autumn concert entitled Joyful Baroque, which was excellent. The soloists were all regulars – Ellie Martin, singing with us for the first time, though we know her well as a conductor, and then our former bursary winner, Emily Hodkinson; and Matthew Keighley and Stephen Cooper both making their third appearance with us.

The programme was quite special to me, because the Buxtehude Magnificat and the Purcell Ode were both in the first concert I conducted in Cambridge – indeed the Buxtehude was the first piece in that concert. The Vivaldi as always, was a joy, but of particular interest to me was Handel's O Praise the Lord with One Consent. I have had a copy of this for forty years but never looked at it or even heard it. But because it has exactly the same orchestra as the rest of our programme, I had a look – and it was a really good piece. The choir acquitted itself very well in this lovely programme, and we were once again lucky to have such able and friendly players in the orchestra fixed by Juliet Ward.

As always the Christmas concert was great fun to rehearse and to perform, and it was good to have my friend Ben Mills playing the organ.

Then of course we made a great start on the Brahms Requiem and Schicksalslied and were well on the way to having them ready for an excellent concert when Covid struck. I hope that once we are out of this Mansfield will be able to reschedule that concert and our ten weeks of hard work will not be wasted. But of course at this stage we do not know when choral concerts will be possible again – and even when they are there will be a glut of people needing the Minster and only so many Saturdays, so we will just have to see what happens. Similarly we were due to perform a joint concert with Southwell Choral, initially planned to be the B Minor Mass, but then changed to the Verdi Requiem, and then cancelled. again. What will happen about rescheduling that I do not know – though Southwell performs every term in the Minster and have advance bookings made, so they should find it easier to reschedule.

So of course the future is very uncertain, and we must keep our fingers crossed for the development of treatment and a vaccine, and indeed for adequate research into the risks of passing the virus through singing.

I had been very fired up by the idea of working together towards a Christmas CD recording, and it will be great if we can find a venue willing to house us at some point. The idea was to programme about ten choir carols with pianos, and another five with brass, with the brass groups providing two or three pieces as well. It would have been a good experience and a good Christmas present, and who knows, we might be able to put the plan in place one day, and possibly sooner than actual concerts will be possible.

I have really enjoyed working on BBC Bingham, and am looking forward to creating more 'programmes' in the future. It would be great to get feedback about things you have particularly enjoyed, and also any ideas for things you would like to see done – serious or just entertaining. We will need ideas from September.

Our Jubilee Prom Concert, which you have heard a lot about in 'BBC Bingham' is scheduled for November 2021, and we hope that by then concerts will be possible again.

The programme for that will include Elgar's The Music Makers and my Folk Song Sequence, as well as a plethora of short pieces by Bainton, Handel, Bizet, Bernstein, Elgar, and Parry etc. With us and Mansfield and the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra, that is very much something to look forward to.

Meanwhile we will be having distance learning sessions on my Folk Song Sequence, to look forward to. This will be launched through BBC Bingham on August 5th and Brad, Michael and I have been working on the content for this, with help from some singer friends, including Ellie Martin. You will have materials to help you learn my Folk Song Sequence at home – it is not especially hard – and also some of the smaller pieces for the Jubilee concert. That way we will be working towards something tangible.

As always I would like to express my thanks to the choir's very efficient committee and programme committee, and of course to Michael as our excellent accompanist.

It has been a very strange time, but the albeit virtual community of Bingham Choral has been an important part of my staying sane during lock down.

Watch Guy's report on You Tube >>

The Committee

All current members of the Committee have agreed to continue in their existing roles for the time being: Chair: Richard Joyner; Vice Chair: Sally Ashton; Treasurer: Brad Poulson; Secretary: Val Morgan; Programme Chair: Peter Iley; Librarian: Margot Anderson; Publicity: Judy Unell; Box Office: Tim Connery; Membership: Janet Chapman; Fundraising: John Bannister; Ordinary Members: Beryl Cottrill, Juliet Ward and Tina Warrington.

Concert Reviews

16th November 2019 – Joyful Baroque

Our autumn concert took place in St Mary Magdalene Church, Newark. Guy Turner conducted, and the choir was well-supported by soloists Ellie Martin (soprano), Emily Hodkinson (mezzo-soprano), Matthew Keighley (tenor), and Stephen Cooper (baritone) – all familiar to us. The orchestra, led by David Wood, was the Bingham Chamber Orchestra, ‘fixed’ by Juliet Ward. Our new accompanist, the well-known organist Michael Overbury, played continuo on his own beautiful harpsichord.

On this occasion we sang four Baroque pieces: the less known but captivating Magnificat attributed to Buxtehude; Purcell’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day: Welcome to all the Pleasures; Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Handel’s Chandos Anthem no.6: O Praise the Lord with one Consent. Although the audience was perhaps smaller than for some previous concerts, the choir sang these enjoyable and uplifting pieces with warmth and gusto, responding to Guy’s sensitive conducting - in spite of his difficulties in rehearsal with some mismatched scores. The orchestra did full justice to Purcell’s short but delightful Chaconne in G Minor.

14th December 2019 – Christmas Concert

Slightly fewer tickets were sold this year than in 2018, but this could be partly attributed to the smaller size of Carnarvon School Choir – 30 instead of 40 children. With Guy as conductor, we were joined by Bingham Brass, led by Colin Smith, and organist Ben Mills, Choral Scholar at Southwell Minster.

As usual, this traditional and joyous event began with Once in Royal David’s City. This was followed by older and more modern carols sung by the choir, items by the children and some strong congregational singing of O Little Town of Bethlehem; Unto Us is Born a Son; and Hark the Herald. Ben’s solo was well appreciated, and towards the end the children joined us for a joyous rendering of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Congregation, choirs and brass joined together for the final O Come All Ye Faithful.

People gave generously to the collection at the end for Framework and the Alzheimer’s Society, and this was followed by wine and mince pies served to all by choir members.

Coronavirus

Owing to the pandemic, all events planned for the rest of the season have had to be cancelled. These included a Wine Tasting in March, the Brahms Requiem Concert with Mansfield Choral Society in May, our AGM, also in May, and our Summer Concert in the Minster in July.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the other concerts and events planned for this autumn will take place.

Val Morgan – Secretary

Watch Guy Turner’s Summer Review on You Tube >>

Bingham Broadcasting Corporation:

An Appreciation

Few choirs can have been as visionary in their response to the lockdown as the Bingham and District Choral Society. Grasping the opportunity to launch a new media institution, on March 25th THE BBC (capitals for disambiguation) went on air – or more correctly, if prosaically, on-line. This was no mere whimsical play on an acronym, but a bold re-affirmation of the great Reithian mission to, ‘inform, educate and entertain’. Oh, and let’s be clear, though there are pictures and video involved, as a genre, THE BBC is quite firmly Radio.

Over (so far) 15 episodes, we have enjoyed talks, quizzes, a panel show, and a series of Desert Island Discs, all masterfully engineered by Brad Poulson. Each of these have combined , in different degrees, the three pillars of the national broadcaster’s mission. Of course, they have tended to focus more on education and entertainment: the purely informational elements of the other BBC – like the shipping forecast or the fatstock prices (of fond memory) - being less easy to accommodate. Nonetheless if we think of information as the communication of facts rather than opinion or commentary, there has been plenty of it. Guy’s music quizzes are of course fairly bursting with facts, but then so are his illustrated talks. For example, from his fascinating introduction to the life of a cathedral choir (episode three) we learn two indisputable facts : that the Decani and Cantoris at Southwell are on different sides to most other cathedrals, and that, ‘French choirs are generally rubbish’.

So, to education and entertainment. Here THE BBC knows its demographic. This is Radios 3 and 4 territory, the audience that checks its pandemic statistics on ‘More or Less’, that joins Petroc Trelawny for a Friday morning singalong. How then has THE BBC fared in satisfying these exacting consumers?

Overall, pretty impressively. Guy’s series of music talks formed the core of the educational content. At once erudite and stimulating, they were delivered in an engaging style, though one that I would place closer to the late Antony Hopkins than to Tom Service. He might not consider this a bad thing. The Thiman episode stands out for its infectious advocacy of an unjustly eclipsed composer as well as a charming evocation of that most remote of historical periods, the recent past. Though I confess that, having sung ‘The Last Supper’ about fifty years ago it left no lasting impression on me. Whereas the final chorus of ‘Olivet to Calvary’, for all its rather cloying sentimentality, still lives in the memory.

Entertainment, famously, came a poor third in John Reith’s dour Presbyterian judgement. It is frightful to imagine, then, the righteous scorn spreading over those craggy, vulpine features at the proposal (episode 7) of a panel show in which the object is to lie the most convincingly. He left the BBC in 1938 and so his views on Desert Island Discs, which began in 1942, are not recorded. We can surmise that he would not have been a fan, except, perhaps of the ninth episode, in which the Reverend Canon W.H. Elliott took the opportunity to preach a sermon for the entire show. Sandwiched as this was between No 8 Joan Jay (a Windmill Girl) and No 9 ( Arthur Askey) we can imagine how it went down with the troops who were its first audience on the British Forces Programme.

No chorus girls so far on THE BBC’s guest list, but plenty to entertain us. Given the specialised field of castaways - four out of five professional musicians - the musical choices have been, predictably, of a high standard. But there have also been some surprises. How delightful to find amongst Emily Hodgkinson’s choices, both Finzi’s ‘My Spirit Sang all Day’ and Benny Hill’s ‘Ernie : The Fastest Milkman in the West’ . And there has been no trace of self indulgence. With three professional singers included - one actually described as a ‘diva’ – no one has been tempted to emulate the chutzpah of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf who famously chose seven of her own recordings plus one of the prelude to Der Rosenkavalier from a disc on which she also sang.

The fifth castaway was somewhat controversial. Not because he is a scientist and part-time comedian rather than a musician. Certainly not on account of his musical choices – that extraordinary Canadian baritone singing the Finzi. But because he is the host!! Is this why he is pictured with his back to us, in a vain attempt to conceal his identity? But no. As usual, THE BBC has done its research and found a precedent: Roy Plomley was himself the 15th castaway interviewed by the show’s producer Leslie Perowne on May 7th 1942.

We come finally to the choice of luxury, that window of insight into the idiosyncrasies of the castaway. Here however it pains me to enter a discordant note. Three castaways chose keyboards: Michael Overbury his clavichord; Emily, a piano, and the complete songs of Ned Rorem (nice); Guy - and you will see where I am going with this – a grand piano. Now I do not need to remind THE BBC audience of the stricture placed upon grand pianos by Roy Plomley, on the grounds that they may be used either as shelters or rafts. How surprising then to find our urbane host Richard – generally such a stickler for propriety – nodding this through without demur. We can only suppose that Guy had solemnly undertaken not to put it to such uses, much as Hermione Gingold was allowed to take the Albert Memorial after she promised not to live in it.

What fun all this has been! Of course, we want to be back singing together, enjoying Richard’s vintage jokes, and eating biscuits and flapjack. But won’t we also feel some regret, after this strangest of springs and summers, when eventually THE BBC closes down.

John Tomlinson – Choir Member

BDCS Composing Competition

BDCS is delighted to announce a new competition for young composers in our area. Entrants are invited to compose a short accompanied piece for SATB Choir, with a prize worth £500 to the winner. The winning entry will be premiered by the Choir in 2021. It is open to composers under 30 years of age and living in the East Midlands. The closing date is 31 July 2020. View full details here.

Publicity, Website and Twitter

The BDCS website www.binghamchoral.org is now firmly established as the main publicity resource for the choir. It keeps members posted about everything from their place on the coffee rota to forthcoming concert dates and useful rehearsal aids. It is also the most important source of information for people outside the choir, including potential new members. Followers of our Twitter thread, @BinghamChoral, are frequently signposted to the website for further information on a news item, as are those who read our monthly updates in various local village and parish magazines.

Our new design team, Andrew James and Penny Prior, produced a splendid and much-praised design for the posters and programmes for our Joyful Baroque autumn concert in November 2019. At our Christmas Concert, we once again organised a charity collection. The proceeds were split between two charities, Framework and Alzheimer’s Society. In a new departure this year, we then decided to invite a representative from each charity to visit us during a rehearsal to receive a replica cheque for the amount donated. This enabled members to hear more about the valuable work of the two organisations and also provided a chance to publicise the choir’s community outreach.

Since the beginning of lockdown in March 2020, publicity has inevitably lost momentum due to rehearsals being cancelled and the general uncertainty about the future. The BBC Bingham series of videos and podcasts, created and run by a talented team from within the choir, has not only kept choir members connected but has been made generally available through the website, helping to maintain the choir’s local profile. At this point, no-one knows what the future will bring but we are looking ahead with hope to the BDCS 50th anniversary jubilee in 2021/22 and beginning to plan a programme and a publicity strategy to support a wonderful celebration of this important landmark in the choir’s history.

Judy Unell – Publicity Officer

BDCS Programming Constraints

Many members have made helpful suggestions for certain full works and/or shorter pieces to be included in our concert programmes. These are all considered, but unfortunately many have to be rejected because of a number of constraints within which we have to work when compiling a programme.

The first and most obvious of these is the lack of a suitable venue in Bingham and adjacent towns. Whilst St Mary's Bingham is adequate for Christmas Carol concerts with organ accompaniment there is no room to fit in even a small orchestra and maximum audience capacity is only about 200.

Radcliffe St Mary's can hold about 300, although audiences have recently dwindled (even before the pandemic) and there are a lot of furnishings and fittings to be moved to accommodate even a fairly small orchestra. This puts up the cost to £3000-£4000 with a probable income of less than £2000 i.e a loss of £2000. is not unusual. We have recently started using St Mary's Newark, which has an audience capacity almost as big as Southwell Minster and we will explore this further e.g. a joint Messiah with Newark C S is planned there for 21/22 as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations. Bottesford Church is also under consideration.

Even though the Minster is considerably more expensive to hire, recent joint performances there, with Mansfield CS and a full orchestra, have been financially successful as the cost (loss) has been shared i.e. we lose less on a larger joint concert than on a smaller one on our own. This may well be the way forward especially if choir numbers are seriously reduced in future.

Many of the works that we perform are shorter than a full concert and still need a medium sized orchestra, but the number and balance of the players needed may vary significantly from one work to the next, so works in one concert have to be chosen as far as possible to utilise the same players to minimise costs. Likewise with soloists, where we also try, where possible, to utilise young (ish) local soloists with potential.

Overall our aim is to try to achieve a balance between all types of classical music from baroque to modern; from large Masses, Requiems etc. where full orchestras are preferred, to shorter pieces.

Peter Iley – Chair of the Programme Committee

Key Dates for Jubilee Year 2021-2022

See Our Jubilee Year article for futher details.

• Saturday 27 November 2021 at Southwell Minster Proms Concert with Mansfield Choral Society
• Saturday 18 December 2021 Christmas Concert at Bingham Church
• 30 April 2022 at St Mary Magdalene Church, Newark Messiah with Newark Choral Society – chosen because it was BDCS’s first-ever concert
• June/July 2022 – Summer Concert with Scunthorpe CS (for its association with Neville Ward), at St Mary Magdalene Church, Newark

Rehearsal Aids for Concerts

John Fletcher website: The site holds rehearsal files allowing users to listen to their individual part, with the accompaniment in the background, either on its own or along with the other parts. The music can be listened to online or downloaded as an mp3 file which allows the user to vary playback speed and slow down fast, intricate parts. Most of the music we will be performing in the next 12 months can be found on the site. For access to the site the Society pays an annual subscription based on the number of registered users. Spare places are available. If you are not registered to use the site but would now like to be, please contact Bob Middleton either at a rehearsal or by email at bob@mid33.plus.com. He will then register your email address and you will receive an email from the site allowing you to set up direct access using your email address and a password of your own choosing. If you are registered but are having trouble logging on or encountering any other problems using the site, please let Bob Middleton know.

www.choralia.net is a website where you can hear synthesised voices singing individual voice parts (it is very easy to download the necessary bit of free software). You can choose which voice part you would like to be highlighted.

Choraline produces CDs for the individual voice parts – 10% discount – Code available on request.

For further information view the Rehearsal Aids section of our website.