Let All Men Sing – Choir Undaunted by Covid.
Northampton Male Voice Choir’s last performance before the Covid 19 lockdown was given on Friday 13 March when NMVC Lite competed in the Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts. The following week all NMVC rehearsals were suspended and all concerts cancelled indefinitely. To maintain the choir’s momentum, Musical Director, Stephen Bell immediately began exploring “virtual rehearsal” options and, a month later, the choir held its first lockdown rehearsal via Zoom. On line tutorials were held for choristers who needed help with the technology and a full programme of weekly, on-line “sectional” rehearsals began on 19 May with separate fortnightly rehearsals for the full choir and NMVC Lite. The on-line rehearsals have continued regularly every week, often with 60 plus choristers taking part and, during this time, the choir has kept busy learning 13 new songs including a 12-minute medley of songs from Guys & Dolls and 3 songs from West Side Story that have been specially arranged for the choir by its talented Principal Accompanist, Andy Poole. Amazingly, during lockdown, the choir has had more rehearsals than ever thanks to the hard work of its MD and Music Team and the desire and determination of the choristers to maintain momentum. Since lockdown began, MD Stephen has carried out interviews with over 30 choristers and members of the NMVC Music Team via Zoom which have been broadcast live on the NMVC YouTube channel. This channel also contains videos of “virtual” performances by the Choir during lockdown including NMVC Lite performing “Autumn Leaves”, “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose” and “The Sound of Silence”. And finally, some six months after lockdown, NMVC has held its first live, socially distanced and covid-compliant rehearsals at Kislingbury Cricket Club, giving the men a long awaited opportunity to meet up with each other safely and enjoy the great feeling of being able to sing together. An exciting opportunity has also arisen for the Choir to be represented by NMVC Lite at a socially distanced live concert to be held at the Deco Theatre, Northampton on Saturday 21 November to raise money for the Northamptonshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund. NMVC is actively pursuing opportunities to give other covid-compliant performances to real live audiences and planning is underway for the recording of a new CD and an enormous Party in the Park before the end of 2020. For more information about NMVC please visit https://www.nmvc.co.uk/ NMVC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWCKnjss8p1LrO1NonSf0KQ/videos For tickets and information about the Deco Theatre concert https://www.thedeco.co.uk/event/one-...
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