First Contacts - Streatham Choral meet Farnham & Bourne

A group from Streatham Choral piled down the A3 for a venture into the unknown yesterday - in more ways than one. Our destination was Farnham in deepest, darkest Surrey – well outside the comfort zone of the M25 boundary!

Armed with only voices and picnic lunches, we spent the entire day singing Handel’s Israel in Egypt (part 1) with Calum’s other choral society, Farnham & Bourne. Most of us had not sung the piece before and we knew we were in for a challenge.

We had a great day – the Handel was amazing. We especially loved the chorus where we all try to sound like lice and flies. We are definitely putting forward a request to Calum to do this ourselves in the near future! The pleasure was heightened as after our picnic lunch in the yard, F&B were supported by soloists Lauren Young and Hazel Neighbour – absolutely delicious. Lauren sang at our French Connections concert in March this year and it was lovely to catch up with her once more.

F&B were very welcoming and friendly and we like to think we have made some new choral friends. We’ve invited them for a reciprocal visit to our Come & Sing in January. A chat with the F&B committee could also result in a very exciting potential collaboration…watch this space!

First Night

We began our 2018/19 season with a bang yesterday – it was really great to see everyone again after the summer break. We welcomed more than 80 singers to St Leonard’s Church for our first rehearsal of the year. We were delighted that this included a good number of new singers who came along to try us out.

Calum gave our vocal cords a good workout with a thorough blast of Handel’s Zadok the Priest and Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer. There was a really beefy noise from the chaps and the overall sound was glorious. Our November concert really is going to be amazing

About 20 of us rounded an excellent evening off by going over to Pratts & Payne for a well-earned post-choral tipple.

We should add that this was also our first opportunity to use the new facilities at St Leonards – what a difference! The stealth kitchen is genius and the new toilets are a great improvment.

Roll on next Monday when we will have even more singers!

Streatham Choral at Kite Day 2018

Streatham Choral was delighted to join the 20th Streatham Common Kite Day on Sunday, September 2nd. Kite Day has become a mainstay of Streatham life and draws thousands of attendees to the common each year from all around the area.

Proud owners of a new gazebo, members of the choir committee set up alongside many other local charities, clubs and community groups to show off the many sides of life in Streatham.

Visitors to the Streatham Choral stand were treated to some musical biscuits courtesy of Kirsty.

During the day we were able to talk to dozens of people about our music, joining the choir and attending upcoming concerts.

It was a lot of fun and we look forward to being involved in years to come. Info about kite day can be found at this link. Well done to all involved!