I tracked down Robert Webb (28 concerts, 1992-7) via Oxford to Yorkshire. He will be a familiar face to many of you, lives locally and continues to be musically active, currently as Musical Director of Swavesey Community Choir and previously associated with the Orlando Singers of Cambridge and Huntingdonshire Philharmonic. Much more recently, my predecessor and good friend, Chris Jessop (21 concerts, 1997-2001), is the only MD I have ever known. There must be plenty of records of his activities worthy of research. He founded the original SIMADS in 1935 and was conducting performances of St Paul, Elijah, Samson and Judas Maccabaeus in the early post-war years our society came into existence when SIMADS moved exclusively into the domain of musicals in the 1960s. In 1984, when I was busy taking my A-level exams, the society staged a memorial concert for Charles Cannon, conductor of 32 concerts from the very first year of the previous incarnation of the choral society in 1966 until his retirement in 1981, although, undoubtedly, he must have brandished his baton at very many more concerts over the years. So, what became of them all? In this respect, the internet is a powerful resource. My gym membership must be paying off since that’s considerably more than any of my predecessors – although that’s definitely stretching a point in one case. Time for some more numbers: you presumably knew that, on February 8th 2014, you endured my wild gesticulations for the 44th consecutive concert. With yet another wonderful concert done and dusted, thoughts turn once again towards future repertoire for which an important point of reference is always the historical record of works performed I’m in the process of updating John Smoothy’s excellent listing of concerts since the mid-1960s associated with St Ives Choral Society and its forbears. I think that’s worthy of a glass or two of port! Before moving further with this, there must be space to share a notable milestone: 1974 was the year of the formation of the choral society under its current name, so presumably we’re in the midst of our ‘ruby’ season. As time marches on, the business of maintaining records of our ‘remarkable’ journey, becomes all the more interesting and valuable. In one particular December in the late 1980s, he found himself booked for 15 Messiahs nowadays he finds more reliable income from work as a freelance chorus member of Opera North and at Covent Garden. An old flat mate of mine who has forged a successful career as a tenor (I hope one day to book him for a concert) said that, in his experience, demand from choral societies for soloists has plummeted – so many groups have either folded or moved away from the classical repertoire. On a completely different tack, Sally and I recently attended an exceptionally lofty and equally expensive university reunion – up ‘The Shard’ of all places. Listening to the recording of our recent interview on Hunts Community Radio (follow the link via our website) one of the DJ’s comments resonated – he emphasised a ‘quite remarkable’ aspect of our society - our size in terms of membership. Meredith Bowen and her students, Dr.Musical Director’s notes February 23rd 2014 Help us improve! If you have questions or notice an error in a record, please email us! Report any broken links here. Please learn more about the works, their creators, their contexts, and informed performance practices by visiting the ICD’s Outside Resources page. The ICD recommends that programming diverse voices should not be done to satisfy an occasional checkbox, but should be a long term commitment to intentionally present these works in programs moving forward. If you are a composer who wants to be added, please submit a profile to us!ĭon’t stop here! The ICD databases are a good first step to find music and voices of historically excluded groups, but they should not be the only step taken. It is not an exhaustive list of all repertoire by all composers of historically excluded groups, only those who have consented to being included. There is more to come! This is an evolving tool with new works added regularly. Please consider the following as you search: Welcome and thanks for visiting the Choral Database! This database contains the choral works of composers from historically excluded groups who have consented to being represented in our databases, and whose profiles you can find in the linked Composer Diversity Database.
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