Singers in blue on the South Bank
On 12th September, at an early hour for a Sunday morning, seven Questors Choir members wearing various shades of purple and blue, blended their voices with over eight hundred others rehearsing a musical entertainment for that afternoon. This was a special experience for Barbara, Penny, Christine, Susan, Ann, Mike and Julie, and the start of a memorable day.
‘Sing for Water’ is an annual event to raise money for WaterAid and forms part of the Lord Mayor’s Thames Festival on London’s South Bank. This is the first year Questors Choir has participated, but the mass singing performances have been taking place since 2002 and are extremely well organised. It was slightly nerve-wracking learning all the songs beforehand in isolation but, as soon one’s own voice was amongst hundreds of others, it was truly joyful. Everything seemed to come together fairly effortlessly. Some members had been able to attend a rehearsal in central London the previous day, which was both helpful and enjoyable, but the Sunday morning practice was totally focused and provided ample opportunity to vocalise all seven songs in the programme.
As the morning run-through had been such fun, we predicted the afternoon performance would be even better. We were right! The Scoop, an amphi-theatre next to City Hall, was an ideal venue. It packed in all of the choirs alongside members of the public. Our repertoire included songs sung in Korean, Zulu and Croatian, which added extra challenge. The audience was invited to take part in a lively finale, which was followed by ‘thank-yous’ from The Right Honourable Simon Hughes, the local MP. He named every one of the many choirs at this year’s festival, and we cheered loudly when Questors was mentioned, in spite of there being just a few of us.
We could have benefited from more members on the day, as we did seem depleted compared with other choirs, but ‘Sing for Water’ was a genuinely uplifting experience and well worth repeating in the future. Barbara Stryjak did a great job organising everything on our behalf, and Questors Choir has raised £859.48 for WaterAid, which is a splendid achievement.
Hope some other singers might be interested in taking part next year!
Julie Ardrey
Here are some photos of the event.
Here are some video clips of the event...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNFxSuB11vA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INlrk9VJRhM
