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New Year Message from Ali Burns
Hello and Happy New Year to you all!
I’ve been meaning to write a wee note since the last performance just to say THANK YOU for all the extra work everyone put into the Forgotten Carols. I’ve had some fantastic feedback this year and I really think we did a splendid job. Especially I’d like to thank all those who turned out to Moniaive on what was one of the coldest nights of the year with the roads in a dangerous state for driving on. I think it turned out to be the best performance – so well done to you all!
Sam’s just sent a postcard that says “ Thank you all for a really magnificent Forgotten Carols – an experience I shall never forget! The music, hospitality and company were always delightful and you have ended my year on an absolute high. Please send my thanks to the whole choir for their love and kindness.”
I’d also like to acknowledge all the help that goes into these performances – a big thank you must go to: the catering team for the mulled wine and for making all the mince pies; the people who dealt with ticket sales - on the door, at the booth and in the shops; the stage set up and hall decoration team and to those who did all the other bits and pieces that have to be done to make everything run smoothly. I also know that there are some things we could do better next year – I have my own list – but if you have anything specific that you think we could improve on, please let me know.
This last year has been a huge one for the choir. We’ve learnt songs for 3 different sets of concerts – that means we’ve memorised and performed over 40 songs! I’d like to slow down a bit this year and concentrate on quality rather than quantity: that is, working on our voices and musicality. I have in mind to re-visit and in some cases record songs from projects and concerts that we’ve done over the past few years. Through this work I’m hoping to build a repertoire that we can perform a couple of times over the summer. I will teach a few new things that will keep stretching us and will add to our new repertoire but we can learn them slowly without as much pressure as in 2007.
So in the first term I’ll be re-teaching some old favourites from scratch and possibly recording 1 or 2 of the Forgotten Carols from this year. I’ve still to hear the recordings we made at the concerts but it sounded like our entire audience was suffering from a persistant cough and I suspect that we may have to re-record. I’m hoping that we can make a ‘best of Forgotten Carols’ CD by picking out the good recordings from the past 3 years.
I also want to keep the songs from Saut Sea and Bonnie Ships ticking over so that we could perform it again.
The committee is currently putting all the details in place for the weekend of 20/21 June 2008. We have booked the Barony near Dumfries and have invited two choirs from Northumberland to join us. There will be more details of that when the new term starts.
New Term Dates:
22nd January – 18th March
The venue in the first part of the term will be St Ninian’s Church Hall, Castle Douglas, but from mid February we will have to move out as the church need the hall on Tuesdays during Lent.
Hope to see you all soon.
Ali Burns
15 January 2008
See Diary & Events for more details.
You may also like to see what we've been doing at Past Events