Latest / The Discussion Podcast / Voices Reunited: Inside Di Voci — South Manchester’s Award-Winning Women’s Choir

Transcript

Voices Reunited: Inside Di Voci — South Manchester’s Award-Winning Women’s Choir · The Discussion Podcast

0:03
This is the Late Late Lunch Show
0:05
with Rod Maxwell supported by Childbird Learning in Nature's Playground.
0:16
It's Rod Maxwell on Radio Alty on the Late Late
0:19
Lunch Show and today I'm delighted to be speaking with a
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gentleman who is a musical director of a choir
0:25
that's based right here in the ultringham area
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the choir is called the devocci and it's
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an award-winning choir and i'm speaking to the musical
0:34
director is that right ben are you the musical director of devocci that's right
0:39
yes so my guest today is then ben nickel and uh ben let's just talk about the
0:45
choir first of all you just tell me the background to devocci and what is your
0:50
sort of your your approach to music if you like Yeah.
0:54
Yeah, well, yeah. First of all, thanks so much for having me on.
0:57
Yeah, so Devoce is a women's choir. So what I would call an upper voices choir.
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And yeah, I think the key thing is it's a very collaborative and inclusive choir
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that was set up around 20 years ago by their then musical director, Lorraine.
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And she conducted them for years and years. And only recently,
1:16
they've had different musical directors, which is part of the way that I got the job.
1:20
But yeah, the kind of the big thing about Devoce is it's a women's choir and
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we're really focused on, so the upper voices repertoire, which says there's
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a huge amount of really interesting repertoire written for kind of boys chorus originally.
1:34
So lots of kind of older music written for that.
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And then lots of contemporary newer music written for, yeah,
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just specifically upper voices choir, which is fantastic.
1:43
Well, I've got so many questions I want to ask you because I sing in choirs.
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I've sung since I was a young person, but actually, there's so many things I
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want to ask you about an all-female, all-women's choir, because it'd probably
1:57
be a different structure and a different approach to how you arrange and how you do it.
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And I also want to find out about your role as a musical director.
2:06
So today, my guest is Ben Nicholff, and he is the musical director at the Devolci
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Choir. It's based here in South Manchester, and we'll be talking to him more
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about the choir in a couple of minutes now.
2:21
You're listening to The Late Late Lunch Show. Back to the Garden Childcare,
2:26
where little explorers grow naturally.
2:29
You're listening to Radio Alty. It's Rod Maxwell on The Late Late Late Lunch Show.
2:32
Today, we're talking about choral music, we're talking about choirs,
2:36
and we're talking about the Devoce Choir, which is based right here in South Manchester.
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I'm speaking with the musical director, Ben Nicol. Now, Ben,
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how long have you been with the Devolci for?
2:46
It's actually quite a recent job that I've got. So I've only started with them in January.
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So really, this is the first term working with Devoce. And it's been really
2:56
exciting to get a few things off the ground and really get stuck in.
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Now, tell me, because I'm used to choirs and there's different approaches to it.
3:04
You have approaches where you have sopranos, altos, tenors and basses.
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Sometimes in choral choirs, you might have the choristers as well.
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But with, and sometimes the choir I sing in, we call them tops, middles, and bottoms.
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And each section is a mix. Although funny enough, the middles,
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which are more like altos, are all women actually.
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But the bottoms and the tops are mixed.
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With an all-female choir, what's the approach that you traditionally take or you take with Devocey?
3:37
Yeah, so mostly in terms of, first of all, kind of looking for music,
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we mostly, as a choir, would fall into the traditional sopranos and altos kind of category.
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You actually often find, people might be surprised to know that there are lots
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of women that sing very much in the kind of tenor range.
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They can sing that slightly lower range as well. So actually.
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Even though we don't tend to have any what we call lower voices,
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we can sing quite a big range of music because we can cover a lot of the basses there, which is great.
4:07
But mostly, yeah, focusing on what we'd call kind of upper voices music.
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So usually soprano and alto music, first of all, and adding in other bits if we need to.
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And in that way, then, do you find that music can be specifically arranged for
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that style of choir, or do you have to self-arrange, if you like?
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Yeah a bit of both i would definitely say there is
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a lot of music that's pre-arranged or originally written
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for that especially in the last kind of
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kind of 30 30 40 years i mean
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choral music contemporary choral music really take off but with upper
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voices as well so some some composers that we're seeing at
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the moment kind of toby young eleanor daly bob chilcott
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these are all composers that are live and writing music right now
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and upper voices music is a huge there's
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a lot of there compared
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to your traditional satb soprano alto
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tenno bass music so that's really great there's much more of it being written
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and in terms of the style of music the genre that devocci is known for is there
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a particular style or do you do it based on the seasons and take different themes
5:16
what would what would you define devocci style to be.
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Well, that's a very tricky one, because I think what's really nice about Devoce
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is that they love doing a really big range of music, a big variety.
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So, for instance, we've got a concert coming up and we're doing kind of some
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Mendelssohn and things like that, which is kind of slightly older, slightly more serious.
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But then we're doing, you'll hear some Elbow, some contemporary composers,
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kind of Sarah Cortell, a writer right now.
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It's a really big, really big range of stuff, and it's really driven by the
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choir and what they enjoy singing. So I often kind of touch base with them and
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say kind of, what do you want to do a bit more of?
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Or if they have a particular song, they're like, I've always wanted to sing this.
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Always up for kind of trying to arrange it or find a version that we can make work.
6:04
This is The Late Late Lunch Show with Rod Maxwell on Radio Allty. Radio Allty.
6:10
It's Rod Maxwell on Radio Alty. Today I'm speaking to Ben Nicol,
6:13
who is the musical director at local choir, De Voce.
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And as you heard him say, he's taken on the role since January.
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Now, Ben, would I be right in saying that it's a really good time for choirs?
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It seems that people have come back to singing, come back to mass singing, choral singing, etc.
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Why do you think that is? Yeah, absolutely.
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It's um it's it's great time to to be singing it
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in any in any way really i i think that there's
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a there's a couple things at play i think obviously the the big one
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the elephant in the room would be the pandemic which hopefully uh
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we are moving away from now but i think us as as
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conductors whether it was in choral music or orchestral music
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that was quite tough obviously kind of zoom rehearsals trying
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to keep these groups going and keep the energy as
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high as possible that was really tough for obviously
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to kind of direct but really for the people in the choir it's
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it's such a social activity and you get so much out of singing it's so good
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for you and you get such a buzz from it that um it was such a shame not to have
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that for so long but i think people people have seen that and so they've kind
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of we've had this rush kind of post covid that people are really keen to get
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into choirs get singing and and get seeing people and interacting And I think,
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you know, we've seen on TV a lot of, a lot, a lot of programs that where people
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find their voice, you know?
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And I think what it's done is take the stuffiness out of, if you like,
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formal music settings. Do you think that's helped?
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Yes, absolutely. I mean, there are still things like kind of your church choir
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and things that have been around for many, many years.
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But like, yes, this new kind of format of what I would describe as singing with your own voice.
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In the past, people kind of like there was a very certain way that maybe people
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thought you should sing and a particular sound that you should make.
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And actually now lots of people are big, big fans of this.
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Yeah, kind of just singing with bringing your voice and what you've got,
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not trying to kind of change it too much as long as what you're doing is kind
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of healthy and you're having fun and you're making a sound that you enjoy that's
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all that matters really we're talking to ben nickel he is the musical director
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at local choir de voce and we'll take a break and be back with him in a couple of minutes time.
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You're listening to the late late lunch show with back
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to the garden childcare where little explorers grow
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naturally so so ben one of
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the things i find that a musical director
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needs to be able to do is you're taking
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people through quite a structured process of
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learning a piece of music yeah but you've
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got to do it in a way that you don't over all them if they're not professional
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singers you don't make them too nervous about how difficult it might be and
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you've got to be i think enthusiastic even when it's not going particularly
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well do you find i mean that draws on a lot of,
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as a musical director, as a leader of the choir, you've got to have a lot of
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different skills and experience as to how to take somebody from not knowing
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something to the point where you could actually do it live.
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Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of that first few weeks when you're kind of looking
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at new music is always quite interesting to kind of, yeah, how do you kind of
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start to get things off the ground?
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And I think the key thing, as you kind of touched on, was not overloading people.
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So it's kind of, it's bite-sized chunks.
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So I'm quite a big fan of carefully, not over planning rehearsals,
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but kind of making sure that we're not working on one piece for a kind of hour.
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You know, you don't want to be bashing notes, as we call it,
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for one piece for hours and hours.
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And you feel like you kind of get to the end of a house, you've not really made,
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even though you might have made progress, it doesn't always feel like that.
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It's good to kind of do a little bit of something.
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Okay, I've got a few ideas there. And something you do is really over the week,
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we rehearse once a week with Devoce.
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And so you've kind of, you've looked at some notes and things and people are like, oh, I've got that.
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But then they've gone away and they've kind of thought about it during the week
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and they're like, oh, I've cracked that bit, right? Okay, I'm ready to look
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at the next bit and things like that.
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The other thing to be aware of is that depends on people's kind of what we call their reading.
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So like we got in Devoce, we've got some very strong sight readers and
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they're able to kind of look at a piece and pretty much sing it
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you know basically note for note kind of
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straight away but then we've also got some people who aren't so
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strong music readers and very much would learn their kind of
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method is more to learn by ear so it's it's being aware
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as a singer what what your strengths are and kind of
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playing to those really and the best way of learning and that's what
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i find is really powerful about a
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choir is that you can be somebody who's not
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particularly strong at singing or sight
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reading and you might even be that confident but
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when you get into your group whether it be your
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section or whatever you you get taken along with
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that and you can grow in your confidence and you
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can find your own voice over time there's something
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very i don't know natural and powerful about acquiring
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that way yeah absolutely and and you've
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yeah with that kind of being taken along idea you really find that lots
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of people even if you have very little music experience you kind
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of look at the dots and you can kind of say well if it goes up you
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know it's probably going to
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sound a bit higher and if it goes down it's probably going to sound a bit
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lower and actually if one person near you knows the exact note because they're
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a really good reader you can think oh i was expecting it to jump down okay that's
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how big the jump is i'm locked in i can kind of i can pretty much read this
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with a little bit of help from the people around me and as a musical director
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i've always wondered this because you You have the prime spot in terms of listening, right?
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Are you, when you're, whether it be in rehearsals or in a live concert, are you,
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are you able to pick out individual voices
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even within a section and you know that voice and
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you know that singer do you get tuned
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into that at all yeah it's a really interesting one
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i think we'll touch on the rehearsal versus before it's later
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because that's something quite interesting in that but yeah when
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you're kind of when you're up there and listening it really depends on
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on the group and and particularly how big it is
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so devocci is is about 40 strong so that
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we generally break that into around three sections so you're
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looking at well maybe what's that about 13 people let's say roughly in each
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and the idea is in each section what something
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we're really trying to work on it is what we call blend so trying
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to make sure that together we're all hopefully singing the same note at the
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same time that's great but within that we're all trying to kind of make the
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same kind of what we might call like the color of the sound so that it kind
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of it all really sounds like kind of one unified like group together rather
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than 13 people trying to sing the same note and saw slightly differently.
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So in that way, if we're getting our job really right, hopefully I can't pick
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out one voice within a group of 13.
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But then the other side of that is when we're kind of learning music.
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There's kind of, we'll be some slightly stronger singers, some less strong singers in a group.
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And that's something that I've really enjoyed over the last few months is getting
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to know everybody as people, but getting to know their voices as well.
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And I'm starting to kind of pick up, oh yeah, I know that person that I can
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kind of hear. They're usually quite good, got a good low range.
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So they're going to be quite good at digging that bit out and helping their
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section there, some things like that is good to kind of become aware of.
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It does strike me that as the musical director, you're more than a musician,
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aren't you? Because you are, you're a leader.
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You've got to, you've got to bring enthusiasm, morale, excitement.
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You've got to pick up the whole sort of the feeling of the choir in terms,
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you must be able to tell when they're feeling nervous or you're feeling confident about a piece.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, we always say as conductors or musical directors
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that, you know, for a professional singer, they get nervous and perform in the concert.
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Well, our getting nervous and performing is rehearsal. That's really most of
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our job is getting up in front of 40 people and having to kind of put on,
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like you say, the energy and the, and the kind of, right, we're going to,
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we're going to do this and it's all going to work out.
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So yeah, for us, I think it can be very tiring, even a kind of a two hour rehearsal.
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Yeah, you've really got on a monday evening everyone's just had
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their first day at work and you know that you know you you want
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to be there but sometimes you kind of turn up and you're a little bit tired yes
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from the start is very important to kind of straight away
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we always start with a warm-up high energy get everyone on their
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feet and just kind of get that energy going get rid of the rest of the day and
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start afresh i think that's really important today on the show we're speaking
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to the musical director at devolce it's his name is ben nickel and we'll be
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talking them a little bit more about his role and his background as well in a couple of minutes time,
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this is the late late lunch show with rod maxwell on radio altie.
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It's rod maxwell on radio altie and today i'm delighted to
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be talking about music to talking about choirs and i've
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got to say we are really blessed in manchester south manchester with so many
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choirs and i think i think ben we were talking about it earlier people the great
15:08
thing about it is you can find your own voice and your own voice might work
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absolutely brilliantly in a choir even though you may not want to sing on your own.
15:18
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you see it across all of music, actually,
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the difference between being a soloist and being in a group as a choir or an orchestra.
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If you're a singer in a 40s drum choir and you put a microphone right next to
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you, you might think it sounds quite odd and quite peculiar,
15:34
but whatever you do, it works in the bigger group.
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And that's the sound that we're aiming for. Yeah, very much different to our
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personal sound. So you are the musical director, and you are the choir lead as such.
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What does that role mean? I mean, what's the sort of key activities and key
15:54
responsibilities of your role?
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Yeah well i kind of i suppose lots of
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people think just about kind of the rehearsals and the concert and
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that would be the main job and that's very important but there's lots
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of other things kind of even before we get to the the first rehearsal so choosing
16:08
that the music we're going to sing obviously very important got to do it in
16:11
advance so we can get it all ordered in if it's it's new or whatever the situation
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is and just kind of planning a bit of an overall vision for the choir so for
16:19
example with devoccio we've got we've got a kind of a concert coming up before summer.
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We've got, we're singing in a festival, sale festival a month later.
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But then I'm really excited about next term. We've got, we've got a workshop
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coming up with Susie Vango, who's a fantastic singing practitioner and soprano.
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We've got, we're looking at doing some, some competitions hopefully.
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And I know Devocci have done competitions before, before I got the job as well.
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And just really looking at trying to kind of expand our horizons, try lots of things.
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And that's what's great about Devocci is they're so keen to try everything and
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have a go. And I guess, you know, what you do need to be doing is blending.
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There's some consistency in what you're doing from season to season,
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but you've got to be doing some new things to keep people engaged and excited.
17:05
Absolutely. I think it's always a balance, isn't it?
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Because I think people in a choir really love the music that they've done.
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And we know that really well. We sang that really well.
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And what you're familiar with, you often really like.
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But I think what's really important is to make sure we're pushing boundaries,
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getting enough new music in, whether that be new composers, new styles of music.
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Try something completely different that you've you never thought you could kind
17:30
of sing in a choir and and it works really well oh great i've discovered something
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new that's i think yeah super important no i i often feel that somebody who
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is a musical director a leader of choir.
17:43
They have a unique set of skills and and
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one of the skills and we touched upon it a little bit earlier is their
17:49
ability to be confident even when they're
17:52
least confident about what's going on because their
17:55
enthusiasm whether it be in a live situation portrays to the choir and the choir
18:00
looked to that person to to think are we okay now is that something that came
18:06
naturally to you or as you were developing your skill in music and you were
18:10
training you find that or have you always had that if you like,
18:14
Yeah, I think in terms of when I was a lot younger and kind of doing musical
18:20
things, I think a few of the things that I completely by accident did kind of
18:24
pushed me towards that conducting role.
18:26
One thing that springs to mind is I used to play, I'm a trombonist as well as
18:30
a singer, and I used to play when I was a teenager in a kind of jazz funk kind of fusion band.
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We did some covers, we did some kind of more original stuff.
18:40
But we kind of very much went to kind of weddings and functions and things like
18:43
this. and I kind of led the band, I led the rehearsals and I talked usually
18:48
to kind of whoever would be listening, tell them about the music and things like that.
18:52
And I think that's where that kind of high energy kind of little performance,
18:56
like being up in front of people, kind of maybe started and it kind of snowballed a little bit from there.
19:02
Yeah, I do think that being slightly extroverted as a musical director,
19:07
even though you've got your back to the audience, even your facial...
19:14
That mood can portray back to the choir confidence or fear.
19:19
I mean, and they do look to you, don't they? They look for that reassurance,
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especially if it's a new piece and you're doing it for the first time.
19:27
Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of the confidence and this,
19:32
it could be like, maybe we don't think we know it very well,
19:34
or it could be, you know what, this is a very tricky, maybe quite a high moment
19:37
for the sopranos and they're feeling a bit nervous.
19:39
And as singers, when we feel nervous, we want to kind of get smaller and get more tense.
19:44
And that's exactly the opposite of what we want to be doing.
19:46
We want to sing high or we want to kind of make a nice relaxed and kind of bright sound.
19:52
So yeah, I think especially with singers, I
19:55
think it's just making sure it's just so like every everything
19:58
that i do needs to be relaxed because i suppose this
20:01
is something about conducting as well as we as people have something
20:04
called kind of mirror neurons which is like so when you
20:07
sit in a choir you're looking at conduct you're not thinking oh they've done it like they've
20:10
kind of done that quite quite jumpy so i go to sing jumpy no
20:13
one's thinking that people are just thinking it should be
20:16
a natural response so if i'm really nice and relaxed hopefully
20:19
it'll help them to be as as relaxed as they can be when it comes to
20:22
to performance and something i've always wanted to
20:25
ask and actually discuss is that when you're
20:29
presenting a new piece to the choir do you
20:32
in your head have some sort of i don't know methodology that
20:36
sort of says right the first couple weeks we're going to just nail it technically
20:40
we're going to get the notes right but then you move to a phase where you're
20:45
emotionally getting it that you're you're you're confident about the notes but
20:50
what you're trying to get out is the drama the feeling, the emotion of the piece.
20:54
Is that something that you consciously go through a process of and you know
20:59
when they're right for that?
21:01
Or does that come naturally, if you like?
21:04
So interesting with this, I would say this is maybe where I differ a bit from
21:09
what some musical directors might do, is I'm a really big fan of trying to get
21:13
the feeling and the emotion in from the start.
21:16
So even though you're learning the notes, you might learn a particular phrase.
21:19
A little chunk of music. Straight away, we're kind of like, okay,
21:23
this is how the notes sound.
21:24
And even from the first time they sing it, I'm asking them to say.
21:27
Okay, what in the text maybe is important? What are the words?
21:31
What is the most important word? Maybe we're going to go towards that in the
21:36
way we're going to sing it.
21:36
Because I think sometimes if you kind of learn the notes and then you think,
21:39
right, I'm going to put the phrasing, the passion, the drama,
21:43
whatever you want into it, you learn it and then you have to almost relearn it again.
21:47
And I think, why not kind of shorten that process and from the start, get the emotion into it?
21:53
And then, link to that, and before we go for another break, I've got to ask
21:57
you this question, because a lot of people can work a lot on phraseology and
22:03
word, how would you expression, the way that you say things.
22:07
You sing a word and there are words that you sing
22:10
in a totally different way to that which you would speak
22:13
and you you sometimes are breaking away from your
22:16
natural your your natural dialect if if you like yes is is that something that
22:23
you know it's it's quite classical and that choirs are still doing or do you
22:29
think people have moved away from that in a desire to be more natural if you like yeah.
22:34
Yeah, I think there's two things there. I think the one thing why maybe traditionally
22:39
we often feel we're kind of singing, and lots of people would describe,
22:42
especially choral singing, as singing in a very posh way.
22:45
So all your vowels are very kind of all very well to do, very like,
22:49
and that might be very different to your speaking voice.
22:52
And I think, so maybe one reason why we do that is so that we all sing the same
22:56
vowels, and that goes back to that thing we were talking about blending.
22:59
So we all sing the same like are you know
23:01
all these sounds it's easier to match the sound in
23:04
the section but then yes i would say something i'm
23:07
a big fan of and lots of people are moving towards is trying to sing more closely
23:11
to your speaking voice trying and that's what we talked about bringing your own
23:14
sound is not trying to kind of bring all this very opera
23:17
kind of very different voice if it's not natural
23:20
to you and it really depends on the type of piece you're
23:23
singing but for a lot of these more recent
23:26
kind of contemporary pieces you want to be singing the text
23:29
that makes sense you don't want to be the audience to sit there trying to figure out what
23:32
what it is you're saying yeah it's interesting because i i
23:35
sang in a cathedral choir from about the age of eight
23:37
and pronunciation and expression
23:40
was something that you worked a lot on and we used to also go
23:43
on royal church music of um rnca whatever
23:47
it was called royal church of college church music whatever we used to go on
23:50
courses you know and you and and it you i i do find that i talk in one way i
23:56
sing in a slightly different way and and you sort of build that but it doesn't
24:01
it's not natural for everybody it's just something that you learn really.
24:05
Yes and and it's the kind of thing it depends on the choir if
24:07
you've got enough people that did learn that way they'll tend to pull people
24:11
in that direction and and people are very good at just naturally using their
24:14
ears and trying to match up with everyone around them which i suppose at the
24:17
end of the day if we're all trying to do the same thing that's great whichever
24:20
way we go I'm going to come back and talk to you about the concerts as well because I find that.
24:27
Choirs need concerts you need that,
24:30
You need the drama of performing to give you a focus.
24:35
And I want to also talk about some of the concerts that Devoce have got coming up.
24:40
So today, I'm delighted to be speaking
24:42
with Ben Nichol. He is the musical director at local choir Devoce.
24:46
And we'll come back and talk to him a little bit more about the choir and a
24:50
little bit more about the concerts that we've got coming up in a couple of minutes' time.
24:55
You're listening to The Late Late Lunch Show. Back to the Garden Childcare,
24:59
where little explorers grow naturally.
25:02
You know, Ben, I feel like I could do just an hour talking about singing and choirs.
25:08
There is something about a choir.
25:13
It's quite a unique thing. I find myself, often sometimes being quite emotional, singing a piece.
25:21
And you can be almost tearing up. because the power of being amongst other people
25:29
and the voice is quite unique.
25:32
Absolutely yeah and and that's that's exactly what we want i think
25:35
it has so many benefits for you in terms of
25:37
kind of making you think about what you're singing about the
25:40
message you're trying to send but yeah also just that that feel where kind of
25:44
yeah your hairs stand on the end you're kind of with all those people and a
25:47
big chord it's amazing it is nothing quite like it and i think for anybody i
25:53
mean i i find that choirs have a mystical almost a benefit to them You know,
26:00
you can be somebody who, you know,
26:03
might be a little bit lost in your life, but the choir gives you purpose.
26:07
It gives you a feeling of companionship.
26:10
It gives you a feeling of belonging. You might be somebody who wanted to be
26:14
creative all your life, but you've never felt the confidence to do.
26:17
You get the power of being creative amongst other people. That's something.
26:21
And you might be somebody who's new to an area, and it's a great way to meet people and socialize.
26:27
They have so many benefits. I guess that's some of the reason why,
26:31
you know, and a bit of Gareth Malone as well, why they've become so popular.
26:37
Yeah, absolutely. I think, I'm sure there's lots of other examples outside of music.
26:42
But I think for me, choirs and music, I've never been to a choir where the atmosphere
26:46
is nothing but welcoming.
26:48
It's always just such a nice place to be. And from day one, you're kind of there
26:52
and you feel like it's the place you should be and everyone's happy to have
26:56
you there. And I think just that from the start is absolutely what we should be doing.
27:01
Because I think especially lots of people work from home these days and that
27:05
we get less maybe of that social interaction.
27:08
And people are craving these opportunities to kind of go sing in a choir and just go see people.
27:13
I mean, we do two hour rehearsals with Devoce and we try and have a short kind
27:19
of five, ten minute break. And it's always everyone's just chatting,
27:22
chatting and wants to carry on chatting all night because everyone's just so,
27:25
so keen to kind of hang out and catch up.
27:27
Yeah, it's a great way to get to know people in the area. And you find people
27:32
from such a wide background of professions, jobs, etc.
27:37
And when you're in a choir together, you're just in the choir.
27:40
It doesn't really matter what your job is. You're just in the choir.
27:44
Yes, I remember one of the first musical director jobs I had.
27:49
I conducted the first few rehearsals and it was quite a big group,
27:52
so it took me a while to get to know everyone.
27:54
And I almost was a bit kind of taken aback when I found out I was conducting
27:57
kind of doctors, eye surgeons, and I thought, but when we're all there in the
28:02
rehearsal, we're just there and all lovers of music and we want to sing.
28:05
And that's really great.
28:07
But I do, I think this comes down, also comes back to the role of the musical director.
28:13
I I have been in choirs where the lead,
28:17
the musical director, the choir master, may be very technically great,
28:24
but they lack a certain, I don't know, presence, a certain atmosphere about
28:30
themselves where they just don't galvanize you in the same way.
28:33
And I think that there is definitely a certain something that the musical director
28:39
has to have. that is charisma, I think, actually, ultimately.
28:44
That's a very special, difficult thing to get sometimes.
28:48
Yeah, it is. And especially when you're feeling a little bit tired,
28:52
that can be a bit difficult.
28:53
But it's something we've hopefully seen really improve over the last kind of 50 years.
28:58
If you think back to kind of your traditional kind of choir master in a church choir or a school choir,
29:04
it would be quite scary and creating people are very scared to sing the wrong
29:08
note or sing too loud or out of tune or whatever it was and I really don't think that is fostering the.
29:15
Well, A, technically, we're not going to be relaxed and singing at our best.
29:18
But also, if you're not enjoying it, you're not going to want to go to choir.
29:21
And we're not professionals in amateur choirs.
29:24
So the first thing is that we want to be there and we're having a really good
29:28
time. Otherwise, well, we'll go and do something else.
29:30
Well, I do think that, you know, the likes of Garth Malone and other TV programs,
29:35
what they did, they took a fussiness, a stuffiness out of it.
29:40
And I think that has the legacy of that is in what you're doing is in the choirs.
29:45
I'm in so many choirs in the area and it's just, it's good for people's mental
29:51
health. It's good for community.
29:53
It's good for the arts as well. yes absolutely
29:57
in a time where the arts in some
30:00
ways i you know finding things very difficult and i
30:03
particularly think with kind of instrumental music actually that
30:07
people are really having to take a step back and think about the next kind of
30:10
50 years because mainly because i think kind of at that at that early level
30:16
in school you know we've had so many pro instrumental singing programs kind
30:20
of scrapped and that kind of you know in in primary schools and things like that.
30:24
And if you don't have that, it's very difficult to project into a few years
30:30
into the future and see it's going to be quite different.
30:33
I think going on to that, though, a really positive thing is singing,
30:37
is that you don't need anything to sing.
30:40
You have your voice and you can sing at home.
30:43
You can sing anywhere as long as people don't, you know, are disturbing everyone
30:47
and people will stop singing, you've been singing for hours.
30:49
But yeah, anyone can do it. And I really believe that anyone,
30:52
anyone one can sing and if you're enjoying it and you're having a go and you're
30:56
like trying to kind of make a sound that you're, you're, you enjoy listening
31:00
to you're singing and having a, having a great time.
31:02
And, and you know, I, I often find that no, no matter how long you've been singing,
31:07
there's always something that you're learning about your own voice, about phrasing, about.
31:13
Breathing and even just the reading the
31:17
music as well i i have always i've always
31:20
longed to be one of those people that could see
31:23
the note on page and be able to sing it it's a perfect pitch
31:26
to call that it's a perfect pitch yes well it's
31:30
it's a it's a double-edged sword i mean i don't have perfect
31:33
pitch i i would need to fight i would need to be given
31:36
the first note and i could kind of work the rest out from there but i i
31:38
know a few people professionals and not who have perfect
31:41
pitch and it can be very useful but it can be very difficult
31:44
because if you're singing acapella with no accompaniment and
31:47
the choir something that can happen is the choir get a little bit lower in
31:50
pitch just a tiny bit they just kind of slip down and then if you have perfect
31:53
pitch it's very difficult sometimes to to kind
31:56
of hear that and you want to push it back up to where you know it
31:59
should be and that can be very troubling and some people really
32:02
struggle with that so yeah it can be good can be bad i've
32:05
never thought about it like that i never thought about it
32:07
like that well look let's let's talk about um where you meet
32:10
and about the choir specifically and that we could talk
32:13
much more i could talk to you about your background
32:17
a lot more because you i've i've looked at it you you've
32:19
you've been in a lot of choirs and you've done
32:22
a lot of you've done a lot of directing from out of scene here can i can i just
32:26
ask on that if if if if you were if you were asked about doing a real classical
32:34
choral piece or it was a sort of modern pop type piece that had been.
32:42
Redone to be it could be done in a choir I guess I'm sort of saying do you have
32:48
a preference or do you have would you have a preference more traditional choral
32:54
piece or you like the sort of you like the challenge of taking something that
32:58
everybody knows but you have to take it into a choral setting,
33:02
well I would say I would say absolutely do both I mean it's very dependent on
33:07
the pieces and everyone has their preferences of kind of types of music they
33:11
like but I think why not put both together in a concert?
33:15
I think if we restrict ourselves to one style, I mean, we're only doing half
33:19
the exciting things that we could be doing.
33:22
So let's do both and put them together and see what it's like.
33:26
And you learn, we're talking about skills, you learn so many different skills
33:29
through trying your hand at lots of different styles and periods.
33:35
I'm going to ask you a very unfair question because I haven't prepped you for
33:38
this, but your top three pieces as a musical director to lead what would they be?
33:44
Desert Island Discs of musical directors Desert Island Discs Desert Island Discs.
33:50
Well, to be honest, one of them we're doing with Divocci and coming up is Kim Andre Arneson.
33:57
He wrote, oh, I've got it. Yeah,
33:59
even when he is silent, he wrote it originally for SATB, so full choir.
34:04
But then there's another version just for upper voices.
34:06
And it's a sacred text, a religious text about, and I'm not personally religious,
34:14
but I do conduct a lot of church music and things like that.
34:17
And I think the text can be very interesting how they set it. and it's
34:20
just the the the harmony and that is so beautiful and
34:23
it's so it's very refined and just i
34:26
think it's it's very beautifully put together so that that would
34:29
definitely be the up there for me i'm trying to
34:31
think what else i've uh
34:34
i i recently in a in a workshop conducted
34:38
kind of some excerpts from handle's messiah and
34:41
this is this is one it's just more uh more of
34:44
a childhood thing for me i kind of growing up my it seemed
34:47
to be the the piece that we listened to at christmas and people
34:50
listen to it easter as well but we always listen to it before christmas yeah
34:53
and uh and uh really and i had it in the i think it was in the car at one point
34:56
and uh and it's just something i feel it feels very at home for me so i really
35:01
really enjoyed uh enjoyed conducting that with the orchestra and the full chorus
35:05
it's like a roller coaster of a piece isn't it.
35:09
Absolutely absolutely yes yeah i i don't know if you ever really learn it or
35:14
you just have to do it over and over and over and you get more confidence singing it.
35:20
Yeah, so I think so. I'm sure there are tenors that have done 50 massage by
35:26
now, and I would imagine they're pretty happy with it.
35:29
But you're right, it's quite a work, and especially if you do the whole thing.
35:33
I mean, lots of people cut out lots of movements, but if you do the whole thing,
35:36
it's a huge amount to learn and to keep the intensity up for so long.
35:40
I don't know if it's that particular piece, but there's a piece I remember seeing
35:44
as a young person and it goes really fast and then it stops suddenly.
35:51
Oh, that sounds like it could be Handel, as it suddenly goes very slowly.
35:54
And you do not want to be that person who doesn't stop.
35:58
I remember the very first time I sung it, I mimed the bar leading up to that
36:03
part because I thought I cannot be that person.
36:06
Anyway, and then your last top three pick, what else would you have?
36:10
I think my last one, it's a simple one and it's an old favourite for I think
36:14
lots of choral singers, Thomas Tallis, If You Love Me.
36:18
It's a very short, sweet piece.
36:21
If you love you, keep my commandments.
36:23
The exact same, the very same.
36:26
It's simple, beautiful, perfect.
36:30
I think it's absolutely lovely. I could listen to it all day.
36:33
Oh, you've taken me back a number of years. I remember singing that.
36:38
So we were talking Talking about the choir, you've got a couple of concerts coming up.
36:43
Just as a reminder, I've got them in front of me. So you've got a summer concert
36:47
with the Wessex Choir, and that's in St.
36:49
George's Church right here in Ulterham on Saturday the 9th of May.
36:53
Tell us about the Wessex Choir.
36:55
Yeah, so we met them.
36:58
I say the choir met them before I met Devoce at a competition.
37:03
So they were competing against each other.
37:05
But from that came kind of a friendship between the two and they've decided
37:10
they would collaborate.
37:11
So they're coming to very kindly sing in our concert this summer.
37:16
And then we're going to be joining them a year later for their summer concert next year.
37:21
Wonderful. So, yeah, so they're an award-winning choir, lower voices choir, so male voices.
37:28
So it should be really interesting to have the two sides of it.
37:31
So we'll do our upper voices stuff, they'll do their stuff separately,
37:35
and then at the end we're going to come together for collaboration,
37:38
which will be great for both choirs because how often do they sing with a full SATB choir?
37:44
Beautiful. And that's been entitled Hope for Peace, is that right?
37:47
Hope for Peace is our theme for the concert Yes, which I I thought a lot about
37:52
what to do for a theme And how to tie things together And I thought right now that felt like a.
37:57
You know a poignant one and a good one to choose
38:00
i think that absolutely does and then you've got another one on the
38:03
11th of june i believe at seal waterside is that right yeah
38:06
part of sale festival i think we'll be in in the theater in
38:09
the evening on the 11th of june doing a few
38:12
from our from our concert and a few new
38:15
ones as well so if you've uh if you go to
38:18
the go to the first concert on the 9th of may don't worry on the 11th
38:21
you'll get you'll get a few few new ones something a bit different as well
38:23
to look out for and ben if people want to find out more
38:26
information about the choir both the concerts or actually
38:29
more about joining the choir where's the best place to
38:32
to look you up yeah i think probably the the website's
38:35
really up to date divocci or divocci choir i'll
38:38
double check that but yeah everything's on there it
38:41
has like email addresses of of all of us and how to get
38:44
in touch and we're really really keen for for intro
38:47
for new members who are interested so even if you
38:50
kind of feel you know your music reading you're
38:53
like not you know not feeling 100 percent all that that's absolutely fine
38:55
we really want to hear from you and and we just ask
38:58
for people to kind of come along to a few rehearsals see what they think
39:01
and we kind of take it from there so yeah if that sounds
39:04
like something that you'd be keen to join upper voices singing lots of new music
39:08
and old music we'd love to hear from you brilliant ben nickel a musical director
39:12
at devolchie choir thank you very much indeed thanks very much this is the late
39:19
late lunch show with Back to the Garden Childcare.
39:22
Where little explorers grow naturally.