Singing At York Minster
Angela Michel, who led some of the workshops at Whitby, invited us to join the York Unifying and Multicultural Initiative (YUMI) Warblers for a concert at York Minster on 5th April 2008. Not only were we to join the massed voices of the Warblers but, along with some of the Scratchets, to sing some of our own repertoire.
Beryl, Lorna, Maria and Sheila were able to go to one of the rehearsals in York and came back exhilarated after singing this wide range of sings from round the world with such a large group. Our Wednesday rehearsal left us a bit apprehensive, however, at the prospect of singing our own songs with a much reduced choir. As usual Andy was upbeat and the impomptu rehearsal on the coach reassured us all. Our nerves were not shared by the five members of the children's choir, Angel, Amber, Kirsty, Megan and Niamh who wrote
Singing with the massed choirs was a bit of an act of faith as we could not really see Angela or the flip charts with the words from the back of the stage. It did not seem to matter in the end and the Minster was filled with the sounds of the Maori welcome song 'Te Aroha', 'Thuma Mina', 'Siyahambe', and the parting song 'Famba Naye' from South Africa and 'Zaminranza' from Zimbabwe. We swayed to the Brazilian 'Cantai ao Senhor' and swung to the 'Good News' Gospel number.
Singing 'Shalom/Salaam' reminded us how we can have exactly the same message in two languages, Hebrew and Arabic. It seemed to sum up the spirit of the concert.
Beryl, Lorna, Maria and Sheila were able to go to one of the rehearsals in York and came back exhilarated after singing this wide range of sings from round the world with such a large group. Our Wednesday rehearsal left us a bit apprehensive, however, at the prospect of singing our own songs with a much reduced choir. As usual Andy was upbeat and the impomptu rehearsal on the coach reassured us all. Our nerves were not shared by the five members of the children's choir, Angel, Amber, Kirsty, Megan and Niamh who wrote
Singing with the massed choirs was a bit of an act of faith as we could not really see Angela or the flip charts with the words from the back of the stage. It did not seem to matter in the end and the Minster was filled with the sounds of the Maori welcome song 'Te Aroha', 'Thuma Mina', 'Siyahambe', and the parting song 'Famba Naye' from South Africa and 'Zaminranza' from Zimbabwe. We swayed to the Brazilian 'Cantai ao Senhor' and swung to the 'Good News' Gospel number.
Singing 'Shalom/Salaam' reminded us how we can have exactly the same message in two languages, Hebrew and Arabic. It seemed to sum up the spirit of the concert.
'tonight we are going to sing at York Minster and we are all really excited. None of us are that nervous though (luckily)'
