UP, OPEN, DOWN, CLOSED and welcome !!!

HaHa!!!   :)  It's that time of the year where we don't know where to look or say!!!   So, let's just work through the list...!

UP: If our September Open Rehearsals are anything to go by, we're certainly 'up' for our Festive and Seasonal Christmas Concert programme!   There's traditional, and there's old favourites of ours, and there's some new to us (as male  choral arrangements), and there's some individual contributions from our ranks and our Accompanist, Jason, and there's audience participation!   We hope you're 'open' to joining in whether you come to our Concert in Norwich (at our Mile Cross Methodist Church home base) on Saturday 7th December, or our visit to Stalham (at the Baptist Church) just prior to Christmas itself on Saturday 21st December!

Speaking of OPEN:   That's exactly what our Advance Ticket Sales Box Office in the City Centre and Online are for those Norwich and Stalham concerts...   ...'OPEN'!!!   So our tickets are now already available from Anne and Chris at St George's Music Shop for personal or telephone callers, and our online TicketSource page is also up and running if you prefer to print your tickets at home.

DOWN:   Not so much how we feel when singing about snow, the cold, Christmas, winter, and so on, in September and October (it's the lot of all choirs at the moment...   ...just look at Twitter to see what everyone is saying!), but to say that our first Members Rehearsal is tonight, so we're really getting 'down' now to getting our concert programme under our singing belts!

CLOSED:   With our rehearsal doors now closed to non-members until January, if you were considering joining us, but didn't get to one of them, here's our best advice:

• If you are an accomplished / experienced choir singer, you can pick up repertoire quickly and you know your way around a piece of music, don't be put off by our closed doors - come to a rehearsal very soon and talk to our Musical Director Sarah about joining us.
• If you are a hobby singer new to working with a choir, are unfamiliar with male voice 4-part choral harmony (in other words, none of us ever get the tune for very long!), will need lots of help navigating a piece of music, or you would welcome support from our more experienced Members while you find your feet, we don't want you to feel you will never catch up or keep at rehearsal speed - our Open Rehearsals are especially for you!!!  We really do recommend that you come to one of our Christmas Concerts to see us in action, and if you like what you see and hear, come to our next Open Rehearsal sessions in January 2020 when we can ease you in to how we do things behind the scenes.

and WELCOME!!!   And hugely so to our three Open Rehearsal guests who have decided to join us and for whom, tonight will be their first full rehearsal as a Choir Singing Member:  Derek (Tenor 1), Rob (Tenor 2) and David (Bass 2) - welcome aboard and we hope you enjoy a very long stay with us as part of our singing ranks!

  (St George's Music Shop photograph: Denise Bradley)

---