Is Larry Gordon coming over to do any workshops this year ? Singing "New Jerusalem" at Larry's tempo comes as somewhat of a shock to the system first time round, but after a while you don't want to sing it slow again.

BTW Linda and I are looking for an Alto and Bass so that we could run some harmony workshops - we have worked with "Cappella" in the past. This would be mainly for festivals and we would not need a huge repertoire. My preferred format is to start off with rounds - just to get people used to singing against each other - although of course it's great practice for fugal entries. Then to split the group into 4 parts and "notebash" (usually a Sacred Harp anthem) until each part is reasonably ok, and finally put them all together. It's great to see the looks of pleasure on the faces of people who've never done any part singing before. We can get a group of comlete novices singing something like "New Jerusalem" in a one hour workshop. The group then usually performs the piece in one of the main concerts - and often anywhere else they can get the chance. At Walton FF a few years ago, we had to do an encore in the main Saturday night concert.

We would need to do some rehearsing beforehand so it would be useful if you're not too far from SE London. You don't need to be able to sight read, but a bit of familiarity with "dots" would save time. You do need to be able to learn and hold a part and teach it to others fairly accurately. If the distances involved weren't too far, it might be possible to build up a concert repertoire as well. - Any Volunteers ?