Over £750 raised for Ukraine! Great first gig post COVID at the Good Neighbours Peace Garden
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Performing again! Looking forward to our first performance post COVID!
44 people for Second online session
Our 2nd online session was a success – 44 people!
The online choir is working really well, and a decent substitute for the real thing during lockdown.
I’ve got a quite elaborate set up in my spare room to deliver the sessions!
We’re moving online!
Hope you’re keeping safe and well in this strange time.
I’ve missed our weekly sessions a lot, and long for the return of our happy Wednesday singing community!
But fear not – all that is about to change…
Because we’re going online!
we are starting this Wednesday April 22nd at 7:30pm
This is open to anyone, even if you’re not in the choir already and want to get involved.
I’ve hatched a plan along with two other choir leaders around the country to combine resources and do something new and creative in the lockdown.
Our collaborators are Stef Conner (based in Cambridge website here) and Claire Robins, (based in Surrey website here). Together they run the Timeline Choirs, one in Surrey and one in Cambridge (see website here)
So, adding my two choirs, we have four choirs working together for this online project.
Each choir will run a weekly online rehearsal for an hour:
- Leith Hill Timeline Choir (Claire): 7:30-8:30pm – Tuesday evenings
- The Stonegate Singers (Jon): 7:30-8:30pm – Wednesday evenings
- Cambridge Timeline Choir (Stef): 7:00-8:00pm – Thursday evenings
- The Roundhay Singers )Jon): 8:05-9:05pm – Thursday evenings (starts just after you clap the NHS)
Our term will run for 11 weeks:
from w/c Monday 20th April w/c Monday 6th July
HALF TERM in the w/c Monday 25th May.
What we propose is that you come to you regular choir rehearsal each week. This is important, as we want each choir to be itself with its members, but just want to open up the possibility of being connected together as multiple choirs.
If you’re new to the choir, then you can treat The Stonegate Singers as your regular choir! Then when things come back to normal you can join us in person!
And then you are free to drop in to other choir rehearsals as and when you please. There’s no expectation that you do, but they are there if you are in the mood for an extra session, or just curious to see what they are like.
We will be using the Zoom online conferencing platform – if you don’t know how to use this don’t worry, it’s extremely easy, and all instructions will be sent to you before the first rehearsal in a separate email.
We will all be working on 3 new pieces, one each selected by Jon, Claire and Stef, alongside some old favourites that we know already.
There will be workshops from the other choir leaders too – so you will not get bored with just looking at my face on the screen!
We’ll be providing a range of shared new online resources to enable you to learn and work on material at home too.
In terms of money issues, we’re asking for voluntary contributions through a payment button that you’ll find on the website for each individual choir. Please feel free to pay whatever you like for the sessions – or nothing at all – we understand of course that everyone is in different financial situations during this period, so there are no expectations here. And you can pay before or after the session, or at any time.
There will be some kind of group online performance/recording result at the end of the term – we’re still planning this, so we’ll keep you posted!
If you have any questions please contact me via email at thestonegatesingers@gmail.com and we will do our best to answer!
Here’s to some wonderful singing – see you online on Wednesday!
Cheers,
Jon
Refugium book and cd published….
Very proud of our new publication, the book and double CD Refugium. The Stonegate Singers recording of my composition Through The Gate features as part of it. The book has been created with archaeologists Dr Ben Elliott and Professor Mark Edmonds.
£500 raised for St Nick’s Nature Explorers programme…
Big thanks go to all who supported our Summer Concert which has raised £500 for St Nicholas Field’s Nature Explorers programme of family activities! Judging by the feedback we’ve had, the audience thoroughly enjoyed the diverse mix of classical music masterfully performed by pianist Matthew Palmer and cellists Sarah Sigsworth, Catherine Strachan and Frances Jones, as well as songs from around the world sung by The Stonegate Singers , and Brinley Price’s nature-inspired poems. Also thanks to Lewis Outing for great photos and to all the helpers!
Amazing performance at Rowntree Theatre Community Choir Festival!
We had a fantastic performance on Tuesday night at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, as part of the Community Choir Festival that’s been running there for the past 10 years.
The choir sounded amazing, and we’ve really got to a whole new level in terms of performance, tuning and the quality of the sound we’re making.
We’ve had some very strong new member come too, who’ve really made a difference to how the choir sounds.
Looking forward to the next chapter…
Our Canopy of Voices performance a great Success at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
We had a great time performing as part of Canopy of Voices at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and I was even interviewed by BBC Radio 3! The piece was the product of Manasamitra, an artistic collective directed by South Indian singer and composer Supriya Nagarajan (see here: http://www.manasamitra.com/). James Cave was the main composer for the piece, working alongside Supriya and Duncan Chapman, with text provided by the poet Shash Trevett.
Stonegate Singers concert as part of the York Big Sing project..
Stonegate Singers director Jon Hughes is also running York Big Sing this summer, and he ran a workshop in Rowntree Park on Sunday, followed by a short Stonegate Singers concert in the Park!
Our Summer Concert was a real success!
We had a lovely concert at the Unitarian Chapel in St Saviourgate on 30th June, to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of St Nicholas Fields Nature Reserve and Environment Centre. The Unitarian Chapel filled up and the audience was very appreciative of the varied programme. Thea Jacob who came along summed it up well: “It was a wonderful evening and represented St Nicks brilliantly: inspirational, uplifting, purposeful, celebrating the richness and beauty of life and each person’s equal importance and value as a thread in the fabric of our world.”
Big thanks go to all the performers: David Hammond on piano, Sarah Sigsworth on cello, community choir The Stonegate Singers, who sang songs from around the world as well as the premiere of David Hammond’s choral arrangement of ‘Haiku for St Nicks’ written by local poet Brinley Price, Brinley himself read a couple of his other poems inspired by St Nicks, and Cliff Wilton read out extracts of the Tang Hall Tip 1939-1947 poem. Equally warm thanks go to Lewis Outingfor taking beautiful photos, all the event helpers, and especially to those who came along and helped us raise £600 on the night!
The Stonegate Singers 