Elijah, Christmas and falling numbers

This has been an interesting term for several reasons. Having changed my work pattern I have been able to change the way that I approach my Choral work. The most notable thing is that I have more time to spend on preparation. Warm ups can be more tailored to the needs of the rehearsal and be more varied. When I had minimal time for preparation I increasingly relied on formulaic warmups and didn't pay much attention to the flow of rehearsal. With more time I can pay more attention not only to the structure of  the individual rehearsal but the overall rehearsal period. The result is that as performance draws near there is less tension all round. All the performances were less stressful in the end.

Choral Society performed Elijah in November. Elijah is an unusual work in that the chorus has a more important role than in many oratorios. There is a lot of chorus work and we had a relatively short rehearsal period. Many of the singers went into the last few rehearsals feeing underprepared for whatever reason. The performance, though, was good with some fine singing and playing.

The Newstead Abbey Singers gave a vey good Christmas Concert. They were able to welcome back the instrumental group that had to be dispensed with a couple of years ago for a variety of reasons, the principal of which was cost, thanks to the generosity and loyalty of the players. Charpentier's Messe de Minuit formed the basis of the first half and we debuted four pieces from Carols for Choirs 5.

Junior Choral just had one performance as part of the nativity at the White Post Farm Centre. Owing to a mistake on my personal diary I left the direction to Vicky. It's nice to hear children singing nicely.

My main concern over the past few months is the question of decreasing numbers. Membership of both adult choirs is reducing and also audience numbers are going down. Choral Society membership is now about 90, it was well over 100. Some members have gone through retirement and moving on and a few have moved to different choirs. This in itself is nothing new but the difference is that there has not been an equivalent number of replacements. I know that we are not alone. The question is: do we need to do anything about it? If the answer is yes it prompts the further question of what do we do about it?
The Newstead Abbey Singers are also losing members. Recently two men have moved on which leaves a balanced group but no room for manoeuvre should anyone miss a concert for whatever reason. Any recruitment for this group needs a different approach from the Choral Society.
The Junior Choral is a different kettle of fish. It has held its numbers well from last year, such that it has been unnecessary to recruit new members.

Elijah is one of the choral works that usually draws an audience but on November 17th the audience was disappointing despite having a large number of performers and good soloists. Concert going has gone down in recent years - we are not alone in that - but we need to think how to increase audience numbers to increase revenue. We need to address questions of ticket prices, programming, dates and venues of concerts to see what we can do.