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Stevenage Male Voice Choir
22 March 2009
Valerie Meister died 20th March 2009
I have know Valerie Meister for the last 23 years when she taught our youngest son at Knebworth Primary School. Since I joined the choir and sung with her husband, Hans, we have became close aquantancies and enjoyed their company, especially at concerts and during last years choir tour to France. Valerie did a fantastic job, helping Hans with his Librarian duties and made a great cup of tea on our rehearsal nights. She will be sorely missed by us all.
Geoff Tungate
31 January 2009
It is with great regret that we have to say goodbye to Peter Saunders, after 33 years, due to family commitments, as our accompanist (1976 - 2009). He became part of the fixtures and fittings, having served with a variety of MD's over the years. Accompanist, Soloist, Chorister (occasionally) and Assistant Conductor when the need arose. We hope that he will maintain contact with us and perhaps join in with the bass section from time to time. Thank you Peter for your loyal and supportive help over the years.
Albert Allard
22 May 2008
A party of 46 have just arrived home after spending 6 wonderful days in France celebrating the start of our Golden Jubilee year. The trip was brilliantly organised by Derek Thurland and his wife Helen and every aspect of the tour went well. We sang in two different locations and received standing ovations in each. More details can be found on our "Golden Jubilee" page. Well done ALL.
Geoff Tungate
14 May 2008
To the S.M.V.C. A Limerick composed by David Macaulay.
I wish I was going to France To sing with the Choir and perchance Improve my French lingo An Asset, by jingo With chanson's d'amour et romance.
The music you sing is appealing And I know that you sing it with feeling You all are my Chums And I hope that the thumbs Of the French will all point to the ceiling.
Have a great time - Cheers, Dave.
October 2007
I have today visited Paul's home to learn the rudiments of the choir web site. Paul gave me a quick tutorial and the relevant log on deails so that I can, in future, assist Paul in keeping this web site up to date. Thanks to Paul all seems spot on, so I will do my best to keep it that way.
Geoff Tungate
27 September 2007I have been busy! - which is why the web site has been woefully neglected and only today updated. My apologies to anyone who logged on between 20 July 2006 and today and who found the out of date information irritating. The truth is, as you may have learnt if you have looked at my biography page, some friends and I started a music publishing company in January 2007 and that has kept me frantically busy ever since. But, with many publications now out and abroad, I have some spare time in which to catch up ...
Actually, it's hardly 'a music publishing company', more an 'Elgar music publishing company'. As of today we have produced Volume 37 (Music for Violin) of the Elgar Complete Edition, with Volume 4 (Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf) at the printers (and due for publication in December), the vocal scores of Elgar's Spirit of England, Coronation Ode (Worcester - the 2007 Three Choirs Festival) and The Black Knight (Solihull) and full scores and sets of orchestral parts of The Black Knight (Coventry) and Polonia (Oundle). [Locations in brackets are the places where our scores and parts have been used for performance.
What with having to enter every note by hand into the computer software, that's a lot of notes! Then there's the printing, collating and binding - though we did have Spirit of England professionally printed and bound.
On SMVC matters, I am most grateful to John Edwards and Malcolm Hicks for deputising for me while I was on holiday in Spain. I really felt that I needed to get away (mainly from the computer!) and relax, so I went to Playa del Albir where a friend f mine has a holiday apartment. I am particularly grateful to John Edwards who not only directed the rehearsal on Friday 7 September but also conducted the concert in All Saints Church (Willian) the following day. By all accounts he got on very well with the members of the choir and they got on well with him. The concert itself was very successful. Thank you, John.
A recent innovation for members of the choir who are not musically literate has been the starting of some Musical Literacy sessions on Friday evenings before the start of the main rehearsals. These are designed to help members to learn to read music, thus increasing their enjoyment of what they are doing in rehearsal (and, maybe, even get rid of any old phobias about reading music) and also to increase their contribution to the choir and value as members of the choir. The sessions are free, beginning at 6.45 pm and ending at 7.25 pm.
Paul Adrian Rooke
30 July 2006
Many thanks to Robin Osterley who took the rehearsal on 21 July 2006 while Paul was at the wedding of Tessa Robinson to Duncan Alexander. Apparently Robin was impressed with some of the singing, such as You Must Remember This. Well done, chaps!
Paul Adrian Rooke
19 July 2006
It has been a busy 24 hours. First, I loaded up six tracks from our "Brothers, Sing On!" CD. Then I finished the pages on the Choir Rules and the Appendix to the Rules. Lots of waiting for files to load and lots of typing, but it's all up there now, bar the little bugs that always seem to creep in. Only membership details to be uploaded now and then that should be about it for the moment. Do let me have your comments.
Paul Adrian Rooke
18 July 2006
Well, the web site is all up and running at last - though some of it's crawling a bit for the moment. I hope members and non-members alike will find it interesting and useful. I hope also that some visitors may decide to join Stevenage Male Voice Choir following their visit to the site.
The choir is having a quiet period at the moment with its next concert not until 10 September at Priory Island (Ware), so we are learning some new and exciting repertoire and having some respite from the songs we sang in concerts in the first six months of this year.
Do get in touch with us if you have a comment about the web site or the choir. We should be delighted to hear from you.
Paul Adrian Rooke