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News and information for members of
THE REALLY BIG CHORUS
www.trbc.co.uk
Issue 23:Autumn/Winter 2014–15
published twice a year by Scratch Concerts Ltd, PO Box 4211, Bath BA1 0HJ
Dear TRBC Members
Modern choral classics at the Royal Albert Hall
Herewith an update on what’s
been happening recently with The
Really Big Chorus, and what you can
look forward to in the months to
come. If you’ve recently joined us,
welcome to our world of singing!
2015 sees the welcome return to the
TRBC repertoire of two well-loved
modern choral classics: John
Rutter’s Requiem and Karl Jenkins’
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace.
Written in 1985, John Rutter’s
Requiem follows those by composers
such as Brahms and Fauré in
seeking to play down the themes of
hell and damnation and concentrate instead on redemption and
consolation. This is the second half
of our May programme which
begins with three lively works by
Mozart. The Overture to The Marriage
of Figaro is followed by the
wonderful fourth Horn Concerto,
the Rondo of which was the subject
of a terrific vocal parody by
Flanders & Swann in their revue At
the Drop of Another Hat. Switching
us into sacred mode is the virtuosic
solo motet Exsultate Jubilate.
Our conductor is Jeremy Jackman,
who once sang at the opposite end
of the line to Brian Kay in
the King’s Singers and
now coaxes better
singing from choirs
all over the world.
Many TRBC members
have already had the
 Our 40th anniversary commis-




sion In Praise of Singing, and the
composer’s thoughts on the
performance on 12 July 2014.
Support the younger
generation of singers in this
year’s Scratch® Youth Messiah.
Discover the treats in store for
those who will be travelling to
India with us in March 2015.
Royal Albert Hall repertoire for
2015: we reprise two popular
modern classics.
Need to relax? Drift down the
Danube with us in October 2015,
singing as we go.
As you read this we are basking in
the success of our first Scratch®
Choral Summer School. Make a note of
the dates for 2015 – some of this
year’s singers have booked already!
Best wishes from all of us in
The TRBC Team
Forthcoming dates
pleasure of working with Jeremy
on our Christmas trips to and at
various workshops. Our workshop
on 25 April will give everyone the
chance to get to know the Requiem
really well before the RAH concert.
In July, Brian Kay
will be in charge
for Karl Jenkins’
The Armed Man:
A Mass for Peace,
which has received more
performances
this century than
any other choral
work. This moving piece requires
the singing of the Adhan (the
Muslim call to prayer) alongside
texts drawn from a wide crosssection of sources, all of them
powerful reminders that it is
ordinary people of all races and
cultures who pay the ultimate price
during times of war. With a supporting orchestral programme of works by Holst
(Mars and Jupiter from
The Planets) and Tchaikovsky (the 1812 Overture),
this will be a spinetingling evening of music.
Sing wit
h
us!
Booking is fully open for all events
23–26 October 2014: The Scratch® Krakow Crescendo. Our first trip to Poland! Krakow miraculously escaped
devastation during World War II and boasts some fabulous architecture. We will sing Karl Jenkins’ evocative The Armed
Man: A Mass for Peace with Brian Kay in St Catherine’s Church. Sorry, this event is now fully booked.
30 November 2014: The Scratch® Youth Messiah/Messiah from Scratch®. A repeat of last year’s inaugural youth
performance (2.00pm) plus our 40th anniversary performance of the one-and-only Messiah from Scratch® (7.00pm).
25 March–2 April 2015: The Scratch® Rendezvous with Rajasthan. Probably our most exotic trip to date: the ’Golden
Triangle’ of Jaipur, Agra and Delhi under the musical direction of Manvinder Rattan.
25 April 2015: Workshop on the Rutter Requiem. Our study afternoon with Jeremy Jackman at London’s Regent Hall will
have you note perfect for May’s RAH concert. (This workshop is particularly recommended if the piece is new to you.)
10 May 2015: The Scratch® Rutter Requiem. Favourite orchestral works by Mozart complement John Rutter’s tranquil
setting of sections of the Requiem Mass and other related texts. Jeremy Jackman conducts at the Royal Albert Hall.
12 July: Singday® 2015 – The Armed Man. Karl Jenkins’ millennium commission, so evocative of modern sectarian
conflict, makes a welcome return to our Royal Albert Hall programme; Brian Kay conducts.
11–16 August 2015: The Scratch® Choral Summer School. Our 2014 Summer School was such a hit that we’ve already
arranged a follow-up: an in-depth study of Brahms’s beautiful Requiem with a performance in Coventry Cathedral.
14–21 October 2015: The Scratch® Danube Delight. Relax and sing your way down the river with Brian Kay.
The allure of India
Our details in brief
Our postal booking address.
Tickets for all events are available from
PO Box 4211, Bath, BA1 0HJ,
England.
Our website. Find much more
about us at: www.trbc.co.uk.
TRBC on Facebook. To join the
community, see panel below.
TRBC on Twitter. See panel below
for how to follow us.
Our travel partner. Specialised
Travel Ltd deals with bookings and
looks after all the travel logistics for
our trips overseas: www.STLON.com.
Our telephone booking line.
Offered by ChoraLine (Music
Dynamics) for some of our Royal
Albert Hall concerts (not Messiah
from Scratch®): 0845 304 5070.
Will you be among those joining our Rendezvous with Rajasthan next
spring? We have long wanted to take you to India – for those who have
not been before it ticks many of the ‘must see’ boxes for the first-time
visitor: the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri and Amber Fort in particular, not
to mention a glimpse into a fascinating culture so different from our own.
India may seem at first sight to be an unlikely destination for a choral
group. There have been pockets of interest in Western choral music for
many years – usually resulting from the legacy of the British Raj and
other European settlers (most notably the Portuguese in Goa). Recently,
however, there has been an upsurge of interest in Western music in
general. The London Symphony Orchestra and BBC Scottish Symphony
Orchestra have both toured in India this year, and our travel partners,
Specialised Travel Ltd, organised an extremely successful tour to
Mumbai last year for the choir of Jesus College Cambridge, and this year
for the Southwest Festival Chorus.
Discount Music
ChoraLine (Music Dynamics) offers
a special 10% discount on performance CDs, scores, and ChoraLine
CDs for TRBC Members. Shop at
www.choraline.com, type SCRATCH in
the discount code box on the
shopping basket page, then click
the green ‘recalculate’ arrows to the
right to see what you’ve saved.
No computer? You can still
benefit from the discount.
Telephone ChoraLine on 0845 304
5070 and just mention Concerts
from Scratch to save your 10%.
PLEASE DON’T send post to our registered office in Englishcombe Lane! Mail
sent there may take weeks to reach us
because it is NOT the street address
‘behind’ the PO Box number. Use the
PO Box address to contact us every time.
Snake charmers from Rajasthan (photo: Cony Jaro)
Bringing Western choral music to an audience which may not be that
familiar with it is very much part of our mission – to spread the joy of
choral singing to as many people as possible. Being able to perform
Schubert’s Mass in G in Delhi’s Cathedral of the Redemption during
Holy Week will also be a unique experience. Combine these with the
exotic setting of luxury safari-style accommodation in Samode Bagh, an
Indian feast in the fairy-tale Samode Palace, and the magnificent
historical sites mentioned above, and it all adds up to a once-in-alifetime opportunity. Do join us!
Email addresses – keep them coming!
Our bid to capture your email addresses did not get off to a good start as
the promised facility on the website never materialised. We have now
added an ’update’ link on the home page of the site, enabling you to send
us an email with any amendments. Having your email address will make
Anyone can join this group which it easier to communicate urgent changes for events or to advise you of
is called ‘The Really Big Chorus last-minute availability or offers. We will also be able to deal more
quickly and efficiently with queries from overseas. Visit www.trbc.co.uk
Singers and Supporters’.
and click the ‘update your details’ link (rest assured we will not share
For regular updates your personal information with anyone without your permission).
why not follow us
@ReallyBigChorus
and tweet about us
to your friends?
reg. in England and Wales No. 2740803. Reg. Office
(please note, this is NOT an address for correspondence): 141 Englishcombe
Lane, Bath BA2 2EL  VAT number: 133 0052 73. THE REALLY BIG CHORUS and
CONCERTS FROM SCRATCH are operating names of Scratch Concerts Ltd.
SCRATCH CONCERTS LTD
work had a real appeal for the
singers and built strongly from its
dignified opening, through the
Jonathan Willcocks writes about
expressive and reflective central
the process of bringing his latest
movement to the exhilarating and
choral work to completion.
energetic finale.
To compose a piece to be sung by a
And so to the day of the performreally large choir, who would only ance. During the morning piano
come together to rehearse on the
rehearsal I could sense the large
day of the first performance, is
choir moving from their initial
something of a challenge! The start- tentativeness, through growing
ing point for any choral work must familiarity, to quite splendid confibe the text, and I was grateful to
dence, not only in their individual
colleagues at Concerts from Scratch parts but also in the concept of the
for steering me in various directwhole work. With the arrival of the
ions, resulting in excerpts from
full orchestra in the afternoon, the
Longfellow, Walt Whitman and the chorus was able to thrive on the
Psalms. These texts really encapsu- strong supporting colours and
late the spirit of all that The Really
textures of the orchestral writing, as
Big Chorus has come to represent in well as enjoying the familiar beauty
the past 40 years. They also proved
of Fauré’s Requiem which was the
ideal foundations on which to build other main choral work in the proa three-movement work which I
gramme. All this built towards the
hoped would be both accessible and evening concert, and I was really
fulfilling, and provide a sense of
delighted with the performance that
challenge and achievement for all
we gave together, with the strong
who participated.
response from the audience suggestNot only were the vocal score
ing that we had achieved someand voice-part CDs available
thing really rather special to celeseveral months before the date of
brate TRBC’s 40th anniversary.
the première, but a workshop in
Although In Praise of Singing was
central London afforded extra regiven its first performance by a
hearsal opportunity for participattruly enormous choir, it was also
ing singers. It was very heartening
written with smaller choral groups
in mind, and I hope that many of
for me to know by the end of that
the singers who were present at the
preliminary workshop that the
In Praise of Singing!
Messiah 2014
Record breakers. Were you singing in Messiah from Scratch® in 1974 or 1975? If so,
we’d like to hear from you in connection with
our 40th anniversary Messiah from Scratch®
at the Royal Albert Hall: 7.00pm on 30 November this year. Or perhaps you’ve sung in
every performance? You may be one of our
record breakers, so write to us at PO Box
4211, Bath BA1 0HJ and we will contact you.
Tickets. From now on, extra tickets will
slowly be drifting our way from RAH Members willing to sell them. But please don’t be
too hopeful as we already have an extensive
waiting list for both singer and audience
seats. Standing places in the Gallery are now
available from the RAH: book online at
www.royalalberthall.com or phone 0845
401 5005 (the RAH adds booking/handling
charges to all ticket prices, apart from those
purchased in person at the Box Office).
RAH concert will wish to explore
the piece further with their own
choirs. To bring it within the reach
of more modest budgets an accompaniment for 11 instruments and
organ is also available. Fauré’s
Requiem is an obvious partnerpiece, but it could also match well
with Duruflé’s Requiem or a Haydn
Mass. All enquiries about vocal
scores and the orchestral material
should be made to Prime Music at
[email protected].
To all those who sang or played
in the first performance of In Praise
of Singing, thank you so much for
enabling my new work to come to
life in such an exciting and fulfilling
manner.
Where are all the tenors and basses?
When The Really Big Chorus performs at the Royal Albert Hall, and tenors
and basses between them total around 500, it is easy to think that there
isn’t really a problem. View this figure as a proportion of the number of
sopranos and altos, however, and it’s a different story. At our Verdi Requiem
in 2013 there were nearly five times as many women’s voices as men’s –
and choirs all over the country tell the same story. Where are all the men?
There is a horrible irony that in this age of gender equality, music appears to be the victim of gender bias. In the first half of the 20th century
orchestras were almost exclusively male, and chaps in their thousands dependably underpinned choirs up and down the country. Choral singing now
seems increasingly to be viewed as not macho enough for the average redblooded male. Someone should tell them that a good evening’s singing is a
real work-out, benefiting both your heart and lungs (and your social life)!
What’s changed? Men still sing, but seem reluctant to join their local choir;
tenors, especially, are like gold-dust. Middlesex University, with support from
Making Music, is committed to exploring the whole issue further. Diana
Parkinson, as part of her Masters’ degree, will shortly be launching a nationwide survey into why people sing in choirs and what they get out of it.
Anyone can take part (the survey is anonymous), but responses from men
who sing in choirs will be especially valuable. Visit http://bit.ly/whysing and
give 10 minutes of your time to contribute to this very valuable research.
Four facts you may not
know about India ...
India’s Hindu calendar has six official
seasons rather than the four we are
used to. Spring and Summer are
followed by Monsoon; then come
Autumn and Winter, with Prevernal
completing the cycle. The Bengali
calendar is similarly divided.
Delhi boasts the world’s fastestgrowing urban railway system.
Opening in 2002 with just six
stations, it currently boasts 137
with a further 80 or so scheduled
to open before the end of 2015.
In India a moustache is regarded as a
mark of authority. Men with moustaches are believed to command
more respect than those without,
so much so that a few years ago
one state police force encouraged
officers to grow a moustache by
raising the pay of those who did!
Home-cooked food is so important to Indians that there are special
messengers called dabbawallahs who
ferry lunches daily, usually from the
worker’s home, to the place of work.
In Mumbai alone they deliver
some 160,000 lunches each day in
metal containers called tiffins.
Originating in 1890, the scheme
uses a vast network of messengers
travelling on bicycles and trains,
with meals often changing hands
three or four times before reaching the recipient. So efficient is the
system, however, that only one
tiffin in 6 million fails to arrive on
the right desk.
… and if you come to India
with us in March, you can
learn more amazing things
about this wonderful country!
As most of
you know,
we work with a charity partner at all our
Royal Albert Hall concerts to raise money for
causes like the British Heart Foundation
and the National Autistic Society. We try
to do the same when we sing overseas, but
this can earn us very odd looks in some
parts of the world, where ‘retiring collections’,
even for a charity, are unknown.
In Sorrento (March 2014) we supported
Musica Libera Tutti which provides free
music lessons for under-privileged children
in Naples, and their funds were boosted to
the tune of €600. Just under £5,400 went
Charity update
Hallelujah!
The Scratch® Youth Messiah
After its runnaway success at the Royal Albert
Hall in 2013, our second Scratch® Youth Messiah
at 2.00pm on 30 November 2014 will offer free singing
places to even more under-25s. Do you know a school or youth choir which might like to
join in? We have made it so easy: they can sing as few as three choruses or as many as 12;
the choir can be any single voice-part or full SATB; the music can be photocopied; and
registration forms can be downloaded via www.youthmessiah.co.uk where there is also
lots of helpful information. And if you’re available that afternoon, please come and support
them: there will be no Messiah from Scratch® 20 years hence if we don’t draw in these
younger singers now and appreciate their efforts! Tickets are already on sale from the RAH.
An A-grade Summer School!
However, for me there have been
three stand-out highlights of this
summer school. First, the opportunity to work alongside TRBC’s
principal conductor, Brian Kay, a true
musical colossus with the most generous demeanour, immense experience and artistic insight and the
patience of a saint! Second, the
enthusiasm and determination
of all the singers as they
approached the profound
emotional depth of
Maurice Duruflé’s
Requiem and the unrestrained exuberance
of John Rutter’s Gloria.
And third, the warmth
and friendship extended
to Karen (my wife) and me
by all whom we met.
To those of you who were there in
Warwick this year, a most sincere
thank you. Each and every one of
you has played an important part in
reaffirming my strongly held belief
in the transformative power of music
and in the joy that can be experienced by people coming together in
song. And to those of you who
weren’t able to attend this year, and
are starting to realise exactly what
you’ve missed, don’t worry: we’re
already booking for next year!
The first TRBC Summer School was
also our first opportunity to work
with Chris Finch, Musical Director
of the Bristol Bach Choir (and
other choral groups) as well as
Accompanist and Choral Director
at Wells Cathedral School. We
asked him what he thought of us ...
With the memories of the
final night’s emotionally
charged and committed
performance
in
Coventry Cathedral
still vivid in my
memory, I now have
the opportunity to
reflect on my first experience of The Really Big Chorus
with genuine fondness and admiration. Working with Brian Kay
and the participants of The Scratch
Choral Summer School at Warwick
University has been immensely
enjoyable and inspirational. There
have been many delightful moments:
a laughter-filled evening at the Royal
Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, a
wonderful meal and céilidh with
members of the chorus given ample
opportunity to demonstrate a little of
their newly improved rhythm(!) and,
of course, the culmination of everyone’s efforts in the final concert in
2015 dates: 11–16 August at Warwick
that magnificent Cathedral.
to the BHF from our Mozart Requiem
concert in May; amazingly, the amount
raised for the NAS in July, from far fewer
people, was well over £5,500.
Still to come this year are Krakow in
October and our two Messiahs at the end of
November. In Krakow a local charity has
yet to be identified, but The Scratch® Youth
Messiah (30 November) will once again
support WaterAid. This time we’re using
their ‘Bottle It’ scheme whereby you fill
empty 50cl water bottles with small change
(each one holds far more than you might think,
and takes quite a while to fill!). The young
singers will all be urged to do their bit, with
a handsome incentive for the choir raising
the most money, but you can join in, paying
the money into WaterAid’s account via a
special paying-in slip (visit the Youth Messiah
site at www.youthmessiah.co.uk to download one) which you then send to WaterAid.
Be sure to mention the Youth Messiah.
If you were intending to bid lots of
money for the BHF to win the chance to
conduct the Hallelujah Chorus at Messiah
from Scratch® then we hope you have
managed to get a ticket! Unwanted
Members’ seats are gradually filtering back
to us, and Gallery tickets can now be
purchased from the Hall (see also page 3).