>Not a great deal to say really except that we’re full steam ahead for the Christmas and winter season with a major concert and several smaller performances lined up. See http://www.tottenhamcommunitychoir.com for further details.
>It’s been a funny old year for the choir – and when I say funny I mean “not at all funny in many ways”. Just over a year ago we (and when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘the Tottenham Community Choir committee’ – even though at the time I was not on said committee, having resigned a few weeks earlier due to my unhappiness with the way things were going) dismissed our MD because we could no longer work with him despite months and months of trying our damnedest. And he was not happy about that, oh no. And he made life bloody difficult for the choir and the committee (and one committee member in particular, who has been the victim of an unbelievably nasty, vitriolic and sustained attack over the past few months).
But we kept going. We lost almost half our members as a result of our (not mine but I stand by it 100%) decision, and for a few months the membership was decidedly unpredictable. I personally wondered whether we would ever be able to regain the numbers we’d had last summer when we did our ill-fated and ill-advised concert at the Bernie Grant Centre.
We had a number of well-meaning and talented stand-in MDs over the next few months, but they all had other committments and we struggled to maintain our repertoire and continuity (and consequently our membership). There are a half dozen or so songs that we started learning under one MD, only to drop them in favour of others as a different MD took over. Understandable – of course each MD wants to make their mark and choose their own material. But unfortunately quite a few people (new and old) left us, quite possibly due to the lack of clear direction and constant changes of MD.
During this time the committee (which I was invited to rejoin as a non-voting associate) tried to recruit a permanent replacement and, happily, in February of this year Nick Williamson was appointed to fill the post. At around the same time the entire committee was voted back in (phew!), and from then it’s been a slow but steady uphill climb.
A few weeks ago we did a couple of fairly high profile gigs – one was a local food festival and the other was a benefit for the victims of the Tottenham riots (concieved and organised – almost as a sort of therapy – by the ‘victim’ mentioned above). And, possibly because of these, we’ve seen our numbers increase quite dramatically over the past few weeks to the point where we’re as big as we ever were. Morale is great and we’re riding high and singing fantastically (it don’t ‘arf ‘elp yer voice when yer ‘avin fun!).
As for the ‘other’ choir, they’ve moved East a mile or so and so we are now the only choir on West Green Road, and the only ‘local’ choir for N17. One or two people who have joined us after trying them say that we’re much more enjoyable and easy going – which is nice to know. I don’t think they’re any competition any more, and perhaps the ‘war’ is over.
…to be continued…?
>One of our members was so moved by the recent events in Tottenham that she got off her b*m and did something. One of our members decided to organise a benefit gig featuring ourselves and many local performers (amateur and professional) and it’s happening this Friday at the Millfield in Edmonton – see http://tottenhamgig.wordpress.com for full details or follow http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tottenham-Benefit-Gig/243929708973247 on Facebook.
It was originally planned to be at the Bernie Grant Centre – an initial meeting went very well with enthusiasm all round but for some reason they pulled out. We have some suspicions why that might have been (someone bears us – and particularly the aforementioned oraniser – a *huge* grudge… who could it be? Who could possibly be so sour and bitter as to cancel a benefit gig for the homeless and dispossessed/??) but I couldn’t possibly say more.
Anyway that’s all I wanted to say. Please come along and help us support those in need.
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I have written to the MD of The New Tottenham Singers asking that he (or his Webmaster) remove all references to Tottenham Community Choir and all copied content from his site, also to invite him to reconsider their repertoire so that it no longer contains material that was chosen for, and had previously been performed by, TCC.
I await his response.
(Later addition): it seems that most of the ‘copied’ content, and the defamatory comments, have been removed from the NTS site. I thank them for that.
>This is my blog, mine and mine alone. No-one else has any say in what I write, no-one else sees it until I hit ‘Publish’. If there is a conflict of interest between anything I may put on this blog and any voluntary (or other) position that I may hold in the community or elsewhere, then that is my responsibility alone and – if the conflict is irreconcilable – may require me to reconsider that community position.
It is in the nature of blogs that they are spontaneous, opinionated and personal, and I have every intention of continuing to say whatever what I wish on this and any other blogs that I am responsible for – and that includes subjective criticism (= personal opinion) on any films, tv programmes, books, records or choirs – or people – that I may wish to comment upon. I do so advisedly, and taking full responsibility for anything I may write.
Some time ago a team that I am currently a member of signed a legally binding agreement with a 3rd party, and the agreement included an undertaking that they would not make defamatory comments about that party. I was not a member of that team at the time, and I was not – and am not – a signatory to that agreement. As I understand it, one of the clauses in that agreement was that it was not to be discussed with non-signatories and as a result I do not know the details – it therefore seems absurd to suggest that I am in some way bound, by association, by it or its terms. Nevertheless the person that I ‘criticised’ took it upon themselves to contact a conciliatory service and solicitor and threaten legal action against the team.
Given that the ‘agreement’ does not extend to me (this has since been confirmed to me by a solicitor who was involved in drawing up the agreement), I intend to continue blogging as before and, while I have no wish to be unpleasant or defamatory, I reserve the right to say whatever the heck I wish on any of my personal blogs within the bounds of decency and legality. It is an unavoidable aspect of the performance/entertainment industry that one gets reviews, both formal and informal, and I for one have certainly had my fair share of negative ones. An artist who is confident in their work should not feel threatened or undermined by criticism – one simply accepts or ignores it.
I removed (deleted – not retracted) my post of 11th June as a personal favour to my ‘team leader’, who was being threatened with legal action despite it having nothing whatsoever to do with them. But I stand by every word that I wrote and, given the behaviour of the aforementioned third party with regard to it, I have half a mind to rewrite it and republish it. I have already accepted (and acknowledged to that person, in a private email) that it was written in haste and not subject to my usual editing process, and a simple “whoah, steady on, could you tone it down a bit” from that person would have worked wonders – the fact that he chose to threaten legal action, rather than contact me directly (yes, he has my email address and phone number) is perhaps the worst bit about this.
I’ll be back – and if said person does anything else to annoy me then I’ll talk about them again.
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Seems I upset somebody and, rather than simply ask me to remove or reword my post they threatened legal action. Not a hope in hell since I ain’t done nuffink wrong – apparently they think I am censored by an agreement that I didn’t sign and don’t know anything about. But a friend of mine was dragged into it – someone who has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my blogging – and at their request I removed the entire thing.
Buy me a drink some time and I may tell all.
In the meantime I’m off to sing in the glorious Tottenham Community Choir.
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We had our first rehearsal after the half term break last night (also the first rehearsal since Chloe’s wedding – hi Mrs Jacobsberg!), and what an evening it was. Unfortunately Nick wasn’t able to be with us (last minute rehearsal for a gig at the Albert Hall – spose thats a good reason), but fortunately Simon Sharp was able to recommend a colleague who stepped in at short notice.
Simona Budd had nothing to prove and nothing to lose, she took us by the scruff of the neck and got one of our best rehearsals for ages out of us. Faure’s ‘Cantique De Jean Racine’ and the choral arrangement of ‘What A Wonderful World’ have long been personal favourites of mine (choir-wise, at least) and we *soared*. Bloomin’ grand, Mary Poppins.
We also had 7 or 8 new members last night (though, sadly, we were missing a few key regulars) so things are looking good for Tottenham Community Choir summer term.
Onwards and, indeed, upwards.
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Used to be the first day of a new half term was to be dreaded but tonight is the first day of a new half term for Tottenham Community Choir with new songs, new people and a new – dunno what. Why not come along and find out?
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This Tuesday (7th June) we (Tottenham Community Choir) start a new half term, and we’re going to be revisiting some old material to see which songs we want to keep in our repertoire and which we can lose. It’s been a difficult few months in the interregnum, with each of our stand-in MDs having their own thoughts and ideas about repertoire and consequently several new songs that we began learning but never finished.
Understandably, Nick’s first priority upon joining us was to prepare the material for Chloe’s wedding – this is now over and we have some great songs in our core repertoire. But now we need to expand that repertoire, and so we’re going to be learning some new songs (including several suggested by the choir members) and bringing others back that we haven’t done for a while. Some of our early material we are unable to perform, some we don’t want to perform, but some could – and should – come back.
Please check out web site http://www.tottenhamcommunitychoir.com to see some of the songs that we’ve sung in the past, and please come along and join us to find out what exciting plans we have for the future.
Full steam ahead for the winter concert!