NYCGB Summer Excitement!

Summer has officially arrived here at NYC - the rain is pouring down and the sun is nowhere to be seen! However, we are well underway with our residential summer courses - the Girls' Choir course is going well and NYC Boys' Choir and Main Choir preparations are in full swing. We have had a whirlwind summer, with NYC performing at the BBC Proms on the 5th August with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel. If you missed the real thing, catch us again on iPlayer. We have also had several rave reviews of the concert, on thisislondon.co.uk, musicalcriticism.com, in the Guardian and in the Telegraph. If you just can't get enough, NYC are performing in Lichfield Cathedral on the 29th August (email office@nycgb.net for more info).

In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for audition information on our website (www.nygcb.net) and also other exciting projects, such as our singing teachers' day in October, where Mike Brewer and NYCGB singing teachers Jenevora Williams and Veronica Veysey-Campbell explore the journey of a choral singer.

NYCGB veteran, Julian Forbes, reflects on the impact of NYCGB on his life

When I attended my first NYCGB course at Harrogate in 2000, the idea that I might eventually become a professional musician was an implausible one. I was a chorister at my parish church and a member of my school choir, though since my voice didn’t so much break as go through an extremely protracted and messy divorce, my usefulness was circumscribed. Fortunately, the NYCGB Tenor 2 section is a bespoke borstal for anyone in my position and I was well cared for. I fell in love with the choir, the courses, and, generously, every single member of the Soprano 2 section.

Singing with NYCGB in Shothole Canyon 2003

11 years later, with a university degree and a music college postgraduate qualification under my belt, and having rejoined the NYCGB as a staff member, I found myself in Tudor Hall School gymnasium. Mike Brewer, the man who’d auditioned me at Chetham’s School of Music back in the last millennium, was introducing me to the choir as a rehearsal conductor for the forthcoming session. I was brushed by one of those sensations of time lost. It hit me that the NYCGB had been my companion throughout my mature vocal development – and my eye sought out the youngest Tenor 2 in the ranks in front of me. An unlikely-looking chap, I thought. Raw stuff. A two-handed nose-picker. But, given the alchemical powers of this organisation, one to keep an eye on.

I won’t pretend that my pre-NYCGB existence was a sob-story. But there’s no doubt that the NYCGB brought something new and colourful into my life that wasn’t conspicuous before. The open, enthusiastic, uninhibited – and thoroughly un-cliquey – culture prised me out of my teenage bark, and gradually turned me into a confident singer, speaker and omniprat. Never mind being a professional musician, there’s no chance that I’d have made president of my university comic debating society or wound up running stand-up shows with random Australians in London if it hadn’t been for the NYCGB.

Jules in performance with Lisa Swayne  at Opera South 2011

And, in time-honoured last place on the list, beneath cabaret and the Soprano 1s, the music. I will never forget the realisation in the Royal Albert Hall at the Youth Prom in 2000, half-way through our epic performance of William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, that the backs of my hands were sweating. Nor will I forget the microsecond of time and space, huge with potential energy, between the final chord of that same piece and the explosive roar that burst from the audience. I won’t forget recording the Benedictus from Giles Swayne’s Missa Tiburtina at around 2 in the morning; won’t forget singing a solo in approximated Mongol to a bemused crowd of sun-seekers on Broome Beach; won’t forget treating Shothole Canyon in Western Australia to its first and possibly last rendition of Scandalise My Name. Through Mike’s evangelism, I’ve also discovered a lifelong source of musical inspiration in the works of the German composer Heinrich Schütz, whose music I’m programming in a concert this year (August 2011) with a group of my own.

That’s possibly the best thing of all. My NYCGB experiences aren’t confined to the past. They continue to enrich my present and will be part of what sustains my future.

Welcome to the NYCGB Blog!

Here at NYCGB we are still reeling from this Easter's fantastic concerts. The junior choirs and main choir gave a joint concert at the packed Birmingham Symphony Hall, including a Panufnik premiere. It was the first time many of the junior choir members had performed as part of NYCGB, and to do so on such an impressive stage was some feat, of which we are all very proud. The Training choirs were involved in a fantastic collaboration with the National Youth Jazz Collective (www.nyjc.co.uk) concluding in a fantastic concert at the Barbican. There are some fantastic photos from the events, I have uploaded a few of my favourites below but more will be available to view at www.nycgb.net in the near future!

All of this inspiring work really demonstrated to me, a relative newbie having only worked in the organisation since September, the passion and enthusiasm of everyone who is involved in NYCGB. A blog is the ideal platform to convey how much we love singing, performance and working on new and innovative projects! The blog will feature snippets into the musical lives of members, staff and alumni, giving a flavour of the residential courses and concerts which make up the NYCGB experience.

Junior Choir Concert in Foyer of Birmingham Symphony Hall

With the Jazz Collective

Training Choirs rehearsing

NYC backstage at Birmingham Symphony Hall