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The new year is a great time to join a choir - especially if your new year's resolution is to learn a new skill, socialise more or even to be healthier and happier! Starling Arts share tips on finding the right choir, settling in, finding your way musically and how best to enjoy the experience of singing with others.
Read MoreLast week, the Starling Arts community had an epic week of singing and dance rehearsals, concluding with our first full run of Abracadabra by our wonderful band, made up of bass guitar, drums and two keyboards. Find out how the magic is taking shape in this week's blog post.
Performance rehearsals continue with members of all three Starling Arts choirs, Corvida, Forte and the Starling Singers. The show pieces are coming together really well, and the choirs enjoyed watching snippets of each others' songs at our final combined rehearsal on Thursday evening.
On Friday came one of our favourite parts of the final preparations for our productions: band call, the first day our musicians get together to rehearse the music for a show. Having rehearsed with our singers for some months using only a piano or keyboard in a small hall, the introduction of the band is like the icing on the musical cake, bringing everything together. The instrumentation adds texture and personality to the songs, bringing them to life.
Using 'patches' from a computer plugged into our 2nd keyboard, we can achieve an array of high quality sounds played through the keys. We have a strings section, electric guitar, 80s synth bass and a brass section at the flick of a switch!
We think our Abracadabra band are rather special. The incredible musician Jen Green has worked with Starling Arts since our very first session back in January 2010, and Abracadabra marks her 7th show with us, incredibly! The talented Dave Holden returns for a third time to play bass with us and we’re thrilled to welcome Sam Cooper to our line-up for the first time on drums! Starling Arts' co-director Anna Shields leads the band, and can be seen here on Keyboard 1.
We can't wait to perform Abracadabra on 6th and 7th July 2013 at the John McIntosh Theatre, London, and hope you can join us! Tickets are available from our What's On page.
Starling Arts connects people through singing! Find out more about our workplace singing experiences, choir community, singing workshops and annual Summer School.
