During the lockdowns of 2020, The Bridge Singers choir, of which I am musical director, kept themselves going in several ways. One of these ways was to produce lockdown videos, which kept everyone singing (albeit individually), and by keeping in touch with other members of the choir. Here are three of our new choir arrangements:

The Black Velvet Band – The Bridge Singers’ first lockdown video – indeed all choristers’ individual recordings were in to me by the end of March, so we were properly on the ball –  and you can see all the traumas about the recording they outlined in their comments to me. These videos have not only been a way of keeping singing, but also of keeping in touch, so even those who were unable to record have contributed with their photos, stories and comments. You can hear and watch “The Black Velvet Band” video here!

Australia – our second effort a month later. They were asked to send in images of what they’d been up to since we last me up in person. You can hear and watch “Australia” video here!

Teo Torriatte – A few months down the line, in August, and we had now done a few more of these videos including ones that included some live recordings of groups of six, as well as lots of individual ones too. Because the river was so low, we were able to meet up in the evening and record underneath the arches of the bridges – quite a resonant space, albeit inhabited by roosting pigeons and jackdaws, and with the added advantage that choir members awaiting their turn could observe from above and have a well-spread-out chat with each other. This recording of a Queen song written by Brian May has the added thrill of us all singing together afterwards – very emotional… and difficult to record because we had to be so spread out – everyone had stayed after their recording session because our Chairman had organized for our customary end-of-year speeches and gift-giving  I spent a lot of the first part of the year getting permission to make this choir arrangement and then making the arrangement, so we didn’t start learning it until July time. I think you can hear on the recording the improvement in their singing from March even though this was our trickiest of our lockdown lockdown choir arrangements so far. You can hear and watch the “Teo Torriatte” video here!