Enjoy singing? Why note join the Ministry Area Pop-Up Choir?
With their participation in the licencing of the Revd Mary Moore on Tuesday 15 October, the NMMA Choir clocked up its twenty fifth appearance. Since September 2022, with the licencing of the Revd David Roberts in Llanvihangel Crucorney, the choir has led and/or supported others at services across the NMMA.
The choir functions as a project choir. That is, it doesn’t rehearse on a regular basis and doesn’t have a regular membership but, for each request to sing, a project is set up of one or two rehearsals and then the service. Interested singers register for the project and choose from a choice of rehearsal patterns which suits them the best. These rehearsals are underpinned by rehearsal tracks downloadable from the internet so that singers, who feel the need to get to know the notes a little better can access them at any time.
Participation in any one project does not constitute a commitment to participate in any others.
The repertoire is singer centred. That is, it is chosen to suit the people available rather than trying to hammer voices into an unhappy union with complex pieces. When voices are few (perhaps just half a dozen), a simple plainchant melody might be selected. On the other hand, when a fair number of persons are present, music in harmony is sung.
The presence of choral music in churches stretches back many centuries, brought to these shores by Catholic and Celtic missionaries. Church and chapel have developed their own traditions, and these have waxed and waned with time. Still within living memory, every congregation, whatever its type, had a flourishing choir – but how things have changed in the last 60 years or so. Now, apart from in cathedrals and larger churches and chapels, liturgical choirs are a rarity. Just look at our own churches within the NMMA – many of them have choir stalls which are unused decade by decade, apart from being used as seating for visiting clergy or as storage space for mops and buckets.
It seems incredible that in 1966, for at least a decade afterwards and many decades before, Monmouth Diocesan Choral Association (you can search for this through pages and pages of Google before finding any information) would publish its own annual festival book. Tucked away until recently in one local vestry was a dozen and a half copies of each – testimony to a large and flourishing choir. In other villages, inhabitants of no great age recall being church choir members when the stalls were full.
Circumstances now are different and that past is lost – but the NMMA Choir seeks to maintain a choral tradition of some 1,500 years so that, at least sometimes, a choir can be present in a service.
You can find out more about the NMMA Choir at www.festival-choir.cymru/NMMA or ringing Philip Norman on 01873 590 055