For our Spring 2025 concert we will be rehearsing Brahms’ wonderful Ein Deutsche Requiem (a.k.a. his German Requiem) which we will be rehearsing in German – a link is provided for those wishing to familiarise themselves with the music.

We will start rehearsals in the Music Lecture Theatre at UCS on Wednesday 8 January and we are planning an ten-week term concluding with a concert in the Great Hall at UCS on Saturday 22 March.

If you are on our mailing list, you should already have received an email with an invitation to register for the term – if you cannot find it, please check your spam folder. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to sing with us, please contact us via this website.

Concert and tickets

The concert is on Saturday, 22 March 2025 starting at 19.30 in The Great Hall, University College School, Frognal, Hampstead NW3 6XH.

Tickets will be available later this term via Trybooking (£25/£10 for 16-24 in full time education/free to under 16 plus a small booking fee) and a link will be posted on this page.

Rehearsal Schedule

The rehearsal schedule for the term is available here.

There will be a half term break on 19 February 2025.

Please remind yourself what you should bring to rehearsal by checking out this link.

The first two rehearsals will be taster sessions for those who would like to try out so, if you have friends and family who would like to try out choral singing, please ask them to come along. If you would like to give them some guidance on learning aids how to read music look at the material provided here. And, if you have friends in the choir who have not been attending recently, please encourage them to re-join too.

Don’t worry if you miss the occasional rehearsal or join the term a bit late – you should use the learning resources identified on this page to catch up.

Scores

Some of you may already have vocal scores for the Brahms, although please note we are rehearsing the work in German not in English as both are available. For those needing to purchase new or second-hand copies, we will be using the Peters edition. (currently £8.06).  The link provided here is to Presto Music, but you should also be able to source scores from Amazon or local music shops such as Dot’s in Camden Town.  Used copies are sometimes available from, for example, AbeBooks. Please be aware that new scores can sometimes take up to two weeks to be delivered.

Subscriptions

The subscription instalment for this term is £100.   The subscription becomes due on 16 January, immediately after the second rehearsal of term.

This term we are continuing with our new membership and subscription arrangements which are set out in detail in the document here and on the website here. The purpose of the new arrangements is to make a very simple link between singing with the choir (and paying subscriptions) and membership of Hampstead Chorus.  Membership entitles members to attend and vote at general meetings of Hampstead Chorus, giving them a say in its governance. The arrangements align with recent guidance on claiming Gift Aid on subscriptions and will encourage participation in the general meetings of Hampstead Chorus, by ensuring that those singing with the choir are members (subject to a singer opting out of membership).

Warm-up exercises

All our rehearsals start with warm-up vocal exercises.  Simon has prepared videos to help those who are less familiar with the exercises:

Simon’s regular warm up exercises

If you want to keep your voice going between rehearsals, these are the tools to use.

Learning aids

Many of the learning sites provide aids to help you learn your part.  We find the following to be particularly useful:

  • Cyberbass – a wide range of major works, including the Brahms Requiem.  You can listen to individual voice parts or all voice parts, you can select a short passage to listen to over and over again, or you can speed up and slow down recordings.  This is a very flexible tool, but you cannot download the recordings.
  • John F’s Rehearsal Files – John Fletcher has an extraordinary range of music on his site, with individual files for each voice part or for all parts together. You need to set up a membership – this is free for out of copyright music.  There is a paid for option if you want to access copyrighted music – there are various options, but the individual rate for one year is £10.  The advantage of John Fletcher’s site is that you can download the recordings to use offline.  He has all this term’s music on his site but the Vaughan Williams and the McDowell are in copyright so you will need to take out a paid option to use these.
  • Saffron Choral Prompt – you can order CDs at a modest price from saffronchoralprompt.co.uk 01799 586269.  You tell them the name of our choir (for a discount); which piece of music and name of publisher; your voice part.  You will receive a useful (though not beautiful) recording of a voice singing your exact line with a piano accompaniment playing the other parts.  This is clearly most useful for large scale works.
  • Some choir members find Choralia to be a useful source of learning aids.
  • Youtube have a recordings of the music – sometimes they include copies of the scores.

In-person and online rehearsals

We have been rehearsing in the Music Lecture Room (MLT) and M7 since November 2021 and have been able to achieve good levels of ventilation. Depending on outside temperatures, it canget a bit chilly, but these are the best conditions we believe we can achieve in terms of infection management (other than singing outdoors!)

So going forward, here are a few reminders about rehearsal etiquette to reduce infection risk:

  1. We are continuing with live rehearsals, combined with Zoom rehearsals (hybrid model). We are regularly reviewing the situation for any signs of increased infection rates and are ready to take action as necessary.
  2. Please only attend live rehearsals if you are fully vaccinated. We ask that if you have any signs whatsoever which could indicate infection (with or without a positive test) you STAY AWAY from live rehearsal and attend by Zoom.

With these regulations in place, we feel confident to continue choir rehearsals, always mindful of the evolving situation and ready to react if necessary.

How does Hampstead Chorus Online work?

There will be plenty of help on hand but most members have found it quite straightforward:

  • download ‘Zoom’ to your computer in advance of the session – it’s free video conferencing software
  • each week you are sent a link via email from Hampstead Chorus, which you use to join that week’s Zoom session from 7.15pm for a 7.30pm start.
  • a point worth emphasising is that, when you sing in Zoom sessions the only person who can hear you is yourself.
  • If there are two of you in the same location, unless you are the same voice part, you may wish to sign in from two devices so that you are put in the right breakout room.  If you are sitting near each other, please ensure both devices are kept on mute otherwise there will be a horrible feedback noise.

It would be very helpful to let us know before the rehearsal if you intend to attend online.

Further information on setting up Zoom and what to expect can be found here.