Resound Male Voices (27 November 2018)
Foggy Friday – taking our lives in our hands on a wintry, darkening and dense foggy Friday evening Resound ventured over to Eastbourne Youth Hostel on the edge of the South Downs. Our Annual residential is an opportunity for the group to spend an intensive weekend to fine tune the music we’ve been learning over the Autumn term, learn new skills and even practice a new song or two.
As a vocal ensemble group we’ve been learning complex 4 part(or more!) harmonies in a variety of languages. I sing bass and the most challenging language for me has been Icelandic. Although a beautiful language it feels like we’re sometimes speaking Russian in reverse! Stefan Holmstrom is our Swedish musical director and a stickler for accuracy in our dictation and articulation. By the end of the evening our ‘euh’s’ were perfect.
Some of our time was well spent learning a song fresh to us all. The beautiful and haunting Limu Limu, a Swedish a capella number that once again pushed me musically, I don’t think I’ve sung so low! Hopefully this might be a number we can showcase next year when we take to the stage at the Brighton Fringe festival.
Resound is a charity and we’re all amateur singers but one of our aims is to develop ourselves musically. Part of the weekend was devoted to understanding and controlling the different ways in which we produce voice using ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ vocal folds. Not an easy task but by the end of the weekend we were all surprising ourselves by channeling ‘Opera’ quality and reminding ourselves to ‘never sing louder then lovely’. The fog finally lifted on Sunday morning and the sun broke through providing crisp blue skies and stunning views of Eastbourne and the surrounding landscape. Time enough for a brisk morning stroll followed by a tasty Sunday lunch to round off another wonderful weekend.
Reound’s next performance is with their sister group, the Rebelles, on the 14th and 15th of December at St Andrews Church on Waterloo Street. Hove for the Holidays: Evergreen. Ticket available via their website, Facebook page or ticket source.
Duncan Brown – Bass Resound Male Voices