ShowJam!

Greetings from us all at Bristol Show Choir! We’ve been working hard this term on some new material from the likes of Hadestown and Annie, and we’ve carried over a firm favourite from composer Lin Manuel Miranda that we first sang last term (we think you might have heard of it, it’s about someone no-one in the family Madrigal talks about), plus one of the choir’s Greatest Showman staples.

We’ve even dived back into the Show Choir vault and dusted off a number from the musical Spring Awakening that was in the mix to be revisted during our Greatest Hits term and narrowly missed out! We can’t wait to share the results of all our hard work with you at our Easter Concert at the sensational Mount Without. Tickets are available HERE!

In the meantime though, we’re excited to be joining forces with the wonderful ChoirJam for a joint workshop this coming Saturday, Feb 25th. ChoirJam were founded in 2011 and focus on feel good pop songs from the 1960’s and beyond. We’re looking forward to learning from them, and also sharing our very own brand of musical theatre magic, as each of the leaders (Show Choir’s Jess Broderick is representing for us that day!) take turns to teach a song and share some wisdom about performance techniques, before we come together to perform at the end of the day!

We at Show Choir love the opportunity to collaborate with other choirs not just purely for the joy and camaraderie, but also to continue developing our skills. Keep an eye on our socials as you just might get some sneak peeks of the sights and sounds from the day…

If you’re a Show Choir member (Bristol or Bath), tickets are on sale now and we’d love to see you there!

A LegenDERRY Tour - Oct 22!

We were thrilled to take part in this year’s Derry International Choir Festival. Taking a fabulous bunch of 40 Bristol Show Choir singers all the way from Bristol to Northern Ireland, we had a super time performing in community concerts and choir trails, pubs and restaurants and even on the city walls!

We also competed in the Mixed Voice competition, coming a brilliant 6th! Well done to all our singers who totally smashed Six (from Six) and Bring Him Home (from Les Mis). The adjudicators enjoyed our “energy and style” saying we performed with “bucketloads of enjoyment”. Another said “a great group of people doing great things”! And we couldn’t put it better ourselves!

We had a fantastic time enjoying the performances from other choirs, throwing ourselves into workshops (who knew we’d get to sing Swedish Folk songs?!) and generally singing our socks off at every opportunity. Thanks to the festival organisers for all their hard work in putting on a brilliant event. They also thanked us for our contribution to the life of the festival, well, we certainly did make the most of it! You could even say it was LegenDERRY!

Huge thanks also go to CGI who sponsored our tour T-shirts and made us all look completely ‘show choir fabulous’! We even appeared on various live Instagram feeds wearing our swanky new kit!

The big question is, where will we go next?!

🍁 Hello Autumn 🍁

Hello from us all here at Bristol Show Choir, and welcome to the Autumn Term! We’re so excited to get back to singing and bring back the special brand of musical theatre magic to the week again, be it at Southville, Clifton, Westbury on Trym or Downend. Before we rush headlong into sharing how the term is shaping up so far, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the end of our Summer term, that we, and our sister choir, Bath Show Choir marked with our Summer Spectacular concerts.

Singing at the wonderful St George’s Bristol is always a joy for us, but to have done so this year, the term where we’ve finally been able to reunite and sing together in person amidst the pandemic meant the whole day had a really special energy about it. We celebrated the likes of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Come From Away, Les Misérables and Porgy and Bess, all the while raising money for an incredible worthy cause, the Unicef Ukraine Appeal. It left us on such a high and we’ve been determined to carry that energy and momentum into our Autumn term.

Speaking of energy, there’s a definite up-tempo shift in the mood that shapes the repertoire for this term, and we’ve tried to pick more “feel good” show tunes to brighten up these autumn and winter nights. Each tune will get its own blog, but suffice  to say for now: there’s a familiar composer or two in the mix, and rather unexpected twists on classics that only Show Choir can bring!

💫 Summer Spectacular Concerts 💫

Hello from us at Bristol Show Choir as we gear up for a momentous week in our calendar: on Saturday the 9th of July, Show Choir are making their triumphant return to the beautiful St Georges for our Summer Spectacular Concerts!

We’ll be performing two concerts on the day: for the matinee at 2pm, the Clifton and Easton casts of Bristol Show Choir will be joined by our sister choir, Bath Show Choir to bring our Show Choir magic to the afternoon, before we hand the reins over to our Southville and Westbury on Trym castmates.

This term has been a really special one for the Show Choir family. We’ve been able to get back together to sing as a choir and to audiences again since the start of the pandemic, we celebrated our fifth birthday by recording our second album celebrating our Greatest Hits as voted by our cast, and have been thrilled to see our family grow as we welcomed Bath to the ranks. As such, we cannot wait to share with our audiences the results of all our hard work and passion for musical theatre.

Musically, it’s been pretty eclectic for us in terms of the mix of tones and eras we’ve been exploring, so you can expect to hear songs from classics like Les Misérables and Porgy and Bess, to the more modern musicals that speak to so many of our cast members like Come from Away and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, so we’re sure they’ll be something for everyone!

We are honoured to be raising money for Unicef’s Ukraine Appeal once more, so any amount you can give will be massively appreciated.

As if two concerts that day wasn’t an exciting enough prospect, we are thrilled to announcing the release of our second album: our Greatest Hits 2017 – 2022! Recorded back in April, we celebrated eight of our cast’s chosen Top Ten songs of Show Choir past and present. Recording for us is always brilliant fun, but we think this second one is extra special because it shows how far we’ve come on our journey thus far, and we cannot wait to share it with our Show Choir family, and our fans!

There’s still time if you’d like to join us! See out your summer in style and book tickets HERE!

See you there x

Greatest Hits Ten: "Six"

We’ve reached the finale of Bristol Show Choir’s Greatest Hits blogs! It’s our tenth tune as chosen by our amazing cast members, and some might say if you’ll forgive the pun, it’s the jewel in our crown…

The tenth song to complete our greatest hits is “Six” from the musical of the same name by Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss. Taking the form of a concert instead of more traditional musical theatre telling the story of each Queen, this musical re-imagines the six wives of Henry VIII coming together to form a pop group, each vying for position as lead singer by sharing their stories and seeing who suffered the most by being married to him.

This song is the finale to the show, where all the Queens come to realise that they don’t need to be defined by their history and can celebrate themselves and their achievements. It’s a real upbeat, positive and empowering number to sing, and we think that’s why we think it resonates so strongly with the Bristol Show Choir cast.

It's not just us who are fans though: since Six started life at the Edinburgh Festival presented by Cambridge University students in 2017, it has gone from strength to strength with productions in the West End, on Broadway, and many international iterations, including Australia, New Zealand, and even aboard Norweigan Cruise Line! For us, we first introduced our arrangement of “Six” during a Show Choir workshop and was so well received that we wanted to add it to our repertoire!

What stands out in this song and what makes it so fun to sing is the energy and feel: each of the Queens has their own style and feel, reflecting a different era of music or female singer. The melody shifts around a lot in the verses between the Altos, Sopranos and Tenors: the Altos sing Catherine of Aragon and Anna of Cleves, the Sopranos get to give us their best Jane Seymour, the only one he truly loved (rude) and Catherine Parr, and the Tenors take on Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. What we’ve tried to emphasise in our arrangement is focusing on the personality and fun of the lyrics and reflect that when we sing. Of course, we still want to sing technically well, but of all our greatest hits this is the one that we’ve been able to relax a little more and “play” with – there are some lovely moments of interaction between the choir as we react to certain lyrics.

It’s a definite crowd pleaser and always gets an enthusiastic reception when we’ve busked or performed it, and we’re immensely proud of the hard work and enthusiasm our cast have given to this and all our other Greatest Hits this term.

Greatest Hits Nine: "You Can't Stop The Beat"

For our penultimate Greatest Hits blog, we’re returning to our roots of five years ago with one of the very first songs we learned as Bristol Show Choir: “You Can’t Stop The Beat” from Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s 2002 musical Hairspray.

Set during 1962 in Baltimore, Hairspray follows Tracey Turnblad, a teenager with dreams to inspire change. After auditioning for a role on The Corny Collins show and becoming a celebrity overnight, Tracey decides to use her status and platform for good and campaign for the show to become integrated.

The musical explores themes such as racism and freedom of expression, and as a whole the score is really fun, peppy and upbeat, featuring dance style and “downtown” rhythm and blues influences which reflect the setting. “You Can’t Stop The Beat” is the show’s finale, apparently inspired by Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep Mountain High”, the number sees many of the show’s principal characters return to celebrate progression and positive change, which reinforces the message and spirit of the musical. It’s incredibly catchy and a joy to sing, but yeesh is it a challenge!

We at Bristol Show Choir are no strangers to lyrically heavy songs (hello, Hamilton Medley!) but I think it’s fair to say this song is, to borrow a phrase from The Wizard of Oz: a horse of a different colour! Why? The challenge is twofold: precision in lyrics, and speed. The rhythms in the verses are notably slower than the chorus, but it’s important to keep the pace strong and slowly build the momentum, as the song won’t hit the powerful stride we know it can by the time we get to the chorus. Not forgetting the lyrics in the verses: we talk of avalanches racing down the hill, stopping seasons, hearts keeping time with the speed of sound, shimmy and shaking, and so on, and we have to make sure these are not only clearly heard, but understood: enunciate! Make your consonants and beginnings and ends of words crystal clear.

Though it’s a wonderfully joyous song, and its tempting to speed up just out of sheer enthusiasm (or perhaps the relief that I’ve got the lyrics right), but the critical thing with this song, is pacing yourself – because you need to keep that speed for the choruses! Where they’re so fast as well as wordy, this is a tough sing and there’s little or next to no time to breathe… but if and when you must just remember the cardinal Show Choir rule: “whenever you like, just as long as it’s not at the same time as your neighbour!”

As always, it does get easier with repetition and it’s a great feeling when you can end the song not hugely out of breath! When we first started learning this, we were brave (or some might think, foolish) to choreograph our arrangement as well, which gave it another level of difficulty, but it was always a Show Choir favourite!

Like with our song from Dear Evan Hansen, this one has taken a bit of a backseat for our Spring term, but watch this space come summer…

Greatest Hits Eight: "You Will Be Found"

Here we are then… Bristol Show Choir’s next Greatest Hits blog!

We have a special history with this song, having recorded a rendition of our arrangement in order to raise money for the wonderful domestic abus charity, SafeLives, during lockdown, and so we are delighted to see it in our Top Ten.

The song also marks our third outing with the composers Benji Pasek & Justin Paul following “City Of Stars” from the film musical La La Land and “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman as we return to their multi Tony and Olivier Award winning musical Dear Evan Hansen.

Opening on Broadway in November 2016 and in the West End in 2019, Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of the titular Evan, a teenager with social anxiety whose choices find him connecting with the family of an ex classmate amidst a terrible tragedy. The team at Show Choir chose to arrange the song that closes the first half of the show: “You Will Be Found”. At the launch of a fundraising project, Evan messes up his original speech and amidst a panic attack, starts to sing this song instead, first solo and eventually it becomes a soaring ensemble ballad. 

Composer Benji Pasek once expressed surprise that the song has had such far reaching impact outside of and beyond the musical, saying “"In part because it’s a speech that Evan is giving to his classmates, an idealized version of how he wants to feel, the lyrics had a chance to resonate beyond the story—we realized people all over the world were using it as a means of finding connection and hope in challenging times." We at Show Choir share that belief, and much like with “For Good” from Wicked and the way that song resonates with the choir due to the exploration of friendship, “You Will Be Found” explores hope and connection. We really value our connection and sense of community in Show Choir, and so it’s been really special to reflect that by choosing this song for our repertoire. 

Singing this number is all about building the right atmosphere and shaping the dynamics in terms of volume, diction and timing. The arrangement generally has lots of moments where the Sopranos, Altos & Tenors sing in unison with the Basses anchoring the rest of the choir. Yet the intricacy comes from the fact that every part has different notes and slightly different entry and exit points. These took time to master and lock in place, but the smoother the transition are the better as it allows us to keep tempo under control and focus more on the emotion and lyrics in order to tell the story effectively.

The lyrics in this song are incredibly powerful and meaningful, so we want their clarity to be crystal clear, and to do that we’ve worked hard to understand how to build the song effectively: knowing which sections to grow in volume, when to tail off, and so on. It can be tempting, especially in the first weeks of learning a song once we know the notes and lyrics to stay at one volume, but with this song in particular, it has more impact if given the appropriate room to crescendo. 

We confess that, given our work on some older tunes in the Show Choir repertoire that this one has taken a back seat, but we look forward to such time we’re able to dust it off and perform it again…

Greatest Hits Seven: "Hello!"

Next up on our countdown of Bristol Show Choir’s Greatest Hits: “Hello!” from The Book of Mormon. Premiering on Broadway in 2011, after seven years of development, the show has gone on to gross over $500 million, making it one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time!

A collaboration between Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone, the musical is a satirical look at the belief and practises of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but ultimately explores the power of love and service; as the audience follow two missionaries: Elder Price and Elder Cunningham in their attempts to preach the faith of the church to a remote village in Uganda. Parker and Stone created the comedy South Park, whilst Lopez co wrote the music for the musical Avenue Q. Opening to rave reviews and a raft of awards including nine Tony awards and a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, the Broadway production paved the way for various US tours, and the show opened on the West End in 2013, where it calls the Prince of Wales theatre home!

Your blogger was surprised to see this one pop up as one of Show Choir’s Top Ten, but that’s only because I found it so fiddly to learn and master the first time around! “Hello” opens the show and features Elder Price leading his classmates in a demonstration of the method of going door to door to speak about their faith and encourage people to convert.

The song features a lot of moving parts: lyrics that change subtely between verses, challenges around timing, speed and characterisation, and all of these ring true with our Show Choir arrangement as well; and when it works really well it’s a real crowdpleaser! The tune here is passed around between the Sopranos, Altos and Tenors, with the Bass part anchoring the rest of the choir. When you don’t have the tune to sing, the challenge comes in the fact that within your accompanying parts, you often give cues as to when the other parts need to come in, or react to you: so you really need to concentrate and listen to each other. There’s also the temptation to speed up the tempo, which can potentially affect the diction, which means the humour gets lost- the jokes are in the words so they need to be crystal clear. Volume has also been a learning curve for us, knowing when to grow and strip it back so the song has somewhere to go in terms of dynamics. The best advice to get this one locked down: practise, practise and practise some more!

Greatest Hits Six: "Bring Him Home"

Next up in Bristol Show Choir’s Top Ten, we want to take you to nineteenth century France for an epic tale of love, loss and redemption: Les Miserables.

Based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel of the same name, this sung through musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music), Alain Boublil, Jean Marc Natel (original French lyrics) and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics) follows Jean Valjean, who breaks his parole following an incredible act of mercy inspires him to start his anew. Under a new identity, Valjean finds himself pursued relentlessly by Inspector Javert and swept up amongst a group of idealist students, all the while trying to keep his adopted daughter Cosette safe. Originally premiering in October 1985, the show is the longest running in the West End! 

There are some incredible songs in this show – 49 to be  exact, and the one we at Show Choir chose is perhaps one of its most recognisable and beloved: Bring Him Home. Sung by Valjean during Act II, it’s an appeal to God to protect Marius, whom he knows Cosette loves even if it costs his own life. This song was one of our earlier Show Choir arrangements: it’s s gorgeous piece of music and a moving moment in the story, so its been lovely to see it voted in the Top Ten and revisit it as our confidence and experience as a choir has been growing.

Being a ballad, this song relies on clarity of lyric and quality of sound for it to have the emotional impact we want it to have, and so the choir have to work hard to finesse the way our sound blends as we sing, and ensure that we have clear changes in dynamics. Elements that help us do that are really focusing on our breath control – there are moments in the arrangement that build and sound better with continuous sound, and others that suit shorter lengths, so concentrating on our entries and exits is paramount. We like to remind everyone in songs like this that may be more taxing on the diaphragm: it’s ok to breathe when you need to, just as long as it’s not in the same place as the person next to you…

Diction and pronunciation are also key to this song sounding the best it can, really making the starts and ends of words as clear as possible so they aren’t lost in the overall sound. Your Show Choir blogger counts Les Mis as one of my favourite musicals and though I still hold firm in my belief that Javert has the best songs, this arrangement has really grown on me and I love singing it, especially in those moments where we all come together and harmonise: it sends shivers up my spine!

Greatest Hits Five: "Moana Medley”

We promised in the blog on our Hamilton medley that we’d be returning to the work of Lin Manuel Miranda, so here we are again! This time, we are combining a true Show Choir classic formula: a composer lots of us enjoy with a sprinkling of Disney magic as we take on a medley from the 2016 smash hit film: Moana!

Inspired by Polynesian myths, the film tells the story of Moana – the daughter of a chief who is chosen by the ocean to restore the heart of the goddess Te Fiti and bring harmony back to her island home. Along the way, she learns a long-held secret about her people and joins forces with the legendary demigod Maui. The score features songs from Lin Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i and Mark Mancina, who also wrote the music for the film.

Disney will always hold a special place in our Show Choir repertoire, and judging by the stats from our Top Ten vote, the Moana medley certainly does: alongside “Welcome To The Rock” from Come From Away, it was the most selected number by our cast, with 52 votes. The Show Choir arrangement features three of the films seven songs: “Know Who You Are”, “How Far I’ll Go” and “We Know The Way”. 

Disney were keen to combine traditional South Pacifc culture and music with pop and Broadway influences, and we know that every time we’ve sung it to an audience that it’s a definite crowd-pleaser. What we especially enjoy about singing this medley is the mix of emotional dynamics: “You Know Who Are” is a tender, poignant moment in the film and its story, we transition into “How Far I’ll Go” which is the spirited Moana’s “I want” song, a marked shift in tempo and feeling, before ending on the much more upbeat and joyful “We Know The Way”.

For a choir like us, singing a medley is all about keeping the transitions between songs as smooth as possible, and being mindful of the intent of the song towards the story and reflect that in our singing. It’s so easy to feel the love from Show Choir around this film and songs, there’s a real confidence and ease about it and how we present it; so the key for us here is maintaining the tempo, volume and thereby control of the song and not letting our enthusiasm run away with us, and fully understanding where each individual part of the choir fits and influences the overall sound.

The Altos generally lead us in this song, before we all come together in “We Know The Way”, so the key is precision in timing the accompanying parts so that the lyrics and melody come to the fore. If the accompanying parts speed and timing goes off kilter, the whole thing can potentially fall flat, so concentration and having the choir follow and react to each other effectively is what we strive to do. To add another element, you know we at Show Choir like to learn new languages as we sing, and parts of this medley feature lyrics in Samoan, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan languages, which are all Polynesian. As always with our songs that feature different languages: we’ve found that pure and simple repetition is the key to our success!

Greatest Hits Four: “He Lives In You”

Here at Bristol Show Choir, we love a Disney song, even more so a Disney musical; how great was it then, that a song from one of the musical adaptations of a beloved Disney classic made our Top Ten Greatest Hits: “He Lives In You” from The Lion King!

Originally premiering in Minnesota, The Lion King opened on Broadway on November 13th 1997; where it currently calls the Minskoff Theatre home: as the third longest running show in Broadway history! It opened in the West End on October 19th 1999, at the Lyceum Theatre where it’s still running now. It won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Direction of a musical for Julie Taymor, the first woman to earn the honour, and through various productions has been seen by over 100 million people worldwide!

Now, eagle-eyed Disney fans may know that “He Lives In You” is featured as the opening song in the sequel to the original film. In the musical though, the context is different, and in our humble opinion, more powerful! The song comes in Act II, and Simba has been living his best Hakuna Matata life in the jungle with Timon and Pumbaa, and its this song that is the turning point for Simba’s arc as he realises he must take responsibility and return home.

We LOVE this song! Our arrangement is choc full of delicious, goosebump-inducing harmonies and the emotional dynamics of the song change throughout the number, so we pay close attention to the volume and intensity that we sing with. Pace and timing are also critical here, especially during the introduction as it sets us up for singing the rest of the number. The tendency to speed up can again rear its head, but with the hard work of our cast, things have well and truly slot into place. To add an extra challenge, this number, like with the rest of the musical features an indigenous African language… there are six in total used throughout the show: Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Congolese, but we at Show Choir never pass up on an opportunity to learn a new language, as you’ll also see in our next blog welcoming another Disney song to our Top Ten!

Greatest Hits Three: “Hamilton Medley”

Here at Bristol Show Choir, sometimes a show has so many brilliant tunes that it’s hard to choose what one we’d like to arrange, so out come the medleys! We have two medleys that made our “Greatest Hits” ten, funnily enough both works are by the same composer. You’ll hear about the second of the works in our fifth Greatest Hits blog, but right now it’s time to take our shot and tell you about our medley from Hamilton!

Written by Lin Manuel Miranda, this sung and rapped through musical tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s Founding Fathers, inspired by Miranda’s reading Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography. The score has something in it to suit lots of eclectic tastes: there’s hip hop, soul, R & B, pop alongside more traditional musical theatre influences. Hamilton opened on Broadway in August 2016, just a few short months after its sold out Off Broadway premiere. On opening, Hamilton received widespread critical acclaim: at the 70th Tony Awards, it received a record breaking 16 nominations, winning 11! When the show opened on the West End a year later, it went onto receive seven Olivier awards in 2018. Miranda has described the show as about “America then, as told by America now”

Now a confession from your Bristol Show Choir blogger: it took me a long time to get on board with the buzz around this show; I have a great friend who kept persevering: they sat me down with the cast recording and explaining the context of each song, and first trying out the songs that had a more traditional musical theatre sound to ease me in! I’m pleased to report that their work paid off, and I’ve seen the show a few times.

A medley can be a tricky beast at the best of times, and Hamilton has a lot of intricacy going on! The Show Choir arrangement includes: “Alexander Hamilton”, “My Shot” and “History Has Its Eyes On You”, each with its own distinct style and sound, but we aren’t afraid of a challenge… the keys to singing this one well are precision: each section of the choir has its own timings, rhythms,  and even lyrics to master, and always being aware of how your part fits in relation to the choir as a whole. If we lose the precision as can happen because there’s a temptation to speed up, everything can potentially fall a little flat. Listening and reacting to our conductor and each other is vital with any song we learn and sing, but it’s vital here as it keeps us focused and we maintain control, rather than the song running away with us. Diction is also massively important in this number, as it’s an incredibly wordy song… I’ve been learning this the hard way as when we originally learned this number, I had been an alto, but have long switched to singing Tenor; this has taught me one thing: practise, practise, practise! It’s sounding better and better the more we sing, and we can’t wait to perform it once again.

Next time, we’ll be off to the Pridelands… watch this space!

Greatest Hits Two: “Welcome to The Rock”

For the next blog, we’re throwing the spotlight onto a fairly new addition to the Bristol Show Choir repertoire: “Welcome to The Rock” from Come from Away!

This musical, with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein is set during the week following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, where 38 planes were diverted to Gander in Newfoundland, and the town welcomed the “Come from Aways” as they waited for news. Characters are based on real life Gander residents and the passengers they helped. Friendships are formed, even a romance between Nick, an English passenger, and Diane, an American that became a marriage that is still going strong to this day! 

Come from Away started life in 2012, where it was workshopped in Ontario. The following few years saw the show enjoy record breaking runs in California, Seattle, Washington, and Toronto before premiering on Broadway on March 12th, 2017, where it regularly plays to standing room only audiences, even during previews. It opened in the West End in  February 2019, where it calls the Phoenix Theatre home.

“Welcome to the Rock” is the opening number of the show, where the Newfoundlanders talk about life in Gander, and heralds the arrival of the people that changed this community overnight and always. We at Bristol Show Choir are immensely proud to celebrate a musical that its core celebrates human kindness in the darkest of times, and we always enjoy singing it. We’ve carried it over from a previous term, and thanks to the pandemic hadn’t had many opportunities to sing it together and polish it the way we know we can, so we’re delighted it made our Top Ten. 

The score for the show is choc full to the brim with Celtic folk rock, world music and British Isles influences, and “Welcome to the Rock” shows this from the outset. It feels quite upbeat generally, until the break section, which sees a dramatic shift in tone and speed, then switches back. There’s some harmonies in the break that the Sopranos get to lead us in with, that send shivers down our spine, but throughout the song there’s a strong temptation to speed up, which means we can lose diction and clarity of the lyrics, but as our confidence with the song continues to grow, we’ll have it under control soon enough…

Next time, we discuss our love of a medley with a little help from a Broadway smash hit…

Greatest Hits One: “For Good”

Collecting the results of our Top Ten vote for Show Choir’s Greatest Hits, we noticed two things: first, that our cast members generally seem to prefer more modern musicals. Secondly, that there seemed to be an appetite for delving back into the Show Choir vaults and reacquainting ourselves with songs we haven’t sung for a long while! 

Such is the case for the first of our Greatest Hits we’re putting under the spotlight here on the Bristol Show Choir Blog: “For Good”, from the musical Wicked. Based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Doran and of course inspired by characters and locations from L Frank Baum and of course the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, Wicked tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Elphaba and Glinda: the Witches of Oz! 

Wicked premiered in 2003 in San Francisco before transferring to Broadway the same year. The original cast featured the likes of Idina Menzel as Elphaba, Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda, and Norbert Leo Butz as Fiyero. Steven Schwartz composed the music and wrote the lyrics, and the show is currently Broadway’s fifth longest running musical.

“For Good” is sung in Act II of the show and is a duet between Elphaba and the newly renamed Glinda, as the two reflect on their friendship and bid each other farewell. We think it’s this sense of friendship and meaningful message that resonates strongly with so many of our Show Choir members, and it’s been so fantastic to revisit the song as it was one of the first few songs we learned when Bristol Show Choir launched five years ago…

The key for our arrangement of this song are the dynamics: knowing when to build the sound and when to tail it off for the best emotional impact, this will also help us work on the characterisation and give the number the colour and personality it needs.  We’ve been massively impressed by how everyone new to the Show Choir family this term has tackled learning this number in such a short time with such enthusiasm and confidence, and with our original members picking it up again so easily after such a long  break; the song itself is quite intricate in terms of each part of the choir having its own rythmns and timing they need to lead or mirror from another part, so we really need to focus on listening and reacting to ensure this song is in the best shape it can be. If the standard at our first and indeed subsequent rehearsals have been anything to go by, we won’t have any worries on this score!

Stay tuned for the next blog, where we’ll be going from the mythical land of Oz, to the very real town of Gander in Newfoundland!

Show Choir Greatest Hits!

Happy New Year from all of us at Bristol Show Choir! We hope the start of your 2022 has been a corker!

Back in December, all of us at Bristol Show Choir reunited for our first public concerts in two years with support from the brilliant Kilkenny Bay Steamers and The Key Note Voices. We were overjoyed to be back singing to audiences once more, especially after coming through the challenges that the pandemic presented for us a choir, and more widely, the theatre industry that we all treasure and celebrate with what we do. During those concerts, we were proud to be raising money for the work of Changes Bristol, who do brilliant work supporting adults struggling with their mental health. 

With help of the kindness and generosity of our audiences, Bristol Show Choir raised a wonderful £595 for the charity. Here’s the best part though, as part of “The Big Give”, the funds were able to be doubled to an incredible £1,190! 

We were delighted to support such a worthwhile cause and help take them closer to their target of £6,000, which covers the cost for them to run a peer support group for an entire year.

It was an lovely note to end the year on, and filled us with energy and joy to look ahead to what the new term has in store for us, and boy oh boy have we got a term in store! For starters, Bristol Show Choir are turning five! And in honour of our fifth birthday, we’re revisiting 10 of our “Greatest Hits”!

We gave every cast member the opportunity to vote for their top ten favourite ever Show Choir arrangements old and new, to find out which ten songs would make up our repertoire this term. We received over 100 responses, and it was really heartening to see our cast members be so excited about having their say and what the results were going to be. 

So without further ado, Show Choir’s GREATEST HITS are…

🌟 Moana Medley from Moana 🌟

🌟 Welcome to the Rock from Come From Away 🌟

🌟 You Will Be Found from Dear Evan Hansen 🌟

🌟 He Lives In You from The Lion King 🌟

🌟 For Good from Wicked 🌟

🌟 Hello! from Book of Mormon 🌟

🌟 Hamilton Medley from Hamilton 🌟

🌟 Bring Him Home from Les Miserables 🌟

🌟 You Can’t Stop The Beat from Hairspray 🌟

For purposes of the blog, these are written in no particular order, but for those of you who enjoy stats, the Moana medley and “Welcome to the Rock” tied top of our poll with 52 votes a piece, and every voter got at least one of their choices in the Top Ten! 

Stay tuned for future blogs where we’ll delve a little deeper into each of these songs, their shows, and how we sprinkle that special Show Choir magic into our renditions…

☃️ Festive Fun ☃️

Hello from us all here at Bristol Show Choir! We wanted to start off by saying a huge thankyou to everyone who came along to support us at our recent busk over at Wapping Wharf. It was incredible to perform in front of such an enthusiastic, supportive audience who warmed our hearts despite the chilly weather, and who gave so generously to support the work of Changes Bristol – stay tuned when we have everything counted and can reveal our final amount we raised!

We sang through everything we’ve learned this term: Deadwood Stage, Six, Wig in A Box, I’d Rather Be Sailing, Ain’t Misbehavin, It’s A Privilege To Pee, Wouldn’t It Be Loverly and White Christmas, and we’re immensely proud of our cast members for all their hard work and dedication this term; having not sung together in person for a long while amidst the pandemic last year and only recently back together in our respective rehearsal spaces, we were blown away by the response we had and just to be back together sharing what we love with other people. 

There was a general consensus that Wig in A Box was a favourite for us that day, in its public debut no less, and having been a little nervous to carry over It’s A Privilege To Pee which we had only learned over Zoom last term, we felt extremely proud of how it sounded! The final two weeks of term have been all about polish, and we like to think of our informal busks as a warm up for our Show Choir Christmas Concerts… and we’d like to invite you to invite you to come along to it!

On Saturday the 4th of December, all of Bristol Show Choir are delighted to be performing at St Alban’s Church, Westbury Park – with two concerts! The matinee performance will be at 3pm, with our Southville and Easton casts, followed by the evening performance at 7:30 featuring the Clifton and Westbury on Trym casts. We are delighted that we’ll be supported by the Kilkenny Bay Steamers for the matinee, and The Key Note Voices for the evening and tickets are available HERE!

This is sure to be a special day as it marks our first full concert in two years, we cannot wait to share the results of all our hard work, and hope to see you there to bring some Bristol Show Choir magic to your December.

Wouldn't a busk be loverly?!

When last we blogged here at Bristol Show Choir, we’d been getting acquainted with “Wig in A Box” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. That’s sounding brilliant, and now it’s a matter of finessing everything and continuing to grow in confidence, which we have been the more we’ve sung it through. 

For one of our final new additions to the Show Choir repertoire this term, we’ve returned to a show we visited back when Show Choir first started: My Fair Lady! Only this time, we’re not bursting with joy about the towering feelings that come from being on the street where you live, oh no… this time it’s all about enormous chairs, warmth, chocolate and having someone take care of you as we ask Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?

Originally on Broadway in 1956, My Fair Lady was the third collaboration between Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, an adaptation of the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The story revolves around Eliza Dolittle, a cockney flower girl who is taken under the wing of stern phonetician Henry Higgins, who is determined that she speaks like a “proper” lady. The show set records at the time for the length of its run, and won six of the ten Tony Awards for which it was nominated. 

It was adapted into a film in 1964, and was a critical and commercial success. It drew criticism from some for the casting of Audrey Hepburn as Eliza, given that Julie Andrews starred originally onstage and was regarded by many audiences as perfect for the role, but Andrews went on to star in Mary Poppins that same year winning both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress!

It’s been great to revisit the show but learn something new: it’s a simple yet beautiful melody that always brings a smile in rehearsals. Huge props to the Sopranos for their amazing accent and characterisation work on this arrangement, we are incredibly excited to sing it for a crowd…

Which leads us nicely on to some news: Show Choir are busking this Sunday 21st November at Wapping Wharf, at 3pm! We’ll be performing all our songs we’ve learned this term in order to get “concert ready” – more on that next post! We’ll be raising money for Changes Bristol, a community led charity which offers fantastic support to anyone over 18 suffering from poor mental health, without the need for a GP referral or a diagnosis. After the effects of the pandemic, we’re delighted to be supporting such a wonderful and important cause.

So please do pop down, hear us sing and bring some loose change!

Autumn Songs...

Rehearsals continue apace for us here at Bristol Show Choir as we continue to finesse the first two new numbers of our repertoire for the term: ‘The Deadwood Stage’ and ‘Six’. 

Now we’ve worked through all of the notes and lyrics for “The Deadwood Stage”, our focus has been working on the personality of  the number and keeping control of our diction as there’s a temptation to speed up in places and at times the clarity of lyrics can potentially get lost. The more we’ve sung it (and will continue to) through, the more our confidence as a choir will grow. Next on the agenda here? Working on our American accents to give the song the appropriate colour and dynamic it needs, one of our favourite challenges as a choir to take on!

‘Six’ is shaping up nicely as well. There’s such a palpable energy and joy in the room when we sing this – lots of our cast members are fans of the show and are thrilled we carried it over from our Summer Choir Workshop. Thus far, we’ve learned most of the choruses and verses, so in coming rehearsals: the intro and key change beckons, as well as further locking down our lyrics and timings – different parts of the choir lead at different times throughout the song – tenors get to be Anne Boleyn & K Howard, the altos “Get Down” as Anna of Cleves and say “No Way” as Catherine of Aragon, for example. It’s hugely important that we really hone our listening skills and understanding of how each part of the choir reacts to and fits in with another for this song: it can be tricky, but it’s good fun.

We’ve also began learning another new (ish) song: “It’s A Privilege to Pee” from the 2001 musical Urinetown, by Mark Hollman & Greg Kotis. We began learning this one in lockdown rehearsals over Zoom, and it was quite a challenge given the tempo and changes, so it’s been massively reassuring to start learning this one in person and totally afresh.

Part political satire on everything from the legal system to corporate mismanagement and a parody of different musicals like Les Mis and The Threepenny Opera as well as the form of the Broadway musical itself, Urinetown opens with the news that a twenty year drought has caused a catastrophic water shortage, and all activities done in public toilets are controlled by the megacorporation “UrineGoodCompany”, and people have to pay to use the amenities. Hence where our number comes in: Show Choir play Penelope Pennywise, who dismisses the plea of another character to let him go for free, “just this once”. But as we quickly find out – “once they’ve onced they’ll want to once more” and it’s a Privilege to Pee. 

Not being aware of this bleak context before the choir started learning the number, I was expecting something rather more… lighthearted and comedic in the obvious sense, not the clever satire done here so it caught a little off guard, but it’s a fun one to sing! We the Sopranos in the choir into Upper and Lower (cue many a stifled giggle trying to avoid the usual numbers given the subject matter!) and have been starting the song looking at the choruses, breaks and dynamics. As always, timing is key – having an awareness of where your part is compared to everyone else, especially as it throws you some curveballs musically and doesn’t go where you expect it to! We’re excited to continue working through this one in coming weeks, watch this space…

Bristol is BACK!

Hello from all of us at Bristol Show Choir! It’s been a while and we wanted to drop by with an update...

Following our al-fresco Summer term, singing on the Clifton Downs and in Victoria Park, we are delighted to FINALLY be back together in the Room Where It Happens! Last week saw us start a brand new term with all of our groups, and in time honoured Bristol Show Choir tradition: new songs in the Show Choir repertoire!

We begun with “The Deadwood Stage” from the 1953 film musical Calamity Jane, and can’t wait to keep making the whip crack away! Our other new offering this term so far is “Six” from the musical of the same name by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. This particular number was introduced at a Show Choir Workshop back in the summer, and is a firm favourite amongst some of our cast, and we can’t wait to continue finessing it. The musical is a celebration of empowerment as the Six wives of Henry VIII: Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard & Parr share and reclaim their stories. There’s a serious buzz surrounding this show at the moment, so we’re delighted to reflect that and eventually share it with our audiences.

In other news, we’re delighted that the Show Choir family is continuing to grow: we now have a cast in Westbury on Trym that meets on Tuesdays in Westbury on Trym Village Hall, and we’re thrilled that our sister choir, Bath Show Choir have finally met in person to sing together following just one rehearsal before lockdown hit!

To be reunited and bask once more in the Show Choir magic has been incredible: the energy and camaraderie lovely to see and hear, and we’re overjoyed to have welcomed so many new members. It’s going to be an awesome term folks, watch this space!

Ain't Misbehavin'...

It’s been a busy few weeks for us here at Show Choir, as we look forward to our picnic concert on 24th July on the Downs in Clifton! We’ve been working incredibly hard on all our material this term (new and old) and cannot wait to showcase what we’ve achieved in these strangest of times for choirs like us and the arts industry in general.

Speaking of new, we’ve been getting acquainted with our final new song for our repertoire this term: Ain’t Misbehavin’ from the 1929 musical revue Connie’s Hot Chocolates. With music by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks, the show premiered in New York’s Hudson Theatre where it ran for 219 performances, receiving praise for its choreography. Another fun fact about this one: jazz musician Louis Armstrong made his debut performing in the pit band! This sweet, jazzy number is shaping up very nicely especially with valiant efforts from our basses who anchor the tune as our Sopranos, Altos and Tenors harmonise around them. 

I’d Rather Be Sailing from A New Brain is also sounding lovely; now we’ve learned the notes, our focus has been finessing the dynamics of the song – and having confidence in ourselves that we do and can sing it well and get our respective timing right. 

Elsewhere, we’ve dusted off Sunrise Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof, specifically working on the key change and chorus. This number is really atmospheric and has some beautiful opportunities for us to play around with the dynamics that will make the song as impactful and moving as we know it can be. We began learning this number over Zoom when rehearsals were restricted, and we’ve enjoyed hearing it grow as we’ve finally been able to sing together in person!

The same can be said for Who Will Buy from Lionel Bart’s Oliver! An adaptation of the novel Oliver Twist, the 1960 musical enjoyed a hugely successful run on the West End, transferred to Broadway and enjoyed numerous tours and revivals. It was made into a film in 1968, and this sequence might be one that is familiar to some, becoming a brilliant choreography moment.

In the film,Who Will Buy starts with Oliver on a balcony overlooking the town square, and soon enough, vendors enter looking to sell their wares. We have a flower seller, a milkmaid, “ripe strawberries ripe” and a gentleman ready to grind kitchen knives (there were some slightly amused and bemused conversations amongst the choir about the nature and logic behind this particular combination) before we join Oliver in his musings about how wonderful the morning is and how you’ve never seen such a sky!

It’s a charming one to sing, but actually presents a bit of a challenge for us a choir in terms of timing and blending our respective notes, where parts enter and exit. Breathing and stamina is also key - maintaining the breath for the whole phrase is crucial if you don’t want to stumble and lose the flow… especially as our Show Choir arrangements picks up speed as it progress… practise will make perfect!

If you would like to come and see us sing our socks off on Saturday 24th July, head over to our events page for more information. See you there!