Islington Choral Society
Members
This page contains all the information you need to know as a member of the choir, including when we have our rehearsals and what to wear at our concerts.
Rehearsals and term dates
Our rehearsals take place on Tuesdays from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at Highbury Roundhouse, 71 Ronalds Road, London N5 1XB
Our term dates for the Autumn 2024 and for Spring 2025 are as follows:
Autumn 2024: 10th Sept to 3rd Dec
Half term: 29th Oct
Concert: 23rd Nov (St Andrew Holborn)
Spring 2025: 14th January to 8th April
Half-term: 18th February
Concert: 6th April (Sinfonia Smith Square)
Summer 2025: 29th April to 8th July
Half-term: 27th May
Concert: 5th July (venue TBC)
Subscriptions
Membership fees are £180 per annum (no termly membership), which includes the loan of music scores. There is a concessionary rate of £125 available to members under the age of 30 and to those in receipt of state benefits, not including senior citizens and those receiving the state pension. If these fees (concessionary or not) would prevent you from participating, please contact the Membership Secretary. We will always aim to be sympathetic to such cases, where the choir's finances allow.
Ticket sales
We keep our annual choir membership fees relatively low compared to other local London choirs. However, to cover the high cost of putting on 3 concerts a year, we expect every member to buy 2 tickets for each performance.
This helps us cover the expense of the orchestra, soloists, publicity, equipment and the concert venue.
Tickets are usually £20 each. If you cannot sing in the concert, we ask you to make a £40 donation to the ICS bank account, using the reference CONCERT DONATION.
Musical scores
Vocal scores are provided to members free of charge, whenever possible. If you wish to buy your own copy, the librarians can often provide music at a discount. You may, however, be asked to provide your own copy of Carols for Choirs Book 1 for Christmas concerts (approximate cost £10 to £12).
Concert dress
There is a formal dress code for all concerts. Men must wear: white shirt, black bow tie, black jacket and trousers or evening dress, black shoes; Women must wear: black long-sleeved top, long black skirt or long black trousers, black shoes. In very hot weather or on tours abroad, the dress code for men may change to black shirt (no tie), black trousers, black shoes.
Learning the Music
There is now quite a wide range of websites and other resources which can help to learn the notes of the works we are rehearsing. All choir members are encouraged to spend some ‘homework’ time so that we can gain maximum benefit at rehearsals without spending long periods ‘note-bashing’.
CHORALIA
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Read the instructions on their title page! You can download and use their ‘Virtual Singer’ program, OR use your normal MP3 player, either playing direct from the web page or downloading. The Virtual Singer files are different from MP3, so there are different ‘catalogue pages’.
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There are separate tracks for each voice part, and three versions of each track – one with Organ and metronome, one with all voices (your voice emphasised), one with just the voices. Superb for progressive learning. Only downside – rather ‘synthesized’ tone and no words.
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Really easy to use (once you have read the instructions!)
CYBERBASS
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Long-established, solid note-bashing site. Not beautiful!
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Inbuilt player on the page (you may need to click to download it the first time) which allows you to control the speed (tempo) of the playback and the sound balance (midi files)
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Separate tracks for each voice part – your voice emphasised against background of all voices, or an equally balanced ‘Tutti’ track
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You can also buy the tracks on a CD
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May give problems on Internet Explorer, especially IE7. Works fine on IE9
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Easy to use
LEARN CHORAL MUSIC
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Relatively basic but practical (midi files again)
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Separate tracks for each voice part, plus ‘UNemphasised’ files which are all the parts played together – ie same as above
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Has a useful page on downloading and using various midi players – http://www.learnchoralmusic.co.uk/PlayMidi.html
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The individual voice parts may not work well on Windows Media Player