A few weeks ago, Brian announced that we had been asked to sing in the Great Hall at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, as part of their run up to Christmas celebrations. Normally I'm not a great fan of singing Christmas songs before December, but I was very happy to make an exception in this instance.
Great Hall at Blenheim Palace. |
WOAPA Adult Singing Group |
Feelimg a bit less nervous , we waited for the intro to the next song to begin. It should have been, Somewhere Only We Know. Instead the unmistakable opening chords of Let It Go started to play. There then followed a lot of frantic page turning, as we all tried to find the right song. Fortunately, it's one we're all familiar with and we managed to sing it without a hitch. Being a bit unnerved by this, we waited with bated breath to see what song would come next. It turned out that the ipod had inadvertently been put on shuffle and instead of playing the songs in the order that we'd rehearsed, the rest of the songs appeared at random. But, being the consummate professionals we are, we managed to complete the rest of the performance, without any further mishap, It was quite a challenge trying to identify which song was coming next, and find the words in time to start singing. I was very thankful that I knew most of the songs by heart. But I don't think it affected our performance too much. The audience still seemed to enjoy it.
The ipod having been taken off shuffle, the second performance went according to plan, I had goosebumps at times, especially when we sang, Real Love, and Somewhere Only We Know, and at the end of Let It Go, I observed one lady with her hands clasped in front of her mouth, with tears in her eyes and a huge smile on her face. After we'd finished, a couple of ladies asked me at what time we'd be singing again. They were very disappointed to find out that we wouldn't be. I would quite happily have done it all again.
After the performances, I decided to have a wander around the palace, and quite a few people stopped me to say how much they'd enjoyed our singing. One German gentleman, actually stopped my friend and said, "You have a beautiful voice." then in typical German soldier fashion, clicked his heels together, bowed and said,'Perfect singing'. Says it all really.
WOAPA afternoon school |
The children were actually better behaved than the the adults. They sat quietly on the floor until Sian, their tutor, signalled them to stand up and didn't talk between songs. They started by singing a couple of songs that the adults had sung the day before, including Let It Go, although they sang a different arrangement of the songs. The children were amazing. They put on a very polished performance and someone remarked to me that they sounded like angels. Looking around at the crowd I saw a sea of smiling faces and proud parents.
Sian. |
It was a wonderful experience.We couldn't have asked for a more stunning setting and, as I've already mentioned, the acoustics were fantastic, which enhanced the sound of our singing. I'm eternally thankful that I found WOAPA and really appreciate all the hard work put into by Brian, Louise and the WOAPA tutors, making it the success it has become. Who knows what WOAPA will be asked to do next. but it'll have to be pretty special to top this.
Here are a couple of video clips:
Photographs courtesey of Isabel and Diane Iverson Mullinger.
Photograph of Sian courtesey of WOAPA.
Videos Isabel's own.
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