Choeur de Parisot - First Concerts of the Year

Since joining the Choeur de Parisot back in September every Thursday evening I sneak off to the Salles des Fêtes, leaving Andrew to put the kids in bed, and spend an hour and a half singing songs with fellow choristers of different nationalities. You may remember the Christmas concert the choir sang back in December to a packed Parisot church, or my first time singing the French National Anthem for Rememberance Day. On the 16th March we sang our first concert of the year at 'La Chapelle des Pénitents Noirs' in Villefranche, and this Saturday we sang the same concert in the Parisot church. It was the first time we sang our repertoire (see below) that we have been practising since September.

The church was full and I had Reuben grinning at me from the 5th row! He missed the Christmas concert due to Jacob calling out for me from the back of the church. The day before he announced that he was so excited to go and see me sing, though I think he was more excited that his little brother was having to go to bed before him and would not be going. He obviously saw it as a special treat!

The concert, directed by Peter Nowfel our 'chef de choeur', seemed to be well received and it was a joy to sing together with accompanying organ for select pieces. My favourite songs of the evening were 'Contre Qui Rose' and 'Deep River', but have a look at our programme below and let me know if any of the songs are familiar to you. The choir has worked hard over the past few weeks and I feel we gained so much confidence singing the songs which I hope came across in the concert. It would be lovely to be part of the audience one day to see what it actually sounds like (you tend to get very caught up in your part when you're singing!) I might have to get Andrew to do some sneaky recording at the next concert! This week we're back to practising and working towards our next concert in June.

Are you in a choir? What music do you like to sing?

Becky x

Bogoroditse Dievo - Rachmaninov
Glory To God - Schutz
Ave, Verum Corpus - Mozart
Abenlied - Rheinberger
Gaudete - 16th Century
Le Temps Chemine (Hiver, Printemps) - Andres
Lay A Garland - Pearsall
Cantique de Jean Racine - Faure
Locus Iste - Bruckner
Deus Meus - Franck
Deep River - Traditional
Contre Qui Rose - Lauridsen
Messe Aux Chapelles - Gounod