Singing at Ripon Cathederal

My good friend A and I sing each year with a local school choral society. This year we were going to sing in Ripon Cathedral. We start rehearsals in September, just once a week through to the performance which was this last Saturday. It's so enjoyable to go each week and sing in a crowd - with a real mix of ages from younger pupils to older members of the community. Time just to just stop and concentrate on something new and make music. The society takes 'all comers' which is probably just as well as I'm not musically trained at all, but as I've been singing for quite a few years now I can sight read a bit, and learning new pieces is getting a little easier.

So, on Saturday afternoon we arrived at the Cathedral for a rehearsal before the performance in the evening. The Cathedral really is a magnificent building with beautiful carvings and stone masonry, and wonderful acoustics for music.
This years programme included three pieces, we sang Vivaldi 'Magnificat', Britten 'Rejoice in the Lamb' and my favourite this year Elgar 'The Snow'.

The Cathedral was packed for the performance, and it went well, just a few shaky places but we got through it. I love the performance as it feels like the countdown to Christmas has really started!