Our heads are still spinning and our hearts are full as a result of our annual weekend workshop which just took place in Muswell Hill. As a choir we all benefited from the opportunity to spend time with our Vocal Consultants, to consolidate some of our concert repertoire, to get to know each other and to have fun speed-learning some new material.

We were delighted that Lucy Stevens joined us, along with Elizabeth Marcus (Musical Director / Accompanist) to perform an abridged, semi-staged version of her show “Grasp the Nettle”. All the text is taken from Ethel Smyth’s autobiography and letters with extracts of Smyth’s Mass, an aria from Boatswain’s Mate and several songs including The March of the Women (which our sopranos and altos performed having learnt it that day). It was a great way to end the Saturday session before a lovely dinner and our own evening cabaret.

Sopranos and altos performing Ethel Smyth’s March of the Women accompanied by Catherine Borner

Our Sunday session included an enlightening talk from Kate Hodgkin who, as well as being one of our sopranos, is Professor of Cultural History at the University of East London.

Her topic was “Brewster and The Prison” and it really helped put further context around the work we will be performing in our Spring concert, Ethel Smyth’s The Prison.

Many thanks to Murray Hipkin who went above and beyond to make this a memorable and meaningful event for us as well as all the other volunteers who banded together to make the weekend run like clockwork. Now we are even more energised and looking forward to performing our forthcoming concert!