Last night (5th April)Dunnington Community Choir was welcomed to an evening with the local W.I.
It was lovely to be performing again in our local village and we were welcomed with enthusiasm as we sang a number of select pieces.
Before we sang (and get our hosts involved too) I had been asked to spend some time introducing myself, my musical journey as well as something about the choir.
For those who weren't there, I asked my Mom to video record my talk so I could share it here if anyone would like to have a listen. I'll post the transcript below too.
I was enormously proud of our choir. We were a bit short in numbers but the 14 or so who were able to make it, delivered a fine performance. We sang a couple of African songs first: Kwangena Thina Bo and Tshollela. These were followed by 3 pieces: Somewhere Only We Know, You'll never Walk Alone and Why We Sing.
Prior to our performance, we did some warm-up activities with the W.I. ladies, which really got them moving and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy! This was followed by learning the Polynesian echo song: Tongo, which the choir assisted with as they dotted themselves around the room to encourage the new singers.
After our performance we were treated to tea and biscuits and received lovely, encouraging feedback.
We're very much looking forward to our next opportunity to sing in the village... Watch this space!
Herewith, the promised video and transcript of my talk:
Thank you for your welcome and invitation to share our music with you this evening.
Before we all get singing, I would like to spend some time sharing a bit about myself and my musical journey which, as you may have guessed started a long way away from Yorkshire…
I grew up in South Africa, so Music was very much a part of my life; from regular choral singing to the rhythmic African beats in all that I heard.
My Granny (Rhoda), who lived close by to us growing up, was a Music teacher (also on the other side of the world…She hailed from Durham!) and some of my earliest memories were sat with her at the piano and singing along while she accompanied. Songs from The Jungle Book, Snow White and Hans Christian Andersen as well as lots of English and Scottish folk songs. When I was about 6 years old, she taught me to play the piano, which was such a privilege, really, looking back!
As well teaching at a local school, Rhoda was a well-loved organist and choir mistress (that’s what they called us lot in those days!) at the local Methodist church. Both my Mom and Dad sang in her choir for years.
My Grandma on my Dad’s side also played the piano, although I don’t have as many memories of her, as she died when I was only 7 years old. But I do remember the lovely enormous piano (well, that’s how it seemed to a little tot) in her front room, which nobody ever seemed to go into!
So both my parents grew up in musical homes and it was only natural that my siblings and I did too.
Did you know that South Africa only got a TV signal in 1976?
I was 5 years old, and it wasn’t for another year or so before we got a telly at home. So what on earth did we do on an evening, you may ask?
We listened to the radio…. And we sang along to my Dad’s guitar! Honestly, it was like the Waltons!!
A few years ago my cousin, who now lives in Stafford, sent me a recording that her mom had made of us kids (on an old reel to reel tape) to say hello to their family back in the UK. What did Vanessa do? She sang a song! So I have a recording of me singing at around the age or 7 or 8!
At primary school I sang in the school choir, learnt to play the recorder, which led to a lifelong love of the Flute, participated in umpteen Eisteddfods and competitions and performed in plays and shows.
Moving on to Secondary school, I was fortunate to have a private education where I received awards for Performance and Musicianship as well as the opportunity to play as principal flautist in the Provincial Wind orchestra.
I studied Music as one of my chosen subjects for my final high school qualification, which was again a real privilege as most schools in South Africa at that time didn’t offer Music as a subject for exams. In my final year at school I received my Grade 8 in Flute. We had a number of choirs and instrumental ensembles at school too and I really relished being involved in all of those pursuits.
I co-led the chapel choir in my final year and sang a number of solos with the choir over the years too. I was made Cultural House-Captain in my matriculation year at school and loved organising and participating in inter-house choir, choreography and drama competitions. It really was an amazing opportunity and experience.
By the time I’d finished my school career, I was ready to jump into university life with the aim of completing a Bachelor of Arts degree with Music and English majors.
I attended Rhodes university in Grahamstown, roughly 500 miles away from home. My mom had studied there, and she and I had attended the National Arts festival, which is held annually in Grahamstown, the year before. I was enchanted with the place – a really haven of culture and learning! I loved my time there.
At university I received a bursary for merit in Music Education as well as awards for Best woodwind student.
I sang as a regular member and soloist with the Rhodes University Chamber choir under the baton of Christopher Cockburn: a well-respected choral conductor and organist in South Africa. With the Chamber Choir, we toured extensively in Southern Africa. It was such an amazing privilege to sing and share music with so many different folk and cultures across the country. This was the time in South Africa’s history when everything was changing and there was a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety from all sides about what the future might hold. But reaching out across the divides with the shared gift of music and song was a blessing and an inspiration and I’m so grateful I was a part of that in some small way.
Grahamstown is the home of The International Library of African Music. It was a fascinating place to learn about the history and broad gamut of all Sub-Saharan musical genres and styles.
As you will hear tonight, we will be including a few African songs for you to enjoy.
While studying Music at Rhodes, I gained advanced certification for Singing, Piano and Recorder, as well as furthering my studies with the Flute.
Additionally, I relished the opportunities of getting involved in the Drama department. I studied Drama as part of my degree course and took part in a number of plays, which also toured the local area.
Having completed my degree, I moved back home to spend a year at the university of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban to gain a post graduate teaching diploma. After a year, I was qualified to teach Music, English and Drama at Secondary level as well as Music at Primary level.
Finding a teaching position with my subjects wasn’t easy, unfortunately. English was no problem, but Music and Drama were still very much considered “niche” subjects by the state school sector.
I managed to find work, however, working for the local Performing Arts council, which was a huge amount of fun.
Initially I worked in Theatre in Education with a group of actors that went into local schools and performed the current curriculum Shakespeare work for a group of teenagers to assist with their appreciation and understanding of the text and themes. This involved acting out excerpts from the play and then allowing the students to ask questions of our characters in role as well as discussing learning opportunities with us as actors.
Even though it was great fun… as we performing Othello, and I was cast as Desdemona… I spent most days being throttled or suffocated, which wasn’t the hugest delight!!!
I spent another short season with a Workshop production which we prepared and wrote together for a daily performance at the Royal Agricultural Show in Pietermaritzburg. The show was titled “Aparty Peace” with a play on the words to reflect the changing times and attitudes to Apartheid and of course the quest for peace.
It was amazing to be part of that at such a turning point in South Africa’s history. (We even made it onto the news on the telly!)
My dad kept asking me when I was going to get a proper job, though and after a few months of treading the boards, I managed to secure a teaching position at King's school, in Nottingham Road which is in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, just over an hour’s drive from my parents’ home in Kloof, near Durban.
I lived and worked at this remarkable school for over 3 years.
Here I thrived in a free and creative community where children from all over South Africa were encouraged to blossom as they explored the world around them and discovered their talents.
The school was run by a trust set up by the Catholic church and was completely independent. It took no subsidies from the government and was mostly attended by black children who boarded full-time form the age of 6. Living at the school, as most of the staff did, we became those children’s parents, and it was a wonderful, unique privilege. Apart from teaching Music, English, History and some Drama, I trained the school choir, organised termly concerts, ran trips to cultural events around the province and co-directed the annual Shakespeare/ musical productions. We took our school production of “Julius Caesar” on a tour to rural schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal one year. It was a fabulous experience for the students.
As lovely as it was working at King’s school, I couldn’t see any long-term future for me there – the school cohort was small (only about 100 kids between the ages of 6 and 13) and so the staff was small too. No real opportunities for promotion or anything like that. Additionally, having had the rare experience of working in such a unique school, I really couldn’t see myself working in any other schools in South Africa at that time.
Plus, I’d met an English guy who had been working in Nottingham Road for his GAP year, I was the proud owner of a British passport, (thanks to my parents’ heritage) and I had itchy feet!
So… In January 1996 I came to England.
I settled in London and worked in a variety of schools in the greater London area, teaching Music wherever I could. Within a year I had secured a permanent position at St. Paul's C.E. Primary in Walworth where I taught Music across the school from Nursery to Year 6. There I trained a number of choirs, instrumental groups, directed school plays, concerts and church services. While working at St Paul’s. I met Richard who I later married back home in Kloof Methodist church in 2000.
(It didn’t work out with the other guy!!)
In London, I kept my interests in music with private tutoring on an evening after school as well as joining a Wind band for a while.
As much as we both loved London, Richard was keen to move closer to his parents who were up North, plus we both wanted to start a family, and we definitely didn’t fancy the idea of bringing up children in “The Big Smoke”!
Well… Richard got a job, teaching the year 6 class, at Dunnington Primary School, starting in January 2001!
I found Dunnington a delightful and friendly village and not long after moving here, I started attending the Methodist church and made friends there who have journeyed these past 20-something years alongside me.
Of course, with my musical interests, it wasn’t long before I was helping with worship at the church and even started a small singing group to lead and perform at certain services from time to time.
Can anyone remember a big national event that was celebrated in June 2002?
Well, together with friends I’d made through the church, Alpha groups, a local ceilidh band I played with and the wider school network, we decided to put together the JUBILEE MUSICAL. We had over 30 adults and children singing and performing songs from the previous 5 decades to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
Right here in the Reading Rooms!
It was a great event and afterwards, with everyone still on a high, we decided to keep on singing.
And so Dunnington Community choir was born.
It wasn’t long before I was also teaching at Dunnington Primary, and being involved with leading the choir there, we had a number of occasions in the early years of DCC where we’d share the stage with the children’s choir too. We even had a time when local children sang in their own village choir, which I also led.
This was around January 2008 for a year or so, after the children had been involved in another larger scale Christmas production the choir and a few extra members had put on in the Christmas season of 2007. Does anyone remember Papa Panov?
A lovely story and hope and faith and waiting for Jesus.
Over the years our choir has changed and grown.
It’s also had some lean moments in terms of membership, not least thanks to the recent Lockdown! But we have soldiered on and kept singing through it all, and I know our members have been most grateful.
Our music and singing were a point of connection when most people had none.
During Lockdown, I learnt a whole new skill set. In order to maintain some singing opportunities and to actually hear ourselves singing together, (rather than the cat’s meow of attempting to sing on Zoom!) I needed to learn how to create a virtual choir sound…. And then teach my dedicated choir how to learn, record and upload their voice parts for me to then edit, sync and produce.
It was a loooong process, but I’m so pleased we persisted with the (sometimes headache-inducing tech) and were able to share our music with each other and the world!
How ironic that in the time where no one could be together, our little choir in Dunnington had the greatest global outreach! We’ve had wonderful feedback from friends and family around the world who have enjoyed our online singing over the past couple of years. How amazing is that?
Having learnt what I could about creating a virtual choir during Lockdown, I had a fantastic opportunity in July last year.
Sadly, it came about as a reaction to the terrible looting and wanton destruction of shopping malls and warehouses in South Africa’s major cities at that time.
A Facebook group for South Africans abroad that I am a member of, was agog with what was happening. We all felt so hopeless being so far away from our loved ones, who were having to patrol their streets at night to protect their families and their homes.
Someone on the group suggested that perhaps we could all sing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (our national anthem) and post it online to share with those back home so they knew we were standing with them in their time of fear and uncertainty.
Was there anyone who could help them do that?
I immediately offered my help and within days we were recording voice parts in our living rooms around the globe.
By the end of July I’d collated over 50 voices from dozens of countries (Canada to Scotland to Germany to Doha to Australia and New Zealand…) and had produced my biggest virtual choir yet! It was an enormous task but hugely rewarding and incredibly humbling.
Dunnington Community Choir has been going for 20 years this year. We still have some original members and we have also welcomed a number of new singers since we got back together in real time and space last September. We’ve seen people come and go through the years but there’s a loyal core who have kept us going through these past difficult couple of years and I am so grateful for that.
This year one of our newest members, was once a Dunnington Primary School choir member who sang with us in those early years and is now singing with us as an adult. (Unfortunately she couldn’t make it tonight…) I’ve even managed to recruit members of my family (as my granny did with her choir all those years ago). All 3 of my children have sung with the Dunnington Community choir at different times and now I’m delighted to have my lovely Mom singing with us too.
When I look back on all we’ve achieved, the variety of music and performances we’ve engaged with and the longevity of the choir I am so humbled and so very proud.
Our most recent concert was at the York Community Choir Festival. It was a joy to sing in the Joseph Rowntree theatre again as we have done in years gone by. The city’s celebration of choral music is a wonderful opportunity to showcase what we’ve been working on, as well as appreciate the different choirs in our region.
In years past we’ve sung at church events, such as Easter and Christmas services; we’ve held countless fundraising concerts in the Summer and Winter for local, national and international charitable causes and we’ve had a number of opportunities to share the stage with visiting choirs and music groups from around the UK.
As we sing for you tonight, I hope you will appreciate a flavour of all I have shared with you about our choir. We are delighted to have been invited to come and sing for you and would like to thank you for the opportunity to do so.
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