Spring is springing and March is nearly upon us! The Great America Songbook and new Folk arrangements are in the air!

Gitika's February Newsletter

Well by the last week of January, after sickness, sadness loss and snow, life was back to a moderately lovely hum.

The Tubthumping Chorus is going from strength to strength, as we decide what section of the large folk umbrella we want to shelter under. Shanties and Ballads have been mentioned as current favourites! We are expanding our membership next term which start on the 23rd of April.

The Bishopsgate Singers and Acland Burghley Harmony Singers are enjoying the new Bob Marley and Cole Porter arrangements which we shall be sharing on Wednesday 13th (Acland Burghley) and Monday 25th of March (Bishopsgate) on our final sing of the term. Email me for details if you want to come along. ( check out my choir demo of 'Too Darn Hot' and Gus' cartoon for the month..with fan and cold sponge!)

The Our Lady's School Choir are singing at one of the Camden School Cluster Festivals and they seem to have had one of those amazing leaps. The singing is amazing! There are children from 4-11 in the group which is a huge undertaking, but the school wanted a whole school choir...it's working!

I am happy for any aspiring singing group leaders (not all at once mind) to come and watch me in action...always useful to watch how other people fare, even if it helps you decide how not to do it!

When the sun comes out, it feels like Spring is in the air!
The damson blossom is out,
which is always the first tree to bloom, and always is a cheery sight.

During March I am running singing days in Milton Keynes (Gitika's Big Sing, The Stables) and Macclesfield. In February, I was very happy to go back and run 3 sessions for the lovely Earthly Voices in Esher. They are having a weekend residential in Taunton which I am leading with

Ali Orbaum, who is Earthly Voices' full time leader,

Wendy Sergeant and

Chris Samuel, all fine singing leaders from the South-west. here is a lovely bit of video of the four of singing my arrangement of make you feel my love together a couple of years ago at another Earthly Voices Residential weekend.

My outing for the month was to the SOUTH BANK -TAPPING THE SOURCE on Feb 3rd 'A rich afternoon of journeying back into early 20th-century folk song material to explore and present interpretations of the same music, curated by Bellowhead's Pete Flood.

Featuring a range of special guests including Tim Van Eyken, Martin Carthy, Dave Swarbrick, Solarference and Belles of London City. The Cecil Sharp House Choir and participants from the English Folk Dance and Song Society and Royal College of Music Junior Department's Living Song project also perform.'
It was a cracking afternoon. All the music was spellbinding...I sat for 3 hours without moving...anyone who knows me well knows this might be some sort of a miracle!

The Natural Voice Practitioners Network are now on Twitter @NatVoicePrac

What I enjoyed at the South Bank was the diversity of the folk arrangements, and that folk is still evolving, living and breathing. I particularly love this quote from the great Martin McCarthy 'By 1971, I had come to understand that folk music could survive anything that, or anyone else equally well-intentioned could do to it. The sort of mix-up that occurred when the folk and rock worlds met is the sort of mix-up that has always gone on in folk culture. It is utterly ridiculous to try and keep folk music pure because it has never been pure, it is a mish-mash. The idea of a there being a folk pedigree is a joke.'

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