Reflections on 2009

It seems difficult to believe that I have just conducted my 30th concert at the helm of St Ives Choral Society.  I would rate all of them as being successes although the quality of music making has certainly improved over the past three or four years.  This is due, in no small part, to our success in attracting higher quality musicians to the ranks of the choir, and to the orchestra.  We have also managed to breathe newer life into the choir membership with at least some young members and, with the introduction of our bursaries scheme, hopefully more young people will follow.  The choir is now a bigger and more versatile 'instrument' than in years gone by.

However, recruitment is never something that we can afford to be complacent about.  Our current problem area is amongst the ranks of the gents.  There is nothing unusual in being members of a choral society with a smaller proportion of males than females.  Our plight is more acute than it should be and we do need to work particularly hard at this over the coming few years.

The recent Christmas concert is another area needing regeneration - perhaps some tweaking, rather than any fundamental change.  When I took over the choir, we worked particularly hard at changing the format of this concert so that it better served our purposes.  It could be argued that this concert, more so than any of our other activities, has been the backbone of our success during the 'noughties'.  I don't want to lose the concert's current strengths: its compact length, the way it provides opportunities for us to sing from a different repertoire, and the way it speaks to a different audience.  The children's aspect has served us well, but this aspect needs to change.  Next year, I hope to have been successful in recruiting a Junior School Choir to join us at this concert; well, it helps that my wife happens to run one.  This may well provide the answer to the children's 'slot' and, in so doing, will attract another audience.  Hopefully, they will sing two 'sets' and this may have the added benefit of enabling us to concentrate on a smaller but slightly more challenging repertoire of carols - I have a little list!