Saturday 31 March 2012

Cairns Road Concert - What a Finale!

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! Last night's concert at Cairns Road was the perfect end to the most amazing GGCC term. I actually found myself waking up in the night last night, remembering that we'd done our last concert til the Autumn and felt really sad! It has been such a joy to journey with all three GGCC choirs over the last nine weeks, seeing friendships form, confidence grow and being overwhelmed by everyone's total commitment to the choir.

So, highlights from last night then...where so I start? Well I guess for many in the choir it was the first time they got to sing with a live band! And what a band they were! At the start of rehearsal faces in the choir were looking a bit concerned about being with the band but as they sang more and more I could see smiles appear in abundance as it became a joy to be accompanied by such top musicians!

Plus we had an amazing sound engineer for the night who brought all his own kit, set it up in the afternoon and then packed it all up afterwards...thank you John-Marc!!!

Another thing that was really apparant last night is how big the GGCC family is...

...this was in rehearsal and we were still missing quite a few!

The evening got off to a cracking start with "Happy Day/I will sing praises" and "We magnify your name"


There were many moving moments including Westbury GGCC singing "Everlasting God"...actually managed to get a pic or two of them this time, here they are in action




Easton GGCC finally got onto camera as well singing "Nobody Knows"...once again the audience spontaneously joined in clapping along!



The "Our Father" quartet did a fab job...



As did the "Hosanna" posse...




And it was a joy to me (Em) to be able to sing "I just can't give up now" again with my two lovely friends Geraldine & Naomi...



Plus the medley at the end of the three spirituals "Steal Away " (Westbury GGCC), "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (Shirehampton GGCC) and "Nobody Knows" (Easton GGCC), was once again the perfect end to the evening, all three choirs, singing their own song but together as one. A fantastic sign of a new community from three different parts of the city.

So that's it for GGCC for now. We will be singing at a few community events in the summer which we'll put up here on the blog. Rehearsals will start again in the Autumn so watch this space!

Thursday 29 March 2012

St Edyth's concert...A-MA-ZING!

Well, it's a beautiful sunny March morning, again! Still can't get my head round this 'June like' weather but am loving it!

If you were at the St Edyth's GGCC concert last night, then you were in for a treat! Such an amazing evening, I'm sitting at my computer this morning with so many lovely memories and highlights buzzing in my head. Right from the comedy double act that is Emma and Geraldine setting up the staging trying not to break nails (!), through to the brilliant "secret" finale again. I did manage to get some photos although not all brilliantly in focus (of course it's the cameras fault not my bad photography!) but they hopefully give an idea of what we did. Sorry there are still no pics of Easton GGCC...it's hard for me to take any when I'm leading so if anyone else out there took any can you email me a copy, ta. Same goes for Westbury GGCC actually. One day I might have some actual sound bites to include who knows. So here are some pics...

The combined choirs of GGCC...looking and sounding lovely.

Prizes for guessing what Geraldine is signalling here!

See anyone you know?

Shirehampton GGCC singing "Swing Low"

The colour co-ordinated Shirehampton altos!

And the sparkly Shire sopranos...plus some men!

Sunday 25 March 2012

What a first concert!!!

Well, it's about 10.45pm on Sunday evening, I've just got back and am too excited to even contemplate going to bed so thought I may as well update the blog!

We, the three choirs of GGCC have just done our first Spring 2012 concert at St Mark's Baptist in Easton and it was just amazing!!! I have so many highlights whizzing round in my head, I'm sure I'll keep on recalling new ones over next few days. For those of you reading this who weren't able to be there, here are some pics (most taken by my eight year old...I'm quite impressed!) to give a feel for the evening. So, here we are first of all, rehearsing beforehand.

The men of GGCC and it appears that Geraldine has turned into a music stand!


The soloists at the front for "Here is Love"...what a grand job they did!



Nearly ready to start the concert.




The "Hosanna" small group

"We did it...can you believe it!"

We didn't get pics of so many other great parts of concert...will try and get some from our next two concerts! To everyone who sang tonight, you were awesome, I'm so glad we get to do it all again...and again! So, next stop on our tour is St Edyth's, Sea Mills, Wednesday...maybe see you there!

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Concert on Sunday!!!

Well, this week is our last week of rehearsals and it's our first concert on SUNDAY...yippeeee!!! So, looking forward to kicking off our Spring concert season at St Mark's Baptist Church, Easton, 6.30pm.

If you're part of the choir and looking for answer to competition I set...here's a photo to prove I haven't eaten the eggs...yet!!!


Keep reading and you'll find the answer!

Hope you enjoyed the pics from the Westbury social in the last post. I did actually manage to get myself organised and take camera to Shire & Easton rehearsals after that so have some pics of them which I'll include below...what a lovely bunch they all are eh! First it's the Shirehampton crew:

Some of our lovely Altos!

The Men!!!

And some of our sparkly sopranos!

Some more altos...wave hello!

And some more sopranos!

Our soloists rehearsing, first time singing in front of us all and they did a fab job!

We have fun in the choir!

A lot of fun!

Ok, now for the Easton gang:
"Yay, it's choir time!"

Some of the lovely sopranos.

 "Bonjour, tout le monde!!"

Some of the super altos!

The Easton gang!

 We're all looking forward to seeing you at our concerts...25th March @ St Mark's, 6.30pm, 28th March @ St Edyth's Church, Sea Mills, 7.30pm and 30th March @ Cairns Road Baptist, 7.30pm.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

The last social...of this term anyway!

So, last night was the Westbury social! Thanks so much to everyone who provided the yummy food and drink, it was just what we all needed after a hard workout in our rehearsal! Here are some pics that I can take no credit for, the lovely Chris Ritter stepped in and was our resident photographer.








And we now have photographic evidence that Geraldine, Naomi & Emma exist!

Can't help the fact that they're a bit crazy though!

Apologies that we didn't get pics of Shire & Easton socials...next term eh.

Sunday 11 March 2012

Two weeks to go!

So, I've just realised our first GGCC Spring concert is in two weeks! It's been such a thrill to see all three choirs really getting to grips with the songs and beginning to really enjoy the feeling of achievement they deserve to feel. When Geraldine, Naomi and I met at beginning of year to chose songs, none of us could've really known how perfect they would be in terms of the way the choir members would respond to them and how well they would fit together too. So, if you're going to come to one of our concerts you're in for a treat!!!



Last week was week 7 in the GGCC term and was the week when Geraldine finally taught the Westbury gang the song she's completely forgotten about! But hey they were true professionals and picked it up brilliantly. We also had our social at Easton GGCC on Thursday. Kym cooked us a feast...she truly has a gift that I don't have! We were also able to celebrate Janice's birthday...she gave a lovely speech too.

So, we're looking forward to our Westbury GGCC social on Tues, if I'm organised enough I'll take some pics and put them up on blog. If not, you'll just have to use imagination!!!

Friday 2 March 2012

The social whirl begins!

Well this is the time in the term when Geraldine and I get well fed!!! Yes, it's choir socials time! We had our first on Wednesday with the lovely Shirehampton crew and after a good vocal workout in rehearsal everyone was ready for yummy cake! Thanks to everyone for helping set up and clear away too. Next week (8th March) we have Easton GGCC social, the lovely Kym is doing the food for us, I know what she's planning to make and my mouth is watering already! Then on 13th it's the Westbury GGCC social...yay!

We now have posters for all the concerts...here is the one for Easton, our first performance! If you'd like any of the others then email me gospelgen@googlemail.com.

Well that's it for now, have a great weekend!