Concert guidance

We usually perform three times a year in one of the Oxford College chapels or an Oxford church and have an away day in the early part of the calendar year where we may rehearse and sing outside of Oxford.  We are always looking for new suitable venues so if you know of one do let a committee member know.

The concerts are almost always Saturday evenings and we have a “dress” rehearsal on the afternoon of the concert in the venue.  The dress rehearsal usually begins at 2 pm.  You don’t have to wear concert dress for it!

As well as regular concerts we sometimes perform at other events, for example conferences or weddings, for a fee. If you know of an event at which we could sing please do let a committee member know.

Alberto Gianetto manages each concert on the day.  As you can imagine there are lots of things which need to happen before the concert can take place for example setting out chairs, arranging refreshments for interval drinks, transporting and putting together staging and folding programmes.  The choir shares out these tasks, ably co-ordinated by Alberto who will ask for volunteers well before the concert.

Dress for concerts

Men:  Plain black long-sleeved, open-collared shirt, black trousers, black socks and black shoes.  We sometimes wear black jackets if the venue is cold.

Women:  Black long-sleeved (at least below elbow) blouse or shirt, black ankle length (at least below knee) skirt or long trousers, black tights/socks and black shoes.  You are welcome to wear jewellery but please not too sparkly because of the lighting in the concert venues.

Tickets for our concerts

Walter Stewart-Brown is in charge of ticket sales and several weeks before the concert she will ensure tickets are available to choir members.  All choir members are expected to sell a bare minimum of at least two tickets, but the more you sell the more adventurous we can be in future music-making!  You are allowed to sell your first two tickets for each concert at the discounted rate.

It is very helpful if you can sell tickets as early as possible and give Walter the money for them because he can then know in advance the likely audience size and not have to spend the concert day chasing money and/or unsold tickets.

What happens if you are unable to sing in a concert?

We hope that you will put the dates of concerts in your diary early so that you will always be able to sing in them, but we recognise that sometimes the concert date may conflict with another non-movable important event, or you may be away with work or busy on a specific project which means that you are unable to sing in a particular term.

If this is the case, please let Duncan and Heather know as soon as possible.  She needs to know because she is in charge of ordering all the music for concerts, which she sometimes does as early as 6 months before a specific concert.  Music costs money so if Heather does not have to order copies that we do not need then we don’t waste money.  If you have taken music for a concert and then realise you won’t be able to sing in that concert you must give your music back to Heather without delay as keeping it costs the choir money and causes a considerable headache for all concerned.

Duncan needs to know because the number of people available for each part will affect his decisions about the music we sing.

Missing a concert should be an exceptional event – there is no sense in which it’s OK to miss a term just because you don’t fancy it and it is extremely unfair on the rest of the choir just to miss a concert because you had a better offer at the last minute.