Success for young RDA rider

Peter, one of the young riders from Riding for the Disabled (Patchwork RDA – RDA PatchworkFR’s charity for 2016) has covered himself with glory by being awarded 3rd place in both of the classes he entered for at the Regional RDA Championships. This qualifies him to go forward to the National Championships at Hartpury College in July.  Hartpury Equine is one of the largest equestrian centres in the world, providing top class education alongside elite equestrian training.  Peter goes to Tuffley Junior School, Gloucester.  We’re very excited for him and his family and highly chuffed to have been able to support him in this venture.

Great Day for Cheltenham Festival of Performing Arts

Rehearsing before the 'off'.

Rehearsing before the ‘off’.

It’s a weird fact that every time FR have a whole day somewhere, be it workshop, coaching, competition, etc – the weather is always glorious while we’re warbling away indoors.  We did manage a quick half hour in the sun for lunch at our rehearsal hall before She Who Must Be Obeyed gave a discreet cough, then it was back to polishing the three songs for our first class, Songs from the Shows.  We were pipped to the post by the excellent Wessex Male Voice Choir (who also won Male Voice Choir and the Gold Cup) but we got a ‘Highly Commended’ and some good comments from the adjudicators.

Always a careful balancing act …

Back to the rehearsal hall for a recap on our next three songs and perhaps a nibble or two of cake, then returned to the Town Hall  for our second stint in the Female Voice Choir category.  This session (now running well over an hour late!) was very well supported by the Barbershop fraternity, fielding 5 of the 6 entries so a big Hurrah! for Black Sheep, Harmony Inspires, Bristol Fashion and Cleeve Harmony who competed alongside community choir Take Note – and we’re very pleased that our sister chorus Bristol Fashion gave a great performance and came away with the trophy.  Fascinating Rhythm had a wonderful audience reaction to both our performances and many, many nice comments afterwards; we may not have bagged any silver, but we certainly entertained!
And well done to our two new baritones Sue and Carolyn who joined us just a few months ago and got all 6 songs under their belts to a high standard in record time.  Welcome to the madness …

'Newbie' Sue

‘Newbie’ Sue

'Newbie' Carolyn

‘Newbie’ Carolyn

Stunning venue for our HomeStart Charity concert

The drive to get to the beautiful BeauDesert School in Minchinhampton, GloucestershireBeaudesert 2 on Saturday, 7th May was a treat in itself, though we did get a little concerned about the amount of traffic trying to get away from the last day of Badminton Horse Trials.  Nearly started on the dot of 7:30pm, just waited for late arriving audience who got caught up in the equine exodus.  We had to skimp on risers, so singing sardines with the barest of choreography was the order of the day but we had a really great time with a lovely responsive audience and no serious injuries, entertaining with two 40 minute sessions, supported by our in-house septet RhythmMix.  Our MD, Jo Dean, is the Scheme Manager for HomeStart Sedgemoor and knows from first hand experience what a difference this charity makes to families in need so we dedicated one song in particular – ‘Fix You’* – to their group of volunteers; its very emotive words touched many of the audience and FR learned yet again how difficult it is to sing well with a wobbly bottom lip.

HomeStart is a national charity with over 260 schemes running in the UK and also covering families of British Forces in Germany and Cyprus and their aim is to help make the formative years of these children and their parents in need just a little easier. The volunteers, who use their own parenting and home management skills and experience, give thousands of hours each year of their time to stand alongside the families whilst they travel the sometimes treacherous road of parenthood.  The majority of singers in Fascinating Rhythm are mothers & grandmothers and, as such, appreciate the pressures of parenting (just escaping to get to a rehearsal can prove a challenge) so it seems very fitting that as a chorus we should support our local HomeStart scheme and hope our contribution goes some way to raising their profile in Stroud.  We are very pleased to have raised £1,449 which will pay for approximately 700 hours of support for families in the Stroud area

*Covered by ColdPlay and arranged for us by Pete Nugent (www.noojtracks.co.uk).

We’ve Been McLeaned!

Fabulous, fabulous coaching with Sally McLean over the weekend of Sally 116/17th April, working on the six songs we’re taking to the Cheltenham Music Festival in May (actually it’s nine songs – two of them are medleys).  We worked our socks off and had such an inspiring couple of days; still buzzing at the end of Sunday afternoon, but most of us catatonic on Monday!
Hugely looking forward to Sally’s next visit in June.

BinG! (Barbershop in Germany) success for JIGSAW

World Championship for mixed barbershop quartets in Munich.

Jigsaw Germany 2016 2Our Tenor Section Leader Ali and her partner Pete, plus ex-FR member Donna and her partner Keefe teamed up a couple of years ago to become JIGSAW mixed quartet, winning 2 consecutive silver medals against some stiff opposition at our national yearly convention.
Having decided to take part in BinG! Jigsaw felt they needed to get more stage time and actually sing to a live audience rather than just singing to the picture on the wall at home, so a plan was put in place to visit all their local choruses.  Five chorus directors were contacted to seek approval to ‘Barber-bomb’ their rehearsal night.  Permission granted, the quartet made all Jigsaw Germany 2016 4five venues one Thursday and entertained their (captive!) audiences with the two songs they were competing with.  The whole evening was a great success and Jigsaw would like to thank all the choruses – Black Sheep Harmony, Bristol Fashion, Avon Harmony, Great Western Chorus and Fascinating Rhythm for their fantastic warm support.
The quartet arrived in Munich on the following Thursday evening but as the competition wasn’t until Sunday made the most of their free time sightseeing around Munich, relaxing in the sun, enjoying the ambiance of the beer garden and watching the world go by!
Jigsaw’s goal for the competition this year was to improve their placing and to come in the top five – which they achieved – and were over the moon to come fifth in the world, especially as the competition set a very high standard.

Stop Press!  Jigsaw were nominated for the 2016 A Cappella Recording Awards in the best barbershop song category with their song ‘The Way You Look Tonight’.  Update April 2016 – very pleased to announce they came 2nd.  Awesome!

Good Result for Junior FR at Thornbury Eisteddfod

Thursday 10th March saw Junior FR competing again in the U14 Choirs class in St.Mary’s JFR Thornbury (3)Church, Thornbury.  After a fantastic warm up session at the Turnberries Community Centre led by MD Wendy Howse and assisted by Sarah Winter, we gathered in the rather chilly church atrium before being allowed into the only slightly less chilly church!
Heidi introduced the choir for our first song, ‘Midnight Tango’, which was part of our  recent successful production of Roald Dahl’s Cinderella.  It involves two verse melodies, each with interactions from the other part and then a two-part harmony chorus, arranged by JFR helper Kitty Davies. The final verse then mixes the two melodies together as a finale. The girls managed all of this with some fantastically evocative Latin moves which were executed with great style and syncronisation, providing a most entertaining and energetic performance.   A big thank you goes to Jo Luddington for her wonderful piano accompaniment.  The adjudicator comments were “Such neat actions.  Good sound and musically shaped.  Good balance and communication. Very promising work”.
Our second piece, introduced by Meg, was a four-part harmony arrangement of ‘The TeddyJFR Thornbury 2016 (2) Bears Picnic’, arranged especially for us and paid for by a very generous benefactor.  It was a challenge, and one which we only had a short time to learn after Cinderella.  The girls were up for the challenge, coping really well with the level of difficulty and bringing out the humour in the lyrics (“Have a banana!” and “yummy yummy yummy!”).  Again the adjudicator appreciated how ambitious the piece was, especially with our age range being 5-14!  The girls did lose the tuning a little but with a  cappella pieces of this nature it is often very difficult not to.
JFR scored a fantastic 85 but were just pipped to first place by Tockington who scored 86.  This choir of older children sang with a lovely blended sound and great dynamics (but JFR were definitely more entertaining!).

The adjudicator finished with a plea to all parents who appreciate the value of music and art in their children’s lives.  There is a move by Government to enforce the English Baccalaureate in secondary schools meaning that 7 GCSE subjects will be compulsory (none of them being of the Arts), leaving the children little choice of these particular subjects which they enjoy or encourages their creativity so they may achieve their highest potential.  There is a petition on the Festival website (http://www.baccforthefuture.com/) to counter this move and appeal to the Government to either continue to allow choice in schools, or to reformulate the EBacc to give more flexibility.  We would encourage you to take a look and sign up if you agree.

Great Night with the Mendip Men

We had a really good evening at our joint concert with the Mendip Male Voice Choir, raising well over £800 forRDA Patchwork FR’s charity for 2016 – the Riding for the Disabled Association (Gloucester West, Patchwork Group).  The MMVC were formed in 1919, and the 70-strong members of today’s choir are still very much involved in raising money for various charities.  Under the baton of their MD, Jamie Knights – who also doubled up as their MC – and accompanied by Phil Evry on the piano, they sang a varied programme which went well with the more (seemingly) relaxed performance from Fascinating Rhythm.  It was a treat for us at the end when we were all together on stage to sing the very aptly named song ‘Harmony’; lots of lovely Bass!
We’re looking forward to meeting up with the chaps next year for a joint concert for their 2017 chosen charity.

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Our Annual Harmony Workshop goes with a swing

Our Annual Harmony Workshop goes with a swing

We were pleased to welcome nearly 80 delegates to our annual workshop on Saturday, 23rd January, including many returnees from the past five years we’ve been holding this event.

It was great to have some of our sister chorus, Cardiff Style, supporting us and also the ‘Red Hatters’ – lovely ladies from Cotswold Gems who do much charity work around the Gloucester area.

10:00 am sharp start with a vocal warm-up routine from Musical Director Jo Thorn, followed by some singing craft, then off to the first break out session for three parts to find they are singing ‘doo’ for half of the song, whilst the Leads captivate us all with the melody.

The seemingly impossible was achieved yet again at 3:30 pm – Show Time – when the delegates were up on the risers singing the day’s song with confidence, smiles and no music; truly page to stage in a day.

Much home-made cake consumed by all (understandably, to keep the energy levels up) supplied by Fascinating Rhythm’s first-class catering team and a good venue with plenty of room made a happy day; great fun and looking forward to next year already.

Added bonus in that some of the delegates will be joining Fascinating Rhythm shortly.

It’s Great to be Back

After all the hustle and bustle of December – then the ‘no man’s land’ gap in between Christmas and New Year … it was just great to get back to the singing on Thursday 7th January, when almost a full Chorus turned up – and three prospective new members as well!  After a quick voice test with our MD, they were shepherded into their new sections and, albeit a little bewildered, fitted in really well and did a grand job.

We’re just gearing up for our Harmony Workshop on 23rd January – a great fun day we all hugely enjoy.  Really pleased that quite a few singers from one of our sister choruses, Cardiff Style, are crossing the Severn Bridge to join us, as well as many past delegates returning for their annual A Cappella fix!  The FR catering team are gearing up for action so there’ll be plenty of … Cake!  Singing and Cake – bliss.

And if you’re reading this, Fascinating Rhythm send you every good wish for an excellent 2016.

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