If You Like X, You'll Love Y

One of the reasons I love singing in a choir is that it is so completely NOT like writing. When I write I am totally responsible. The story won't be told if I don't tell it. The characters won't have a chance to grow and breathe and spread their surprising and unlikely wings if I don't spend the time - and heart's blood - to give it to them. And don't even get me started on my campaign to bring the ferret to the attention of the reading public.

But singing in a fine, big choir ... that's something else again.

I don't have any illusions about me as a soloist - I make reliable musical cannon fodder and that's my limit. And that suits me fine. I love the way it feels being part of the sound. I love the way it feels when the conductor brings us all together, voices and instruments. I love coming to know the music from the inside - how it's put together - the structure - by learning one thread of it as well as I can. All the other threads are somebody else's problem.

Fabulous.

So here's the plug - Dundee Choral Union, Sunday night 7:30 at the Caird Hall - come and hear what we make of the Brahms' Requiem and some terrifyingly unaccompanied Barber, Bruckner and Taverner. I'm at the end of the row, singing my socks off and, for once, not thinking about writing at all.

Cheers, Joan.