Tagged In: choirleading
New Arranger Welcome – Fiona Lander
Last week we published Fiona’s introductory collection of compositions and arrangements on ChoirCommunity. To accompany this launch, Craig chatted to Fiona over Zoom about her music influences and career.
New Arranger Welcome – Dom Stichbury
In the seventh of our series of video conversations with our team of arrangers, Craig chats to Dom Stichbury about the formative years of his musical career, leading choral groups of different types, including male voices and many other aspects of how music has influenced him.
The collection of Dom’s arrangements, which will continue to grow, can be found on his shop page here.
New Arranger Welcome – Doug Watts
In the second of our series of video interviews – partly inspired by the the experience of endless Zoom calls during lockdown – Craig talks to Doug Watts about his musical life and the steps which led up to joining ChoirCommunity!
Warehouse Adventures For Beginners – Part 3
Or, “How an Ageing Choirleader Briefly Sullied His Hands and Became a Spokesman for All The World’s Downtrodden Workers”
Day to Day
Overall, it’s actually not bad. A lot of the men comment that this is one of the best warehouse gigs in the west. Nightshift (10pm-6am) pays just over £300/week after tax, which is top whack apparently. (Yay….. 😉
Plus, there’s many fewer Orange Jackets on the night shift – the line managers. Us green jackets distrust ’em, though they’re mainly ok really. Here, as everywhere, the odd person who was clearly bullied at school & now finds themselves in a position of power is easy to spot, but happily there are few.
Most importantly, though we work hard non-stop. There is no-one constantly pushing us to work even faster, & there’s time to do the job properly. That’s a game-changer in any crap job. Our manager paused as he passed last night, cast a critical eye & said. ‘Nice pallet that’. I swelled with pride… -”Nice? – Moana Pallet Lisa mate!” He laughed & moved on. A good moment.
Warehouse Adventures for Beginners – Part 1
Or, “How an Ageing Choirleader Briefly Sullied His Hands and Became a Spokesman for All The World’s Downtrodden Workers”
Prologue
Monday March 16, approx 4.30pm, the PM proclaimed, ‘No More Non-Essential Gatherings’.
Like so may others, my wife & I spent a few minutes in shock, carefully weighing & re-weighing his words before realising that, yes, this was indeed the end of all choral activity for the foreseeable, & thus also of our income. I sent a mail cancelling that evening’s rehearsal, then went down there anyway, just in case anyone didn’t get the message in time. Once back home, we immediately began job hunting.
By 1am I had applied for every available delivery/warehouse job within 20 miles of our house. (Coz we figured that parcels & nursing would be the only sectors working in the coming months). Adel chased up social care.
By Weds 18th, we both had several offers, which was just as well, coz that was the day that the school I worked in shut down. We chose the 2 options with hours that allowed us to both to work full time & perhaps cope with home schooling too.