Our Day Out in Oundle! Winners!!!!

Notwithstanding the fact that we had only been singing together for about 16 months, singing mainly a selection of pop/rock songs, our Musical Director Derek decided it would be a good idea to enter us into a Choral Competition in Oundle! We initially thought he had taken leave of his senses but he was clearly impressed with our progress since we started singing together. Oundle had a class specifically for 'non-auditioned, community choirs' and Derek thought that entering this would give us great experience. We wouldn't be able to use any of the backing tracks we normally sing with so we selected to sing a piano accompanied song called 'Can You Hear Me' by Bob Chilcott, a well known modern composer which included the use of sign language! Our second song was an arrangement of 'What Happens When a Woman Takes Power' which is an 'a cappella' piece with no accompaniment. Just a couple of months ago we were lucky enough to have join us, Marie Ward who is living in Crick and just happens to be a first class pianist so we had brilliant support in the first song. We 'managed expectations' with regard to the ability to sing AND sign at the same time so our Rebecca and Becky volunteered to do most of the signing for us. The second song required a strong opening solo and Nikki from Crick did us proud and set the tone.

A few 'curved balls' were thrown at us ....... our MD got stuck in Thailand with a wife with a broken leg and a Middle East war so a decision was taken for the Assistant Musical Director, Hannah Wilkinson (ex Crick, now posh girl in Ashby! lololol) to step in and take the final practices and conduct at the competition.

So after weeks and weeks of practice ....... it was off to the competition....

A lovely venue on a lovely sunny day!

This was a big ask .... many of us had never sung in a competition in our lives and had only started singing when J18 started 16 months ago.

After a bit of a warm up, we entered the church. We were singing against three other choirs, a ladies choir, a male voice choir and a mixed community choir. We were second in the programme and we approached our turn with some trepidation, after hearing a very good ladies choir sing first.

We sang our hearts out with Marie doing a great job on piano and Hannah conducting brilliantly. Two more choirs sang and then came the adjudication. The experienced adjudicator, David Beer said

'' This is a lovely warm sound. Tuning was excellent and the singing was very expressive'' For our second song he said ''This began with an excellent strong solo. The choir took on this energy and there was excellent rhythmic singing here. Strong harmonies, excellent blend and clear diction. Very strong singing''.

Then the awards .... 3rd place, 2nd place and First Place JUNCTIØN18 !!!! The choir exploded!!!!! We had done it! Celebrations abounded and it wasn't long before alcohol became involved!!!!! lol.

Hannah and Derek with David Beer, the Adjudicator

The ladies and their trophy!

So a fantastic day for our lovely bunch of ladies!

Don't forget, if any lady from Crick or the surrounding villages wish to join JUNCTIØN18 ...... Sorry, 'Award Winning' Ladies Choir JUNCTIØN18 (lolol), please feel free to come along to our next practice at Crick Sports Centre on April 13th at 8.00pm and join us. No audition .... just fun with a great group of women. we'll be back to Shania Twain, Sister Act and a few new ones that Derek has up his sleeve!

Our next performance will be opening Crick Scarecrow Festival on 11th July followed by a major Charity Concert in November .... more on that later ......