March 9th 2014
On Saturday 8th March, West Oxfordshire Academy of Performing Arts' Adult Singing Group performed at The 102nd Chipping Norton Music Festival.
It was the first time our choir from Witney had entered this festival and we were very excited to be taking part.
The overall grade awarded to the group was 'Distinction'. the adjudicator was Steven Roberts and his full comments following our performance are below.
West Oxfordshire Academy of Performing Arts Oh I love you!
Good Morning Baltimore:
Really great feel, lovely music from a terrific show. Very strong sound and clearly committed to enjoying yourselves, I thought - and your faces say it all: singings fun! And thats really good it came across right from the outset. Strong, rich harmonies, you support your voices well and the breath support is really confident and strong throughout. I just felt that you made us smile and we enjoyed the energy that you gave in your performance. Watch the long note before the final change of key, keep the energy all the way through on that note.
Terrific fun and nice sense of performance. I really enjoyed it.
Every Breath You Take:
I thought you managed to centre your sound really well. I could be wrong here, but I got from your performance that there was a sense of achievement, that theres a sense of friendship and a sense of coming together through singing. That actually came across in your performance dont ever lose that because it comes across really, really well to us all. There is a real power in your singing, and I dont know whether you realise that you have got that power. I always say to lots of choirs that you have the ability to make people laugh, to make people cry, to make people think of happy moments and sad moments, and its the audience thats in the palm of your hands and its up to you to control that power.
I thought you did that really, really well.
Run:
A fabulous link into that, I really liked it and I thought that the songs work really well together nicely worked as an arrangement. Good to have the unaccompanied section, which gave us the opportunity to listen to some really rich lower voices and you really made us sit up and listen. We enjoyed it, which is great, so never stop.
Adjudicators comment on certificate:
Great energy, great faces, great fun! Well done!