Extra Rehearsal - Thursday 14 March 7.30 pm in St Edmunds Hall, College Road, Malvern

• Please note that the rehearsal on Thursday 14 March will be held in St Edmunds Hall, not in the Chase School Hall. It will start at 7.30 pm.
• Malvern Festival Chorus music folders, ladies' scarves and gentlemen's bow ties will be available to purchase from Bridget Corlett at the rehearsal.
• Concert programmes will be available to purchase at the rehearsal, price £3.00.

Concert Day Arrangements - Saturday 16 March

• Please be in The Priory by 2.00 pm on Saturday afternoon's dress rehearsal so that seating can be arranged in time for the rehearsal to start promptly at 2.30 pm. The rehearsal should finish around 4.30 pm.
• Please be back in The Priory by 7.05 pm for the evening performance. Please go to the choir vestry for a warm-up before the performance.
• Please put your Janacek Otcenas score in your black MFC folder whether you have a new larger one or a smaller one.
• Since the Eternal Light and Five Mystical Songs scores do not fit in the smaller folders, please only put these in a folder if you have a new larger Malvern Festival Chorus one.

Concert Scores Arrangements

• Please clean any pencil marks in your scores you will not need for the performance, ie those made by previous users, before Saturday's rehearsal.
• Please hand in your Janacek Otcenas score after the performance on Saturday. Boxes will be provided.
• Please clean all remaining pencil marks from Eternal Light and Five Mystical Songs after the concert and return clean scores at rehearsal on Tuesday 19 March. NB. allow at least 30 minutes to clean both scores. If you will not be attending the rehearsal on 19 March, please hand in all your scores after the performance on Saturday.

Extraordinary General Meeting - Tuesday 26 March 7.15 pm

• After a mutual trial period of one year for Jonathan as our Musical Director, the Committee propose that his permanent appointment be put to a members’ ballot. An EGM is called for this purpose before rehearsal on Tuesday 26 March at 7.15 pm.

Centenary Season - 2019/20
Plans are well under way for our centenary season which starts in September. Here is a taster of ideas and events:

• Centenary Logo - Calling all artistic choir members, families or friends. The Committee would like to have a special centenary logo to use on all publicity material during the season. It will be used in a variety of formats and sizes. Please submit your suggested designs to our Secretary, Barbara Moss, in the next fortnight
• Open rehearsal, Tuesday 03 September 2019 - the centenary season will start with a rehearsal which is open to anyone who might be interested in joining us. Please encourage family and friends to come along and give us a try.
• Come and Sing, Saturday 07 September 2019​​​​​​​ - following our very successful event in 2017, we will be holding a Come and Sing Faure's Requiem and Vivaldi's Gloria. More details to follow.
• Carols for All - our annual charity event will take place as usual in Great Malvern Priory on 28 December 2019.
• Worcester Cathedral - our spring concert will be a performance of Bach's St Matthew's Passion in Worcester Cathedral on Saturday 14 March 2020. An event not to be missed!
• Gala Concert​​​​​​​ - our centenary season will culminate in a Gala Concert in Malvern Theatres on Saturday 27 June 2020.

• men - black dinner jackets and trousers, white shirts and green bow ties, available from Bridget Corlett
• ladies - black trousers or long skirts, black shirt-style long-sleeve blouses and green scarves, available from Bridget Corlett

Rehearsal Start Time

A number of members have put forward the suggestion that we start Tuesday rehearsals at 7.30 pm. The extra time would be particularly helpful in the run-up to the March concert, so Jonathan and Penny have agreed that we should do this. We hope this won’t put any pressure on those who kindly arrive early to help put out the chairs, as they have normally finished before 7.30 pm but anyone extra who is willing to lend a hand will be welcomed!

We realise there are a few people who genuinely can’t make it for the earlier time and are understanding of their situation. Hopefully friends will make sure there’s a seat for them to slot into on arrival.

Music for Summer Term

For those of you interested in sourcing your own scores for our next concert, the editions we will be using are listed below. Scores will be available to hire as usual at the first rehearsal of the Summer Term on 19 March 2019 at a cost of £3.00.

• Durufle Requiem - Durand edition
• Cantique de Jean Racine - Oxford University Press edition
• Brahms Geistliches Lied - click here to download and print off the score

March Concert Posters

• Posters for the March concert are now available. Please let Catherine Oliver know where you are placing/distributing them by filling in a slip, so we can look at where we might be missing opportunities for publicity.

March Concert Tickets

• Heather has concert tickets for sale at rehearsal. Please get tickets for your friends/family early so we can be assured of a good audience.

Donation to St Richard's Hospice

• We have received a Certificate of Appreciation and letter of thanks from St Richard’s Hospice, in response to our donation of over £1,260 raised at Carols for All and carol singing. They thanked everyone who took part and especially Penny for organising the carol concert. There has also been a feature and photo of the cheque presentation in the on-line Gazette.

Howard Goodall

• Howard Goodall has given his agreement to our using translations from his website of the text in our concert programme. He has also sent his personal good wishes for our concert!

• Please could any new members who joined us this term ensure that they have given all their contact details to our Membership Secretary, Joy Black.
• Please could any members with subscriptions yet to be paid contact our Treasurer, Mike Tweedie.
• Please could all members who will be singing in the March concert ensure they have indicated this on the rehearsal sign-in sheets.
• Pronunciation guides for Janacek's Otcenas are now available to download on the Practice Files webpage which can be accessed by clicking on the Practice Files button at the bottom of this page.

Social Events

• We are delighted to continue to welcome new members. Bridget will be organising a series of Coffee mornings and small get togethers to welcome them. One will be at her house and she would welcome offers from anyone who would be willing to have a small group at their house for a coffee or a cup of tea and a chat. Please let Bridget know if you would be willing to host such an event or if you are a new member and would be interested in attending. The host might like to invite existing choir members whom they know, to assist them. The number of people invited is up to the host and can be as small as 3 or 4.

• As you may be aware, there is a group of choir members who go to the pub sometimes after rehearsals on Tuesdays. Everyone is welcome so contact Bridget if you want to join in.

Carols for All and carol singing at Morrisons

• The total raised for St Richard's Hospice was £1,265.58
• Penny Vere was thanked for organising and conducting the concert
• Penny thanked everyone who took part and who helped with the organisation

Sponsorship for 2019-2020 Centenary Season

• In order to fund special concerts we shall need to look for sponsorship
• The Committee would like to hear from any member who could take on the task of finding sponsors. This could be someone with local contacts

Verdi Requiem concert in Birmingham Symphony Hall Sunday 21 July

• The Committee has proposed that we provide a coach for participants and their audience
• Please let Barbara Moss know if you would like to take up this offer of transport - numbers please
• Also, any member who hasn't yet put their name down but would like to take part in the concert should let Barbara know

• We have been invited to join Alison Hunka and the 1885 Singers for this concert
• This is a second fantastic opportunity to sing this great work
• Barbara will collect names from next week

• We have been offered the opportunity for a group to take part in resuscitation training
• Heartstart are the local organisation installing defibrillators with funds raised by local organisations
• Please let Kevin know if you would like to take part in the training

• Please follow us on this new handle and retweet our posts to spread the word about the concert. Our Twitter feed can be accessed from the Twitter icon in the top right-hand corner of each page of the website.

Concert Programmes Advertising
If anyone knows a business or organisation that would be interested in advertising in our concert programmes, please speak to Kevin Ilsley, Chairman.

National Schools Symphony Orchestra - Verdi Requiem in Birmingham Symphony Hall, 21 July 2019
A reminder that MFC has been invited to join the 25th anniversary concert of NSSO in a performance of Verdi's Requiem in Birmingham Symphony Hall on 21 July 2019. If you want to sing in the concert, please let our Secretary, Barbara Moss, know as soon as possible if you have not already done so. Details of the event are on the Our Concerts webpage.