I love mince pies. If they were more widely available outside the festive months I would eat them all year. Imagine my delight therefore to discover boxes upon boxes being distributed amongst the choir and audience members after last night’s concert.

The mince pies were joined by chocolate and chatter about the concert. Politeness aside, the opinion of a friend and others seemed to be that it was of a very high quality and quite a success. Hooray!

There are some surprising intricacies to organising a concert. As well as enforcing what to sing and when, the final rehearsal included practicing standing up together, filing neatly onto stage, and a discussion of when to clap and when not to clap. Pre-concert activities included warming up our voices and pointing out just how many of the boys had visited Primark to get an inexpensive black shirt.

During the performance there was much theatre: The conductor regularly mopped his brow between pieces and disappeared off stage before the final piece for several minutes (it turned out the soloists were being fetched).

The hour and a half of concentrating on singing passed rather quickly. How time flies when you are having fun! Today I have an essay to write and a cold to get rid of, but I’m a happy chap after having sung in my first concert.

- Reuben

“Laaaaaa! Cough. Owch… Sneeze. OWCH!”

I have a dreaded combination of conditions: bruised/cracked ribs, a  cold, and the impending threat of singing in front of hundreds of people.

The ribs can be attributed to a successful Judo competition last weekend (more on that soon), the cold on being close to lots of people all the time (prospective students beware – at university colds spread quickly) and the singing on choosing to join the Imperial College Choir at the beginning of this term. My first concert looms tonight and I rather resent my body’s decision to try and block all my airways and make clearing them more painful than it should be.

So, the choir. I was presented with quite a predicament at the beginning of this year. Due to needing to have more of a life outside of rowing (and thus reluctantly not doing rowing), I found myself open to many new possibilities via the union’s 300+ societies. The current result is Judo practice 3 times a week and Choir rehearsals on a Thursday evening (and cheese society of course: occasional unlimited cheese is too good an opportunity to miss).

The choir is rather wonderful. It’s filled with lots of lovely people and it’s non auditioned:

There's a mad rush mid-rehearsal each week for tea and biscuits.

you just turn up, are given some music, stand next to someone who knows the piece, and start watching and listening to the conductor. It’s all very non-threatening to someone inexperienced like myself. I have been in a choir before, a small, fairly casual affair at 6th form. I am not however very used to understanding sheet music or singing four part pieces in Latin with a chorus of nearly 100.

I somewhat dove into the deep end. Tonight we’re performing Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Te Deum and another Te Deum by Karl Jenkins, all with an orchestra (click the link for an example). And you know what? It’s all come together. I feel like I have a much better ability to sing from music and sing notes higher than a middle c (it turns out basses don’t just belt out Barry-White-style low notes).

If I may let my Catholicism shine through for a moment, it’s also wonderful to get to singsuch beautiful religious music. After my first rehearsal I was somewhat giddy with excitement at the sound I had been a part of (“It’s like what you hear at an ACTUAL classical concert!”) and the connection to my faith is quite lovely.

So, I’m heavily dosed with paracetamol and crossing my fingers that the cold will not spread to my larynx before this evening.

I shall report back tomorrow on how it all went.

- Reuben