Music Recitals

Well it does to the people who post here... dispassionate and reasoned debate, with a good deal of humour thrown in for good measure.

Moderators: Dom Perignon, Casimir

Post Reply
JW
Posts: 852
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:46 am
Location: Kent

Music Recitals

Post by JW »

Just wondering! Do you use your church space for music recitals? They can be good community events, they can be fundraisers, they can bring people into the building. I'm thinking of concerts, carol services, schools events etc.

Are music recitals something that more churches could engage with? They can enhance the sense of community, they could even be a means of evangelisation.
JW
alan29
Posts: 1239
Joined: Fri May 27, 2005 8:04 pm
Location: Wirral

Re: Music Recitals

Post by alan29 »

Our SVP hosted a concert given by a local choral society. It raised a lot of money for the SVP. The church was packed, but it was a massive amount of work selling tickets, organising refreshments etc. And there are considerations like provision of loos.
Lots of the audience were parishioners, but plenty were relatives of choir members, so not necessarily church goers.
It was deemed a massive success. The PP was thrilled and would love to have another one ........ but, ooh, the work.
dmu3tem
Posts: 254
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:11 pm
Location: Frozen North

Re: Music Recitals

Post by dmu3tem »

Yes, lots of churches do this sort of thing up here in Lancashire. I set up a sequence of concerts myself last year - jolly hard work. There are significant financial risks; and my biggest problem was getting my proposals past the PCC. Advertising is a major operation; and really you cannot expect to make big profits in the first year; you need to accumulate momentum over a number of years.

Here is what I set up:

[1] Concert by Choral Scholars and Organist from Blackburn Cathedral. Included a piece of my own. Good strategy to get one's local Cathedral to come out to you. Up here they seem more concerned to get you to come to them! This made a small loss.

[2] Recital by organists from the Preston and District Organ Association (or whom I am a member). This cost the parish nothing and they made a donation afterwards.

[3] Concert by the Baxenden Concert Band, of whom I am a member. This made a small profit. Programme consisted of a mixture of their own repertoire and some arrangements of hymns I did for the congregation to sing.

Generally though a rural parish like mine prefers more low-brow stuff - recitals by local choirs singing 'Songs from the Shows' etc: the point being that they are looking for an audience, and indeed often bring their own audience along with them in the shape of relatives and friends. Sometimes this is done in combination with something like the Baxenden Band. I have arranged several choral pieces for accompaniment by a band.

Another move gaining popularity up here is the 'Songs of Praise' format, either accompanied by an Organ/Keyboard or by a Band. The Baxenden Band recently did an 'Open Air' job like this in Hoddleston Village (near Blackburn) for the local Anglican Church as part of their 'Mission Week'. Hymns were picked by children in the local Anglican School and then I had to arrange them for the band (big job as there were at least 7 items the band did not have in its hymnal). This is highly skilled and labour-intensive work but it yields quite good dividends. In my experience though, unless pushed, bands tend not to take this sort of work very seriously. Most band hymn arrangements are stodgy unimaginative transcriptions of old fashioned four part hymn tunes. If you provide something more sophisticated that really gives each section of the band something distinctive to do this puts players 'on their mettle'.
T.E.Muir
dmu3tem
Posts: 254
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:11 pm
Location: Frozen North

Re: Music Recitals

Post by dmu3tem »

Yes, lots of churches do this sort of thing up here in Lancashire. I set up a sequence of concerts myself last year - jolly hard work. There are significant financial risks; and my biggest problem was getting my proposals past the PCC. Advertising is a major operation; and really you cannot expect to make big profits in the first year; you need to accumulate momentum over a number of years.

Here is what I set up:

[1] Concert by Choral Scholars and Organist from Blackburn Cathedral. Included a piece of my own. Good strategy to get one's local Cathedral to come out to you. Up here they seem more concerned to get you to come to them! This made a small loss.

[2] Recital by organists from the Preston and District Organ Association (or whom I am a member). This cost the parish nothing and they made a donation afterwards.

[3] Concert by the Baxenden Concert Band, of whom I am a member. This made a small profit. Programme consisted of a mixture of their own repertoire and some arrangements of hymns I did for the congregation to sing.

Generally though a rural parish like mine prefers more low-brow stuff - recitals by local choirs singing 'Songs from the Shows' etc: the point being that they are looking for an audience, and indeed often bring their own audience along with them in the shape of relatives and friends. Sometimes this is done in combination with something like the Baxenden Band. I have arranged several choral pieces for accompaniment by a band.

Another move gaining popularity up here is the 'Songs of Praise' format, either accompanied by an Organ/Keyboard or by a Band. The Baxenden Band recently did an 'Open Air' job like this in Hoddleston Village (near Blackburn) for the local Anglican Church as part of their 'Mission Week'. Hymns were picked by children in the local Anglican School and then I had to arrange them for the band (big job as there were at least 7 items the band did not have in its hymnal). This is highly skilled and labour-intensive work but it yields quite good dividends. In my experience though, unless pushed, bands tend not to take this sort of work very seriously. Most band hymn arrangements are stodgy unimaginative transcriptions of old fashioned four part hymn tunes. If you provide something more sophisticated that really gives each section of the band something distinctive to do this puts players 'on their mettle'.
T.E.Muir
Post Reply