Do-mi-sol-do

I didn’t tell a lot of people, but last Friday i went to an audition. It was Magali who pointed me out a week or so earlier that the choir for the – in Belgium and surrounding countries – very popular “Night of the Proms” was auditioning for choir-members for their performances later this year.

I used to go to the Night of the Proms with my family and friends a couple of years in a row but the last few years we all stopped going, because once you know the formula pop+classical – every year it seems to be more of the same, and a lot depends on the groups or artists that come.

But I was looking for a new musical challenge, and I wanted to meet new people in Antwerp, so I decided to give it a shot. After my singing lessons in Edinburgh I knew how to breath properly and am able to keep my tune, but I kept my chances of success very low. I have no practical choir experience and everybody, for some odd reason seems to be annoyed when I start to sing :-)

So the audition. After leaving my details, I had to wait for the conductor to come pick me.
He came and greeted me, - made the classical joke about my name - asked me some questions about my musical background, and then asked me to sing scales to determine my range. So I started my do-mi-sol-do’s up and down and going higher and higher – and yes I rather have a high voice – no comments J !

But the conductor seemed very pleased. He said I should still improve on my sharpness but then circled on my audition paper : “succeeded the audition”. Which makes me now one the new members of the Night of The Proms Choir! Hurray!

Small note to put things in perspective, though: the choir is always in need for tenors, because there is a great lack of them. So after seeing my ability of more or less keeping my tunes in the high tones, the conductor probably thought, best to have at least another tenor. Apparently on the entire day of auditioning I was only the second tenor who succeeded… But still ! I get to go and experience this great thing to look in the face of 15 000 people, sing with an symphonic orchestra and see TEXAS from nearby!

Needles to say I am really excited about this…