Singing for restoration

What can happen in one weekend? Well, mine consisted of a day and a half of rehearsals with a cobbled together choir, resulting in a stirring, standing-ovation-inducing concert for the monumental purpose of the restoration of the Eglise Saint Corneille, nestled in the warmth of the lovely village of Puycelsi in the Tarn departement. Phew.

Eglise Saint Corneille, Puycelsi

Puycelsi, Tarn

Eglise Saint Corneille, Puycelsi

For the past four years I have been involved in these fund-raising concerts. An Association was created in 2006 for this purpose after a regular visitor to the church noticed how severe the water-damage was becoming, plus the effects of general weathering over time. Well, it was built in the 13/14th centuries so it wasn't surprising, but clearly something had to be done. And Scotsman (now living in Puycelsi) Ross Jenkins did it by creating the Association for the Restoration of Saint Corneille (Association pour la Restauration de Saint Corneille or ARC). Thank goodness he did, because the water damage is now under control and various bits and bobs are being replaced, restored, repainted and renewed. It's getting truly gorgeous again. The blue and gold on the ceiling is too beautiful!

The interior of Eglise Saint Corneille, ripe for restoration

To raise funds, volunteer participants initially came together for a weekend, to practice and sing Handel's Messiah to a fee paying audience, with the idea that the music is learnt in advance and that the weekend would be a bringing-it-all-together time. This was the routine for some few years before the programme extended to include other works. So far I've had the enormous privilege of singing Handel's Messiah, Fauré's Requiem and Mozart's Requiem, with extremely talented soloists, an organist, Nicholas O'Neill, who is shipped in from England, and conductor Mark Opstad. Mark is the Professeur de chant choral at the Conservatoire de Toulouse where he created and directs the Maîtrise de Toulouse. He is a remarkable conductor. Kindness personified yet able to draw the best from us all, all of the time coupled with the symbiotic link he has with the organist who keeps up with everything we are doing without a moment's distraction. And I have to mention the look on Mark's face when he stops us mid-chord and says, 'I can hear an E flat. It should be an E,' or words to that effect. His ability to hear that amongst almost 70 voices is staggering.

Here's the way it happens:

• Some months ago: receive the music list by email and purchase/order/print the music. Learn it. Really well. In groups or in front of YouTube,
• Saturday: arrive after lunch for registration and the first two hours of rehearsal. The jovial greeting from Ross Jenkins is in itself worth the drive from Toulouse,
• 4pm: cup of tea in the local hall (salle polyvalent), involving an invigorating descent to the hall then a slow incline back up the hill to the church to rehearse for two more hours (full of tea and cake),
• 7pm: leave for the day. Some stay overnight in Puycelsi or the surrounds (try www.lapremierevigne.com for some seriously gorgeous chambre d'hôte accommodation in the middle of 1.4 hectares of natural park and forest), while others return to their homes,
• Sunday: arrive at 10am for two hours' rehearsal with the soloists this time,
• midday: lunch in the salle polyvalent prepared by Ginny Jenkins and her merry mix of helpers. Delicious! Main course, cheese course then dessert. And the main course was, of course, Coronation chicken! Ha ha ha. This year it was followed for me by coffee in the local Roc cafe with my new friends from Lavaur,
• 2pm: two more hours' practise, and this year it was more fine-tuning in my opinion than desperately thinking how the ^*&% am I (are we) going to pull this off?!,
• We are then magnetically pulled towards the salle polyvalent again for more revitalising sustenance of tea, scones, jam and cream! This keeps us going until concert time (6pm) before which we find a nook somewhere, change clothes, try to look composed and gorgeous and completely calm.  Previous years have seen temperatures in the high 20s. This year it was positively chilly but polar fleeces are removed before we entered the church. (I've never known it to be warmer inside a church in France than outside...)
• As the church bells rang for 6pm we file in for the well-sold-out-in-advance concert, and whereupon we sing our little hearts out. The applause afterwards and the standing ovation and the encore and the drinks and nibbles outside and the drawing of the raffle winners is a perfect way to finish the evening.

This year's treat was Mozart's 'Coronation Mass', Handel's' Zadok the Priest', Wesley's 'Thou Wilt Keep Him in Perfect Peace', Parry's 'I was Glad' plus a Handel soprano solo (encore! encore! Zena Baker!) and an organ solo of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance (by said organist and rock-star-in-his-spare-time, Nicholas O'Neill). It was really hard not to get all jolly and slightly crazy like the Brits do at the Night of the Proms. And have you guessed yet? Yes. It was in celebration of the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England's long and glorious reign and was the music from her Coronation in 1953. My favourite work so far though has to be Gabriel Fauré's Requiem. I sang  music by a French composer, in France. Cool!
The best thing is that apart from the soloists, conductor and organist, all the rest of us are quite simply enthusiastic singers who love to sing, many of whom do sing in other choirs and are frightfully good (I'm talking about you, Angela R).  I'm told that our joint nationalities cover France, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, and I must add, New Zealand. It was such a pleasure to re-acquaint with old friends, and easily slip into new friendships.

I don't want to sound twee... but is it possible to express how soul-soaring it is to sing as part of a harmonious group, professionally conducted and accompanied? To explain how passages of music embed themselves in the neurons and play over and over in my head, day and night, unbidden but so welcomed? Or the sheer delight/eruption of joy at creating beautiful music with others just by using this normal voice of mine? This voice that rises to challenges and heights that it didn't know it could achieve? (Tip from the conductor on how to get the top notes: drop the jaw open, think the note and arrive at it from above. When you're singing top A, you need all the help you can get). And listening to a work of music, say, for a random example, the Coronation Mass, and not really warming to it, then by the end of the weekend absolutely flippin' loving it?

The closest I've got to that feeling of musical inter-connectedness with others was in the Piako Brass Band in which I played the cornet when I was 17. I loved being surrounded by the resonance of brass instruments. After that it was in a music/drama group called Y-ONE 1987, that toured New Zealand for a year, in which I played keyboards in the band and sang backing vocals. Oh, and the magnificent combined choirs and orchestra concert extravaganzas that were held in the Auckland Domain in the 1990s, to thousands of people. I sang in the choir for two years and the memories are still spine-tingling.
Next weekend there's a vide grenier (car boot sale) in our local school grounds at which we intend to make a pile of coins by selling our accumulated 'stuff'. Last year my daughter made a killing on her old Barbie dolls.

For more information on ARC, contact Ross Jenkins, 05 63 33 15 84 ross.jenkins@orange.fr. To find out more about the talented Mark Opstad, visit: www.markopstad.com and www.maitrise.crr.toulouse.fr. For more information on the rock-star organist, Nicholas O'Neill, visit: www.nicholasoneill.com. And big thanks to Ross and Ginny Jenkins, again, for being the driving force behind this wonderful weekend!

For more photos of Puycelsi, visit: http://www.france-voyage.com/communes/puycelsi-32932.htm