The day finally came – the Retreat we had been working towards and looking forward to with so much excitement and anticipation was here ! On 20th May we set off to The Mill House Hotel in Abingdon near Oxford for a full weekend of glorious ‘us’ time with our illustrious coach Rob Mance. Here’s what our BF members thought Debbie T Retreat for me is definitely not going to…
Wow! March has been a busy month! At last – March saw us perform in a real life Festival! And we won two trophies – Outstanding in Popular Song class and a Distinction in Open Class. Read what our new member Justine had to say about her first singout with Bristol Fashion ! Saturday 12th March 2022 was my very first sing out with Bristol Fashion Chorus, and for me it…
When I Fall in Love – it will be forever At last we were able to sing without masks with a wonderful song in a wonderful church – St Albans, Westbury Park, Bristol which is very close to where we rehearse in Westbury on Trym Academy. Here is the link to our video and recording on the day https://youtu.be/Ys–hW3txLo Read about two of our newest singers and what they felt…
Happy New Year ! Gosh I can’t believe the last blog we wrote was July last year. The chorus has been catching up on being together time, learning new songs, finding a new venue, returning to in person rehearsals INDOORS ! and learning to run those rehearsals alongside Covid restrictions and guidelines. In October we joined some of our sister choruses in Didcot for a Unconventional Convention which was quite…
Finally, it looks as though choral singers will be able to come together once again in full unison! After 16 months of Zoom rehearsals and singing solo in various home bedrooms, lounges and offices the novelty had, it’s fair to say, pretty much worn off. We’re very, very excited to be starting to get back to things in person and are busy planning for the future! Back in the early…
Finally, we are starting to plan our return to in person rehearsals! Zoom has carried us this far but I think a lot of us are feeling the fatigue and are excited to see friends in real life. With the return to some form of normality, we need to have an extra level of sensitivity for the various ways members have coped over the last many months. Some jumped to…
Reflecting on hosting of a LABBS Education Day via Zoom, I marvel at the brilliant Zoominators, Education Judges and our own MPT as they navigated the sea of faces, breakout rooms, log-ins and screen sharing necessary to bring over 80 delegates together on a sunny Sunday morning in April. Like every Bristol Fashion rehearsal we got things going with a physical warm-up: the Musical Milkshake moves were literally bananas and…
So here I am, writing a few words about what we’ve been up to at Bristol Fashion recently. Along with many of you in the privacy of your own homes or the busy-ness of your workplace, I’ve just observed the minute’s silence to mark the first anniversary of the initial lockdown. I remembered those close to me who have passed, and said a quiet prayer for those who have fallen…
Wow! What a busy month January is on the Bristol Fashion calendar. The first week of the year started with the Bristol Fashion Awards Night which has become a prestigious event. An evening of fun, laughter and entertainment. In a year where everything has been far from normal, where we have spent over 41 weeks joining together virtually, missing standing tall and close on the risers singing in 4-part harmony,…
At this time of year Bristol Fashion would normally be singing up a Christmas storm in all manner of places from churches to shopping malls, from manor houses to show homes. But of course, this year has been a little different. Covid-19 has seen the singer’s world shrink to the size of a small screen as we zoomed our way through the best part of 2020. December started with two…
As we head towards the year’s end, it’s traditional to reflect on the past months and all our achievements and celebrations. Of course, 2020 chucked something of a spanner in the works! Covid-19 and its resulting lockdowns, social distancing measures and concerns for the health and well-being of everyone in our different communities forced us to do things differently. This time last year, we were all on a high with…
What a fantastic weekend of virtual Barbershop celebration we’ve just enjoyed! The LABBS Big Weekend showcased all the rich talent from quartets and choruses from across the UK. Many choruses released videos of songs they’d been working on in a socially distanced manner over the last few months. Others, like Bristol Fashion, reflected on everything they’d been working on since March 23rd, 2020 when we headed into lockdown 1.0. And…