We're hoping for a lovely day, the day we go to Bangor!

Well it is nearly upon us .... next weekend Ocho travels off to Bangor (Northern Ireland) to compete in the Bangor International Choral Festival. We're going to have a very busy time whilst we are over there with a performance at the Festival Concert on the Friday Night and then a series of competitions throughout the Saturday afternoon, culminating in the Gala Concert in the evening. We have been busy learning new repertoire and we think we may have broken some sort of record because out of 9 songs being sung in competition only 3 will be in English ! Other languages being sung are Latin, Polish, Hebrew and Swedish! Why do we make things sooooo difficult for ourselves ? LOL. Anyway, we hope our months of practice since Christmas mean we can represent ourselves well at the competition and we are sure to thoroughly enjoy ourselves whatever happens. Rumour has it that we are up against some much larger choirs but we hope we can entertain the audience and impress the adjudicator.

I also think it is a 'given' that we enjoy ourselves because on the day following competition, Ocho is embarking on a mixed sex 'hen do' as Georgia and Megan prepare for their respective weddings in June and August! Yes ..... Ocho's men are going too ......we are a very 'inclusive' choir !!! lol. It's our final practice tomorrow night and then flying off to Belfast on Friday lunchtime. Fingers crossed and the very best of luck to all of the competitors in Bangor!

Belated Happy New Year from Ocho !

Well what have Ocho been up to I hear you ask? Basically, we are in the middle of doing the 'hard yards' of learning new material for the Bangor International Choral Competition to be held in Northern Ireland at the end of April. Just so that you don't forget us, we happened upon some 'warm up' singing we did whilst singing in Germany at the end of last year. Its very informal ..... including Hannah deciding she was getting too hot and unzipping her coat during the recording ! lol. Anyway, thats what we are doing .... busy learning lots of new material. of course, we don't have a musical director guiding us so in true Ocho tradition we are developing the songs by concensus .... and boy are we having some interesting and heated discussions! We're hoping the final product will be worth it ....watch this space!

Wonderful Krefeld and Silk-O-phonics

What a wonderful weekend Ocho spent in Krefeld! Not only were there two formal shared concerts but lots of 'informal' singing too! A number of months ago we were contacted by

silk-O-phonics, an a cappella jazz choir from Krefeld in Germany to see if we wanted to visit Leicester's 'twin' city and sing two joint concerts in the area. This was a lovely opportunity so after a few months of planning, on 1st December 7 members of Ocho and a few 'groupies' set off for Düsseldorf. Yes, just 7 of Ocho as Meg could not join us because of long standing musical commitments.

The silk-O-phonics made us very welcome and after an introduction to Krefeld Christmas market and a joint practice on the Friday evening, we visited the amazing Abbey at Kloster Kamp and what an amazing space to sing in with an unbelievable acoustic! There was a suggestion that there was an 8 second reverb in the beautiful abbey.

So Ocho sang, silk-O-phonics sang and we had also rehearsed some music which we could sing together ..... a joyous experience with a large audience in such a lovely setting.

Photo by Thomas Essler Photography, Krefeld Photo by Thomas Essler Photography, Krefeld

All of the time, our German hosts were showing us wonderful friendship and hospitality in welcoming us to their area. Something that Ocho will never forget!

After some free time on the Sunday morning, we prepared for our second concert in Krefeld itself .... at Pauluskirche. An even larger audience were present here with over 300 attending to listen to the concert.

The concerts were a mixture of sacred Christmas and modern Christmas songs and I thinks its fair to say that the two vocal groups enjoyed each others music as well as singing together!

From 'Carol of the Bells' and 'O Holy Night', to the wonderful 'Es kommt ein Schiff geladen' and the atmospheric 'Es Ist Ein Rose Entsprungen'

Monday morning brought a trip to Düsseldorf before the return flight home.

Ocho was extremely grateful to our hosts for their warmth and generosity and we were sure that some lifelong friendships were made. A HUGE 'Thank You'

to silk-O-phonics ! Photo by Thomas Essler Photography, Krefeld

So now we move on to our final sing of the year ...

a return to the wonderful church of St Margaret's Crick on Tuesday 12th December (7.30pm). Tickets available online at www.ochosingers.com or can be reserved by messaging Derek on 07769 226650 or take your chance at the door on the night!