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Workshop Description

Ola will open our event with an energetic session of vocal warmups that will prepare singers for a day of vocal fun. You don’t need to know how to read music, or even sing! Using a “Simon says” approach, she will guide adventuresome participants into vocal frontiers where they’ll discover welcome flexibility, remarkable accuracy, and production techniques they didn’t know they had. 

Info about Presenter: Ula Weber

Ula is a leading conductor, teacher trainer and workshop leader, whose work has taken her around the UK and as far afield as Poland, Uganda, Ukraine, Thailand, China and New Zealand.

A former “Outstanding” (Ofsted 2004) primary school teacher, Ula is a leading conductor, teacher trainer and workshop leader, whose work has taken her around the UK and as far afield as Poland, Uganda, Ukraine, Thailand, China and New Zealand.

Ula is an expert in developing choral and classroom singing through creating singing strategies and delivering school workshops, large-scale choral events and teacher CPD. She is currently Vocal Projects Leader (Sandwell Music and Arts Service) and Co-director of Vocal.Point. She has had a number of songs and arrangements published, including Sing Up, Sing Out! and Ziggy da Dumba.

As well as singing with the renowned choir Ex Cathedra, Ula also works for the organisation as a lead vocal tutor; and co-created Singing Playgrounds, Ex Cathedra education’s internationally acclaimed and award-winning project.

A trained choral conductor, Ula currently conducts CBSO SO Vocal (a 200-strong community choir run by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra), CBSO Young Voices and the Birmingham City Council Choir (as featured in the 2013 BBC2 programme ‘The Choir’, with Gareth Malone). She is the founder and Musical Director of Echo Doliny (The National Polish folk choir) and, most recently, the National Teachers’ Choir.

As Head of Events for the National Choral Organisation, Sing for Pleasure (SfP), Ula organises conducting and singing courses across the UK and abroad. She regularly tutors on SfP conductor training courses and is Course Director for their annual Summer School.

Ula guest conducts at national and international events and is regularly invited to lead singing, training, and corporate workshops for organisations including ABCD, BBC, G4S, Glyndebourne, NAME, NYCOS, Music Mark, Sing Up and numerous Music Hubs across the UK.

Online Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOeneNw0IiA

https://www.ulaweber.org.uk/gallery

https://www.facebook.com/uweber

https://excathedra.co.uk/about-us/

https://ukchoirfestival.com/workshop-leaders-inf/ula-weber

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We want family & friends to enjoy this workshop together as much as possible. But we also have an aesthetic need to distribute people among the four choruses as evenly as possible according to their vocal range.

That’s why you’ll be asked during the purchase process to tell us what each ticketholder’s vocal range is. If you don’t know what it is, you can tell us that as well.

We’re also asking you to identify any underage children in your party by age, so we can keep children 17 and younger together with their parents.

If you’re registering 4 or more people, and don’t mind splitting them up, you can let us know that as well.

Click here to continue to purchase tickets to Blue Ridge Choral Connection.

All workshop participants will prepare:

Fantasie on Johnny Comes Marching Home

The Water is Wide

during the 9 am corporate rehearsal times to perform at the 4 pm All Cords Concert.

The “Fantasie” piece is an original medley incorporating “Tenting on the Old Campground”, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”.

“The Water is Wide” is a Mark Hayes arrangement of a Scottish folk tune that includes an original violin part. 

If you’ve never learned to read musical notation—or you find it bewildering—then this workshop is for you.

It’s designed to introduce non-readers to the basics of musical notation, including staves, note values, measures, time signatures, and more.

This workshop will introduce you to the basics of music theory, such as basic chords, intervals, and key signatures.

If you’ve ever wondered why pianos have irregularly spaced black and white keys, this workshop is for you.

It will include a keyboard-focused demonstration of how the “circle of fifths” serves as a map of the musical universe that connects every note, chord, and key in a logical, useful pattern.

This workshop will introduce you to the basics of conducting. It will cover the basic patterns, such as 2/4, 3/4, and 6/8 time. Hands-on practice will be emphasized.

While prior training or experience isn’t necessary, if you are able to view the videos linked below and practice the basic patterns they demonstrate prior to the workshop, you’ll likely get more out this session than if you come into it cold.

The first video covers 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 beats, and is just 4 minutes long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdvHUJ88tao

The second one is just 1:39 minutes long, but it adds 6/8 time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzcydYNQex8

Workshop Description

Info about Presenter: Greg West

Video Links

The Brush Mountain Chorus will prepare:

Love Potion #9 &

Till There Was You

during the 1 pm and 3 pm rehearsal times to perform at the 4 pm All Cords Concert.

The Allisonia Chorus will prepare:

Bye, Bye Love

Somewhere, My Love

during the 1 pm and 3 pm rehearsal times to perform at the 4 pm All Cords Concert.

The Allisonia Chorus will prepare:

All I Have to Do is Dream &

Hawaii Five-O Theme

during the 1 pm and 3 pm rehearsal times to perform at the 4 pm All Cords Concert.