Malcolm Kemp Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Those of us who receive the RCO News will have noticed that both Colin Harvey and Richard McVeigh passed the ARCO exam in the summer. Hearty congratulations to both. Perhaps they should get together for a celebratory pint in one of the excellent local hostelries that we have mentioned before. Perhaps they already have! Well done to both of you. Malcolm Kemp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcnd5584 Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Those of us who receive the RCO News will have noticed that both Colin Harvey and Richard McVeigh passed the ARCO exam in the summer. Hearty congratulations to both. Perhaps they should get together for a celebratory pint in one of the excellent local hostelries that we have mentioned before. Perhaps they already have! Well done to both of you. Malcolm Kemp Indeed. A just reward for all your hard work. Now you can both wear hoodies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msw Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 Those of us who receive the RCO News will have noticed that both Colin Harvey and Richard McVeigh passed the ARCO exam in the summer. Hearty congratulations to both. Perhaps they should get together for a celebratory pint in one of the excellent local hostelries that we have mentioned before. Perhaps they already have! Well done to both of you. Malcolm Kemp Hear hear, very well done! Hopefully it won't be long before we can congratulate two new FRCOs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard McVeigh Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Thank you very much! It was acutally my new boss who pointed me in the direction of this thread. I find score reading the most essential skill to have when working with a choir. I remember at York being asked/told to accompany Lassus' Missa Bell' Amfitrit' altera 5 minutes before the Eucharist, and thinking that I was glad that I could actually do that sort of stuff. Not overly sure how important it is to be able to sight read difficult chromatic organ pieces though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Bennett Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Thank you very much! It was acutally my new boss who pointed me in the direction of this thread. I find score reading the most essential skill to have when working with a choir. I remember at York being asked/told to accompany Lassus' Missa Bell' Amfitrit' altera 5 minutes before the Eucharist, and thinking that I was glad that I could actually do that sort of stuff. Not overly sure how important it is to be able to sight read difficult chromatic organ pieces though! Hope you are enjoying Winchester and not too spooked by the bones of the Saxon kings! You can use this latter skill to impress your organ pupils. You profess from the start that you don't know the piece they have brought and you ask all sorts of questions about it as the pupil hacks their way through. When they have come completely unstuck in the hardest part of it you say "I'll just play it through for you and see if I can give you some tips," whereupon you sit down and give a really excellent performance of it - all the way to the end, which you haven't heard yet. Or at least, you can if your name is Tordoff. I gather the tests given to prospective organ scholars at Gonville and Caius College this year included sight-reading a score of which the top part was in soprano clef! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHM Posted October 18, 2008 Share Posted October 18, 2008 I gather the tests given to prospective organ scholars at Gonville and Caius College this year included sight-reading a score of which the top part was in soprano clef! Only one C clef? When some of us were at university 40 years ago our "keyboard tests" lessons in the 1st year included the preparation of one Contrapunctus per week from The Art of Fugue, in open score with three C clefs (soprano, alto and tenor), and score-reading such orchestral things as Lizst's "Les Preludes". And that wasn't Oxbridge. Is there any truth in the (possibly apochryphal) story that many years ago a certain eminent Cambridge DoM said to his Organ Scholar, "We'll do Stanford in G in A flat today"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Harvey Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 Thanks for all the congratulations! I heard this Stanford in G story attributed to Edward Higginbottom at New in Oxford... he wanted it down a half... I've found score-reading is a very useful skill. Especially at choir practices where the choir is lost and there isn't a keyboard reduction (common with cpdl and contempory music scores - and when the organ is doing something different...). And Richard, I thought you made good use of your sight-reading skills the other day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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