In the midst of the fearfulness and isolation brought about by the CoronaVirus pandemic we all need to find ways to connect, to keep things going, and to lift our spirits.
The choristers of Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, were gathered remotely to sing Magnificat from their own homes by Director of Music, Peter Stobart.
Peter Stobart explains:
As it was clear that the choristers of St Fin Barre’s Cathedral would not be returning to the Cathedral for some time, I decided to try and pull them together in their own home and create something a little different. I knew that the boys had always enjoyed singing Stanford’s Magnificat in B flat and indeed were quite capable of doing so from memory. I asked them to record a complete version of the piece and to sing along to a pre recorded organ track which Robbie Carroll (our Assistant Director of Music) played on the cathedral organ. This would ensure that the tempo would be the same throughout, but the individual recordings were made with the boys listening to the track through headphones.
I selected the best lines and put them together in the form of a collage, being mindful to give everyone a fair portion of video time, even some of the very youngest boys who did not know the piece so well. Not being technically minded, I was fearful that editing 37 snippets of video would take an age but a very handy phone app. came to my rescue and it was really quite straightforward in the end!
The boys are delighted with the results and the next project is to do the same with the girl choristers. The two groups tend to sing very different repertoire so it was never going to be possible to include them in the same video unfortunately.
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