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SING HER TUNE 6-7pm, Sunday 18th May 2025, St Mary’s Church, Guildford GU1 3UA

Corra Sound, conducted by Amy Bebbington

Corra Sound, an all-female choir and dedicated advocate for upper voice music, announces its May concert, Sing Her Tune – a unique opportunity to experience a stunning medley of dynamic compositions from some of today’s most talented choral composers.

Taking place on Sunday 18th May 2025 at St Mary’s Church, Guildford, this performance will proudly unveil the top three winning works from Corra Sound’s 2023 ‘Call for Scores’ competition. From a total of 90 submissions, these outstanding compositions were selected not only for their musical artistry but also for the powerful themes they portray. Composers were invited to write music based on themes of female power, strength, flowing energy, survival, and/or parental advocacy, and the winning pieces offer deeply creative responses to this remit.

The concert will feature the premiere of A Mother’s Farewell by British composer and jazz pianist Kate Hill. With text by Scarlett Palys, this work reflects upon the enduring power and vulnerability of maternal love, exploring a mother’s final question about the sufficiency and recognition of her love. The piece showcases jazz-inspired voicings and an emotive, rich yet accessible sound-world, led by an elegiac soprano line.

The audience will also hear The Land of no more Night, an evocative piece by Seattle-based composer and pianist Kari Kruver Medina. Setting text by Christina Rossetti, the work briefly opens with a ponderous tone filled with darkness and despair, before quickly shifting to joyous proclamations of creation singing its hymn anew with the promise of a new day.

Completing the trio of winning compositions are two humorous musical settings by American composer and organist Erik Meyer: Unfortunate Coincidence and Social Note. These works bring the dark, sarcastic wit of Dorothy Parker to life, demonstrating her penchant for social protest against patriarchal convention through acerbic derision.

In addition to these exciting premieres, the programme will include equally illuminating and uplifting repertoire by both new and established composers. Audiences can look forward to hearing Eriks Esenvalds’ beautifully evocative Only in Sleep, Elaine Hagenberg’s rousing Measure me sky! and magnificent Shadow River, Don MacDonald’s ethereal Moonset and optimistically powerful She is the river, and Alexandra Olsavsky’s What happens when a woman?.

The concert will also feature two pieces that were winners in Corra Sound’s workshops last year: Hope is the thing by local composer Barbara Cobham, a heartfelt tribute to her niece who sadly passed away, and Air, Heart by Amanda Dean, scored for voices and boomwhackers, celebrating the tenacity and adventurous spirit of Amelia Earhart.

Corra Sound invites you to join them for this dynamically diverse programme celebrating new and established composers, thought-provoking and remarkable repertoire, and challenging yet accessible music for upper voices.

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Corra Sound is an outstanding ensemble, brilliantly led, and their programming is inspiring and imaginative. They sing with commitment and artistry, with clarity and colour, and are a joy to listen to.

Neil Ferris (Director, BBC Symphony Chorus, Sonoro)

Corra Sound is a remarkable group of singers with a love for performing, discovering new repertoire and celebrating the works of talented and often little known female composers.

Comprising a blend of professionally trained and high level amateur voices, the members of Corra Sound each have their own story to tell, but share a passion for music written by and for women, exploring the reach and versatility of the female voice.

Corra Sound has a unique identity which encompasses a broad range of vocal styles, bringing a deeply-rooted sense of heart, connectivity and passion to their performances. Corra’s mission is to bring works by (predominantly) female composers out of the shadows and into the spotlight, and the choir is gaining a reputation for high quality performance across a wide range of repertoire.

It is incredibly refreshing to be part of a group where musical excellence and well-being are held in equally high regard. This is a group of women who bring everything to the table and Corra Sound’s resulting performances are imbued with life-affirming and infectious emotion, passion and joy.

Katherine Bond-Smith (Corra Sound member)

Corra Sound was founded and is directed by Dr. Amy Bebbington, a passionate advocate for choral singing and conductor training, known for championing marginalised musicians through choral programming, Discovery Days and mentoring, and sought after for her engaging teaching style and wealth of pedagogical experience.

The choir is based in the south-east of England.

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Watching Masterchef The Professionals, a series to which I am rather addicted (mainly because my son is a professional chef), I have noticed a certain expression from chef Marcus Wareing during the preliminary Skills Test section of the competition.

In this round, contestants’ culinary skills and nous are tested with a set of technical challenges, most of which should be second-nature to any well-trained chef – filleting fish, shucking oysters, boning out a joint of meat, making meringue or hollandaise sauce, for example. For some, this is a daunting round where weaknesses are exposed or nerves get the better of the contestant. For others, it proves their mettle and demonstrates that not only have they been properly trained (and keep their skills well-honed), but also that they are able to adapt their skillset and intuitive culinary common sense to an unfamiliar recipe or set of ingredients. When a chef succeeds in this, Marcus Wareing will often say, with an approving nod, “Chef’s head“.

So I’m coining the expression ‘Pianist’s Head’ to apply to those situations when we might encounter music which is unfamiliar or outside our comfort zone, which might at first appear daunting, challenging or even almost impossible, but which, with some consideration, drawing on our musical knowledge, experience and intuition – our Pianist’s Head – is achievable. Having a good Pianist’s Head upon your shoulders will stand you in good stead for successful sight-reading and the ability to learn music more quickly.

No repertoire is ever learnt in isolation – or at least it shouldn’t be – and everything is connected. Musical skills, just like culinary skills, once learnt and practiced, can and should be applied to different situations. No learning should ever be done in a vacuum: a single piece of music is not just that one piece, it is a path to other pieces via accrued technical proficiency, musical knowledge and artistry. Early students and less advanced pianists often see the pieces they are learning in terms of stand alone works which have little or no relevance to other music they are working on, or are going to learn. This is also particularly true of scales, arpeggios and other technical exercises which may be studied in isolation instead of appreciating their relevance not just in understanding keys and key relationships, but also in actual pieces of music. This was something I was not taught when having piano lessons as a child, and it’s the fault of the teacher, not the student, if the usefulness and relevance of such technical work is not highlighted.

Chopin knew this: it is said that he studied Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier every day, appreciating the music’s relevance to his own musical development, his composing and his teaching. If you can successfully manage Bach’s ornamentation, for example, your Pianist’s Head should allow you to cope with Chopin’s trills and fioriture.

Your Pianist’s Head skills will develop the more time you spend with varied repertoire and your willingness to take an open-minded, lateral thinking approach to learning and playing music to an point where these skills become intuitive and you won’t even know you’re applying them!

To develop and maintain your Pianist’s Head, approach each new/unfamiliar piece of music with the thought, “what do I know already and how can I apply experience from other repertoire to this piece?“. For example, if you’ve encountered a similar passage or technical challenge elsewhere you’ll know how to approach it this time.

Understand and appreciate the composer’s particular stylistic characteristics, idioms, soundworld, and quirks. This can be developed not only through playing other music by the same composer but also by listening and studying scores away from the instrument. And as your Pianist’s Head develops, you’ll find yourself making intuitive decisions about how to approach repertoire based on sound technical knowledge and musical insight.

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Guest post by Doug Thomas

There is more to being a musician than simply creating and/or performing music.

Musicians are here to educate too. They are the professionals, the experts — and they should share their knowledge and wisdom with the rest of the world. It is a duty for them. The listeners in fact do not know as much they think they do, and musicians are here to help guide them towards what is true. Musicians should promote quality and help the listeners distinguish their taste. In the cultural world, the musicians’ role is of utter importance, as musicians are also educators. 

In fact, musicians are on a constant mission. They are indeed, all in their own ways, educators, whether they do it consciously through teaching, or unconsciously by the mere act of composing and performing their music. Each work, each performance is an opportunity to educate the listeners. To promote new sounds and ideas.
Musicians spend a lifetime understanding the language of music, the history of music and deciding what the future of music is. They are the direction-takers and decision-makers, and they should remain as such. For music is to grow and develop, to uncover new territories, to surprise and discover the unknown.  And somehow resist the human nature of wishing for comfort and repetition; even in art. 

Therefore, musicians should not create what the listeners want; this is a mistake that is done too often. Musicians must not bend to the wishes of their listeners. They must not accept familiarity and repetition of ideas. Musicians should carefully decide what material to create; what message and information, as well as emotion, to bring to the listeners. Their role is of utmost importance. They are the drivers of music progress. They are the bringers of novelty.

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To learn, listening is not enough. One has to practice and devote. And sacrifice. And it is in the sacrifice that musicians do — the sacrifice of time, energy and attention — that they automatically become leaders and influencers. It is this sacrifice which places the true musicians in front of their audience. Music takes devotion. And if the price is high, the reward is immense. 

Today the concept of musicians as educators is more important than ever as they often forget that they are first and foremost artists — rather than perhaps industry actors. Their role is to create, perpetuate, educate and through this improve the cultural world. Their role is to guide and lead. 

Doug Thomas is a Franco-British artist based in London.

His main medium of expression is music; since founding NOOX — or North of Oxford St., his own production studio — in 2015, Doug has composed, performed, recorded and produced multiple projects, both featuring his own music and other artists’ too. Additionally, he has worked with multiple independent labels and collaborated with artists from other disciplines. 

An aspiring polymath, Doug also ventures in the world of visual arts, through photography and various sketching works. He also designs his own project’s artworks and images. Finally, Doug writes articles, reviews and often interviews his musical peers.

Doug is a lover of food and drink, and this often appears in his universe too.

“Music allows me to express ideas and feelings in a unique way. Each piece I compose is an attempt in finding balance between intellect and beauty, within the limits of my own language and experience. More than a language, music is a way to engage with the above.”

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