BeVox

It was an absolute blast singing at Sheffield Cathedral last night. Bravo to all. Here's a video of Barcelona!

Barcelona - Choir cover - BeVox This is BeVox, the contemporary community choir, singing in their "The Many Faces of Queen" concert on 23rd July 2024, in Sheffield Cathedral.The arrangement...

The choir are taking a well-earned break over the summer, but we'll be back with events and choir sessions from the end of August - watch this space! And, if you've recently seen us in concert and thought, "I'd love to be a part of that", you can be! Book your taster session for our Autumn season now - just follow the link below.
https://www.bevox.co.uk/book-online

Who's excited for tonight? We're all set up and ready to go.... if you've got a ticket for tonight's sold out concert we'll see you later.

Fantastic concert in Lincoln last night - bravo to all who took part. There's a video of the opening medley below. Looking forward to rocking Sheffield Cathedral next week!
https://youtu.be/MpVzUm6Hf6I

This is pretty much your last chance to grab tickets for our concert tomorrow night at Lincolnshire Showground - get them while you can!
https://www.bevox.co.uk/events/lincoln-the-many-faces-of-queen

We've just managed to up the capacity of our Lincoln: Many Faces of Queen concert. If you'd previously missed out, head to the website and get them while you can:

Lincoln: The Many Faces of Queen | BeVox Family-friendly concert featuring BeVox, your contemporary community choir.

Do you like the idea of being in a choir, but can't commit to three months of weekly rehearsals? Why not come and be a part of a "singing day"! We occasionally run these one-off events, where you come together with a bunch of other people to work on some music just for a day. Our next one is in September, and it's all themed around the music from the James Bond movies.
To find out more, and get involved, take a look on our website.

James Bond Singing Day | BeVox A singing day with a difference! The event features a massive medley of Bond themes. Do the initial learning at home in advance, then come together to hone the songs and create a highly-polished recording too.

Our upcoming concerts are selling like HOTCAKES! You don't want to miss out on seeing this fantastic show. The Many Faces of Queen is nearly sold out in both Sheffield and Lincoln. Grab your tickets QUICK before they sell out! There are 9 tickets left for Lincoln and JUST 2 left for Sheffield!

https://www.bevox.co.uk/concerts

I'm going to be on LCR FM (Lincoln Community Radio) this afternoon, just after 3pm, talking about BeVox and all things choir related. Follow the link for info on how to listen in.
https://lcrlincoln.com/how-to-listen.html
(Photo by Vika Glitter)

There are all kinds of different choirs out there. Obviously there are professional and amateur ones, but even within the amateur choir world, there's such a massive variety. There are really informal groups that get together to sing but primarily to socialise, there are auditioned choirs that perform to really high standards, there are barbershop choirs, folk choirs, pop choirs, you name it. Each different kind of choir has its own appeal, and it's fantastic that there are so many options out there.
Because different kinds of choirs offer different things, it's perfectly possible to be in more than one choir, and get different things out of them. You might be in one choir because you love the social side, and another that challenges you musically. You might be in a pop choir and a classical choir, so you get a variety of repertoire.
If you sing in BeVox and also in other choirs, we'd love to hear about them! And if you don't sing in BeVox but do sing with other choirs, why not consider doing a bit of singing with us as well?

Next weekend, we have our soloist auditions for this season's concerts. We love including solos in our concerts, as it gives those singers who enjoy singing solos the chance to show off what they can do! It also enhances our concerts for our audiences too, and they're always very supportive of the singers that put themselves forward to sing solos.
It's really important to us that our singers never feel like they're in competition with each other though. For that reason, we don't have a fixed number of solo spots within our concerts - the idea is that everybody who is ready to sing solo in our concerts will get the chance. So, what happens if dozens of people audition and they're all of a really high standard? Either our concerts would be a lot longer, or we'd put on a special concert just featuring all of those soloists - with that level of talent in the choir, we'd want to showcase them all!

The singers that make up BeVox are at the heart of everything we do. So many interesting people sing with us, with such fascinating and varied lives. As with any choir, it's that blend of experience that gives us our unique voice. I while ago, I asked a few of our singers to share their views on what it's like to be a part of the choir. Take a listen to what they had to say... https://www.bevox.co.uk/choir

One of the unique things about BeVox is the accompaniments we use for our songs. I create the backing tracks for everything we sing, writing bespoke orchestrations and then recording every instrument. The process is quite involved, as I write the parts out for every instrument in the track, as though it was going to be played by a live band or orchestra, and then go through and play each part separately, building up the whole. Singers in the choir know just how geeky I get about this - I have a huge collection of "virtual instruments", which are recordings of real players playing every note on their instrument, at every different volume level, which I use to create our tracks. In one of the songs we're doing in our "The Many Faces of Queen" programme, we have a string orchestra created by film composer Hans Zimmer, drums played by Roger Taylor (the drummer from Queen), and the sound of the Royal Albert Hall organ! The tracks are shaped around the choir arrangements, so they complement the singing perfectly - it all comes together to create a sound that is uniquely BeVox!

Conducting BeVox is a huge thrill. There's nothing quite like the experience of standing in front of the whole choir and feeling that connection between me and all the singers as we make music together. They say that most of a conductor's work is done before the concert, and that's certainly true - and I love the collaborative nature of that work too, as singers let me know what would be most helpful to them during rehearsals, so that I can support them as much as possible during performances.

Rehearsals for our upcoming "The Many Faces of Queen" concerts have been going brilliantly. It's so exciting to hear some of my favourite songs of all time coming to life with the full choir. It's also lovely that a number of singers have told me that they weren't necessarily big fans of Queen before this season, but they love the songs we're doing and it has taken them by surprise.

We can't quite believe it, but BeVox will be 15 years old next summer. We're planning a number of events to celebrate. Put these two in your diary - 12th July 2025 (big concert in Sheffield), and 2nd August 2025 (big party in Lincoln)!

(Photo by Suzy Hazelwood: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-tied-blue-box-1178562/)

Lincoln session tonight in The Venue, not our usual room.

One of the things I'm excited about with this season's music is sharing songs that aren't so well-known, like "Teo torriate" and "Prophet's song". What songs do you love that people won't necessarily have heard of?

(Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/pensive-ethnic-man-listening-to-answer-in-paper-cup-phone-3760607/)

Thought for the day, from this week's choir session: taking a decent breath before a phrase is like putting fuel in your car before setting off on a journey. Make sure you put enough in, and that you use it sensibly, or you'll run out of steam before you get to your destination!

(Photo by Gustavo Fring: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-woman-taking-refueling-pistol-gun-4173096/)

Many years ago, our musical director Tim taught at Stagecoach Performing Arts school, and also ran his own private singing teaching practice. One of his students, both at Stagecoach and privately, was a young girl called Laura Pick . She was very talented, and Tim thought she'd go far. Well, this weekend, Tim is off to Bradford to see that same Laura starring as Elphaba, the lead role in the UK tour of "Wicked". It's brilliant to see how far she's come!

BeVox isn't just about singing together as a choir - we offer our members opportunities to do other things too. One of those is to develop their skills as solo singers. Several times throughout the year, we run "Solo Development Sessions" - a chance for singers to work on a solo song, getting expert tuition and coaching from our musical director, Tim. These sessions are run as mini-masterclasses, with every participant having the chance to learn from each other's performance. Our next one is next weekend, and we can't wait to hear what our singers bring to it!

Singers - anyone planning on joining us for rehearsal in Lincoln tomorrow night, please check the forum for a change of location.

Queen trivia time: The band was formed with Freddie, Brian and Roger. They tried out a few different bass players before finding John. Brian and Roger had been in a previous band together, "Smile". "Smile" broke up when their guitarist/singer Tim Staffell left to join a band called "Humpy B**g". Staffell later became a model-maker for television shows - he was the chief model-maker for "Thomas the Tank Engine"!
(Image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license_

This is taken from our "Break the silence" concert in Sheffield last week.

Sweet child o' mine - Choir cover - BeVox This is BeVox, the contemporary community choir, singing in their "Break the silence" concert on 18th April 2024, at Victoria Hall Methodist Church, Sheffiel...

Here's a quick clip from our "Break the silence" concert in Lincoln last week.

All I have to do is dream - Choir cover - BeVox This is BeVox, the contemporary community choir, singing in their "Break the silence" concert on 17th April 2024, at The EPIC Centre, Lincolnshire Showground...

It's not too late to join us for our exciting Queen-based season. Sessions start this week - don't miss out, join now! https://www.bevox.co.uk/details

We're sure you know that BeVox is led by the husband and wife team of Tim and Toni. But did you know how they got into singing in the first place?

Toni saw an advert for a choir in a magazine, and thought, "I like singing - maybe I should give that a go". She went along and joined up. It was fun, and she met some friendly people - some of whom also sang in another choir, and they encouraged her to join that one too. Within a few months, most of her spare time was spent in choirs. She went on to sing solos, to do international tours, and eventually to form BeVox along with Tim, back in 2010.

Tim's musical journey started with a Christmas present of a small electric keyboard when he was about 6. He liked playing with it, and over the next few years he moved from a small keyboard, to a bigger keyboard, to an organ. He spent several years learning the organ, and as a young teenager was regularly playing in working men's clubs! Around this time, he started piano lessons, and gradually moved from organ to piano.
One day, his music teacher at school grabbed him and said, "Tim - you're musical. I'm putting on a Gilbert & Sullivan show - you will be in it". He'd never sung anything at this point! A few months later, he did his first public singing, playing the role of "Counsel for the Plaintiff" in "Trial by Jury". After that, his music teacher put him forward to take part in the Nottinghamshire Schools Choir performance of "Carmina Burana", and he was hooked.
Tim's first experience of leading a group of singers came early. Just after he left school, he was asked to be the Musical Director for a small local amateur theatre group. They wanted to do "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", but had never done a musical before. Tim taught them the music and MDed the show, which cemented his love of running singing groups. He was just sixteen years old at the time - and has been working with amateur singers ever since.

We can't wait to get started on our Queen programme! Sessions start on 24th April in Lincoln and 25th April in Sheffield. Fancy joining us? More info at https://www.bevox.co.uk/details

Massive congratulations to everyone who made both of this week's concerts such roaring successes. Consider the silence well and truly broken! Thank you to everyone who was a part of it, in whatever way - we couldn't keep doing what we do without your support. I'm hoping to get a video of a song or two up at some point, but it might take a few days - we've got a very busy weekend. See you soon!

Just collecting the extra gear we use for concerts. Can't wait for the gigs on Wednesday and Thursday!