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Author: Andrew
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yn un rhith: Zoomberry virtual choir
As part of its response to the restrictions imposed around the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoomberry Virtual Choir from the United States, led by Patricia Norton, took to Zoom to arrange an online choral programme. One part of that was to following the footsteps of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas in singing yn un rhith. A documentary about their choral programme is being premièred at 21:00 BST (16:00 EST) on 18 July 2021 on YouTube, and will feature a performance of yn un rhith.
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classical music digital awards 2020
On New Year’s Eve, 2020, yn un rhith – a choir still won an highly commended award in the ‘Lockdown project – choir’ category of the Classical Music Digital Awards 2020. This live-streamed event celebrated the efforts of classical music practitioners and organisations to respond positively to the challenges of 2020, and shone a light on numerous digital music projects and innovations, whilst raising money for Help Musicians.
We are delighted to have received this award, and that a project inspired by the efforts of two community choirs to support and keep their members singing together has received this recognition.
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donation to Welsh mental health charity
On World Mental Health Day 2020, Côr ABC presented £500 to meddwl.org, a volunteer-run website providing information on mental health issues through the medium of Welsh.
The sum was raised from the sale of prints of artwork by artist Sioned Glyn commissioned by Côr ABC and Côr Dinas in relation to their yn un rhith virtual choir project to perform a new piece of the same name by composer, Andrew Cusworth, who set an englyn by crowned bard, Dafydd John Pritchard.
Gwennan Williams, conductor of Côr ABC said: “We were due to take part in a concert in support of the Meddwl website back in June and, since that concert had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, we are very pleased to present this sum raised through our lockdown project to the website at this challenging time.
“The virtual choir project and our weekly virtual rehearsals have been an important lifeline for many of us in recent months, and it is fitting that the choir has chosen to support a voluntary organisation providing much-needed mental health resources in Welsh through its lockdown activities.”
Composer and project leader, Andrew Cusworth, added: “One of the many reasons that we sing in choirs is for the positive effect it has on our mental health. During the lockdown, choirs had to find new ways of continuing to gather not only for musical reasons but for social and community ones, and as a means of raising the spirits of their members, staying in touch, and looking out for one another.“On World Mental Health Day, we are reminded again of the importance of music in our lives and in our wellbeing. The donation to the Meddwl website resonates with the aims and outcomes of our project, which we have now opened up to other choirs to enable them to produce their own virtual performances of the piece while restrictions continue.”
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yn un rhith artwork
To thank the creative team for their work on the project, Côr ABC and Côr Dinas commissioned an artwork by the artist, Sioned Glyn. With Dafydd’s englyn at the heart of the work, Sioned created a triptych – three landscape scenes connecting Aberystwyth and London, with the separate scenes, like the choirs, creating a single work of art.
The original artworks were recently presented to the members of the creative team, and prints of the individual scenes are now available to order through the choir: A4 at a cost of £30 each and A5 at a cost of £20 each, with both prices including mounts. For more information or to order a print, please contact the choirs by the 24th of August 2020.
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over to you
We’ve recorded and released our performance of the piece. Now it’s your turn to record it with your own choirs!
As of today, all of the resources we used for our yn un rhith project have been made freely available on this website for all choirs to use to produce their own virtual performances, including sheet music, videos to learn and sing with, guidance on recording, the accompaniment track, and warm-ups.
There are two versions of the piece – one for mixed voices and one for upper voices.
The piece is suitable for mixed choirs, youth choirs, and upper voices.
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taking part
This website was originally made to help members of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas while we were creating our virtual performance of yn un rhith. Having made and released our virtual choir performances, we are opening the website up to help other choirs who would like to produce their own virtual performances of the piece.
If you would like to make your own version, we would be delighted, and very much hope that this website will help to guide you through the process. In exchange, we would ask you
- to let us know you are doing the piece;
- to use the accompaniment track provided;
- to share your completed virtual choir video with us, so that we can share it with others and so that we might be able to join them all together at some point in the future; and
- to not perform the piece to a live audience before we have had the chance to arrange a first live performance ourselves!
We really look forward to hearing your virtual performances and hope that you will find everything you need here (except, perhaps, for a video editor to put the whole thing together for you, of course!).
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step-by-step for choir leaders
If, having looked over everything on the site, you would like your choir to take part, here are the next steps for you to take.
Firstly, you will want to make sure you have found someone who knows what they are doing with video editing to put everything together for you at the end, or to be ready to follow the learning curve and put the time into producing this yourself. There are quite a few helpful videos online giving guidance about how to do it.
Once you have lined that up, you will need to email your singers with the correct videos to sing, and possibly to suggest they follow the warm-ups and guidance on the site. Also, it would probably be a good idea to listen to the piece as sung by Côr ABC and Côr Dinas, and as read by Dafydd John Pritchard, so that you can align your pronunciation of the words with ours.
Whilst your singers are learning their parts, you or whoever is going to do the video editing should set up some way of gathering all of their videos together, and also download the accompaniment track so that you can load that in to play alongside your choir videos.
Once you have got your choir’s videos in, you or the video editor will need to edit them all together and to add the accompaniment track into the mix. Once all that’s done, you will be able to upload it to a video sharing site and share it with the world! In an exciting near-parallel of live performance we used a YouTube première for our performance, to gather together an audience at the same time.
Finally, share the video with us, let us know it is happening, and we’ll do our bit to let people know and include you in the wider project.
Although we cannot offer to help you significantly with this, please do get in touch if you feel there are any major steps that we have missed.
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step-by-step for singers
If you are a singer approaching singing in a virtual choir for the first time, this quick guide might help you.
what is a virtual choir?
It is probably worth outlining what we mean when we talk about ‘virtual choirs’ and ‘virtual choir performances’.
Creating a ‘virtual choir performance’ normally involves three main stages.
- A small team produces materials for the whole choir to work with. These include a specific video for each section of the choir to sing in time with when they are recording.
- The members of the choir practise with this pre-prepared video and, when ready, film themselves singing alongside it.
- The members then send the video of themselves singing back to the central team, and the videos are then edited together to produce a ‘virtual choir performance’.
In this instance, you will be sending your videos along to the person designated by your choir director through a method arranged by them.
technological things
There are a few things to think about before you begin the process of learning your part and filming yourself, and the first is probably to make sure you have everything at your disposal for learning and recording the piece.
Whilst we hope that this will not prevent anyone from taking part, there are a few things that you will need in order to film yourself singing:
- a pair of headphones connected to
- a device for watching the video and singing along with it (eg, a laptop or a tablet), and, preferably,
- a separate device for filming yourself singing (eg, a camera or the camera on your phone set to video),
- some means of holding the filming device steady and in landscape orientation, not portrait (eg, a stand or another person); and,
- a little time and patience – just like learning and performing any new piece of music, this will take a little effort to get right.
You should not need to purchase any special equipment, software, or apps to film yourselves. It is worth mentioning that, if you only have one device for both filming and listening, it might still be possible to work around that.
Do take a look at the ‘recording‘ page for some basic guidance on how to film yourselves.
learning, singing and sending
Once you have made sure that you have everything you need, spend some time getting to know the piece before you have a go at filming it. Here is a suggested order, but do feel free to skip any steps you do not feel are relevant to you and do read through before beginning!
- Optional step: If you find it useful, you can download the score of the piece from the ‘downloads‘ page to help you get used to it. Remember that you do not need to do this unless you really want to, as you will be following the music on the screen as you practise and film yourself!
- If you are going to record yourself, have a look at the ‘recording‘ page and set up your gear before you begin singing.
- When you are ready to sing,
- Visit the ‘warming up‘ page and get your voice moving a little;
- Go to the page for your part (make sure you have the right one as there are two versions of the piece – one for a choir of upper voices and one for a mixed choir!) and watch the video for your part all the way through, thinking along with your singing line. This will give you an idea of how it will all feel and an opportunity to get used to singing along;
- Go back and sing along with the singing section of the video a few times. When you feel uncertain about a passage, pause the film and go back over that part again;
- When you feel you have nailed down the notes reasonably well, hit record on your camera;
- Good luck! Don’t feel frustrated with yourself if you have to have a few goes, as this is a completely normal part of the process;
- When you have a good take, send it in using the method agreed with your choir director!
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Choral Stream
Today, yn un rhith was featured on the facebook page of Choral Stream, the choral music radio station of Minnesota Public Radio.
The performance of yn un rhith by the combined choir of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas will today feature in a programme of virtual events hosted by BroAber360, a community website for north Ceredigion.
Tune in at 17:15 BST this afternoon to watch!
BroAber360.cymru
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featured in Welsh chapel service
We are delighted to hear that the Borough Welsh Chapel, London, will play the performance of yn un rhith by the combined choirs of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas during its service tomorrow.
In normal times, Côr Dinas rehearses at the Borough Welsh Chapel and regularly sings in its services. We are pleased that the choir is able, alongside Côr ABC, to sing at one of its virtual services during this time.
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additional performances released
Last Friday, we premièred the first performance of yn un rhith by the combined choirs of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas, but both choirs have also sung, separately, mixed choir and upper voices versions of the piece.
We are delighted that these separate performances have now also been released on the choirs’ YouTube channels:
Côr ABC – mixed choir version of yn un rhith
Côr Dinas – upper voices version of yn un rhith
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warm response to première
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us on YouTube last night for the first performance of yn un rhith,and thank you for such a warm response.
We are delighted that people from the across the world were able to join with us to experience the ‘performance’ at the same time, if not in the same place.
Here is a selection of the comments posted on YouTube and Twitter:
‘A beautiful performance.’
‘Absolutely beautiful work by all – well done!’
‘Wonderful, I want to sing now!’
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Côr ABC & Côr Dinas
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Côr Dinas
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Côr ABC
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virtual première tonight
We are looking forward to sharing the first performance of yn un rhith by the combined choir of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas with the world this evening.
Join us at 19:00 BST via the following link:
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media coverage
Today, our project was featured on Radio Cymru when Gwennan Williams appeared on Bore Cothi to discuss the project and the première with Shân Cothi.
Gwennan highlighted the fact that working on the project and singing together, even at a distance, had given the members of the choirs a positive and uplifting focus during a difficult and uncertain period of time.
The project and the première have also featured in articles in local newspapers, including the Cambrian News, the Tenby Observer, the Western Telegraph, and Y Tincer, and on the news website Bro Aber 360.
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première announced
We are delighted to announce that the first performance of yn un rhith by the combined choir of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas will be released in a YouTube Première event.
We invite members of both choirs, the choirs’ wider communities and everyone interested in our project to join with us to watch the first performance together, albeit apart.
By using YouTube Première to ‘perform’ the distantly recorded piece, we hope to provide a focal point for a coming together of the choirs’ wider communities to experience music together in time if not in the same place.
The piece will be premièred at 19:00 BST on Friday, 22 May 2020, via the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA1ehR1odWA
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the project
Aberystwyth based mixed choir, Côr ABC, and the London Welsh women’s choir, Côr Dinas, have been working together on a virtual choir project to produce the first performance of a new piece written during the first few weeks of lockdown by composer, Andrew Cusworth.
Weekly choral rehearsals had come to an abrupt end back in March as COVID-19 spread around the world and governments introduced restrictions on all aspects of daily life. In response to this, Côr ABC and Côr Dinas began to meet and rehearse virtually, enabling their members not only to continue to sing and make music, but also to maintain their social connections. These virtual rehearsals proved to be an inspiration for a new piece and a virtual choir project.
After one of Côr ABC’s rehearsals, choir member and crowned bard, Dafydd John Pritchard, wrote an englyn about the experience and posted it on Twitter. Fellow choir member and conductor of Côr Dinas, Andrew Cusworth, saw the poem and set it to music for both choirs to sing together virtually.
Speaking about his new piece, yn un rhith, Andrew said: “The piece, based on Dafydd’s poem, sings of how, albeit set apart by events, we are still united in our aims, as a community, in singing – of how we are still a choir.”
Members of both choirs have been filmed themselves singing the piece, and all those individual videos were edited together to create a virtual choir performance by Robert Russell, who also accompanied the choirs in the performance.
Describing the aim of the project, Gwennan Williams, conductor of Côr ABC, said: “Our hope, as a team who put the project together, was to create an enjoyable experience for our members, and something that we can all look back on, at some point in the future, as a reminder of something positive to come out of difficult times.”
The first performance of yn un rhith by the combined choir of Côr ABC and Côr Dinas was given in a YouTube première. The choirs also sang, separately, mixed choir and upper voices versions of the piece.
Now that these videos are completed, the project is being opened to other choirs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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the words
The words of this piece are those of an englyn by crowned bard Dafydd John Pritchard, written after first attending one of Côr ABC’s virtual rehearsals. Here is Dafydd reading it.
Er o bell, roedd herio byd heno’n gân
yn y gwaed, yn fywyd,
pob tôn yn fonllef hefyd,
yn un rhith, yn gôr o hyd.
Here is his adaptation of the words into English.
Yes, from a distance, but we fought back tonight, our song being lifeblood, every note we sang, a cry, virtually one, a choir still.
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people
Côr ABC
Côr ABC is an Aberystwyth-based mixed choir conducted by Gwennan Williams. In normal times, the choir has a busy programme of activities that includes concerts, competitions, and recordings.
Côr Dinas
Côr Dinas is the women’s choir of the London Welsh and is conducted by Andrew Cusworth. It is a close community of singers that performs frequently in a wide range of concerts, services, and competitions.
Dafydd John Pritchard
Dafydd is a poet who won the Crown at the National Eisteddfod in Bro Dinefwr in 1996. He has published two volumes of poetry; dim ond deud (Barddas, 2006) and Lôn Fain (Barddas, 2013). He competes in BBC Radio Cymru’s Talwrn y Beirdd as a member of the Cŵps team and in the National Eisteddfod’s Ymryson y Beirdd as a member of the Ceredigion team. He was chair of Barddas for five years and is a regular reviewer. He works at the National Library of Wales.
Dafydd wrote the englyn set to music in this piece.
Robert Russell
Robert Russell is an Australian-born composer living in the UK. He predominantly writes music for musicals, video games and rock bands, but can also be seen accompanying choirs (including Côr Dinas), recording singers and teaching mathematics.
To find out more about Robert and what he’s doing, visit RobertRussellMusic.net or youtube.com/RobertRussellMusic.
Robert has been responsible for producing all of the videos associated with this project, as well as providing the piano accompaniment for the virtual performance.
Gwennan Williams
Gwennan Williams is a musician who is passionate about choral music and community music-making. She holds a joint honours degree in music and German from the University of Birmingham. She has conducted Côr ABC since 2013. She won the Conductor of the Festival prize at Gŵyl Fawr Aberteifi in 2018.
Gwennan sang for all of the female parts of the instructional videos.
Andrew Cusworth
Andrew Cusworth is an academic, conductor, and award-winning composer who is currently an 1851 Research Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. He is the conductor of Côr Dinas and a member of Côr ABC.
Andrew wrote the music to set Dafydd’s englyn and can be seen conducting the virtual performance.
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if you like this …
One of the many reasons that we sing in choirs is for the positive effect it has on our mental health. Beyond the well-known benefits of group singing, choirs are micro-communities united by the urge to make music; choirs are made up of often diverse people who share experiences, support each other, and enjoy the social side of choral music as well as the singing itself. During the lock-down, choirs have had to find new ways of continuing to gather not only for musical reasons but for social and community ones, and as a means of raising the spirits of their members, staying in touch, and looking out for one another. With all of these positive things and the community-driven background to the project in mind, we would like to draw attention to the importance of music in our lives, and during what is Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK, in our human wellbeing.
So, if you have enjoyed finding out about, listening to or participating in our project, and if you are in a position to do so, why not consider making a donation to a mental health or musical charity near you.
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download score & accompaniment
Below are the two scores and the accompaniment track for the project, which will help to familiarise yourself with the music. If you are a singer and don’t have a printer or means of viewing the score whilst singing with the videos, don’t worry, as we suggest that you simply sing reading the notes as they appear on the videos rather than holding a score.
yn un rhith, for mixed choir
yn un rhith, for upper voices
yn un rhith, accompaniment track
Terms and conditions of download and use. These scores are intended to help in the production of virtual choir videos during the COVID-19 epidemic and are not for use beyond the project. The piece may not be performed or recorded or otherwise made use of outside the project without first seeking permission. When creating your own virtual choir video, you agree that you will use the accompaniment track provided, that you will notify us of your participation, that you will make your virtual choir video freely available, that you will acknowledge the project’s contributors (music by Andrew Cusworth, words by Dafydd John Pritchard, accompanied by Robert Russell), and that you will send us your video for potential use in relation to the project. To notify us of your use of the piece and/or to request permission to perform the piece, please contact Andrew Cusworth at andrew@ynunrhith.wales. By downloading these files you agree to respect these terms.
