Read Month One (September)
Read Month Nine (May)
So this is it – my final day in the office and my final blog post. It all seems to have gone so quickly.
June however has been quite busy, with a few gigs in the diary. The first of these was a weekend in South Wales with Helen who was leading Greater than Gold in-a-day. The Saturday got off to a great start with some parkrun tourism at the Gnoll Estate Country Park, and once we were all showered and clean we headed to the church to get ready for the event. I was playing oboe parts that I had created in the preceding weeks in the office by mashing together sections from the flute, clarinet and alto sax parts. It was rather a warm weekend (which in general was a good thing!), but unfortunately this played havoc with my reeds, so it was a bit stressful as I felt like I was fighting my oboe the whole time, but the choir and soloists did an amazing job – hats off to Helen, as the event was actually a 'Musical in-an-afternoon', yet she still managed to teach them the whole thing, and to round the day off, the performance was well appreciated by the audience. On the Sunday morning, Helen preached (very well) and the rest of us took part in the worship. The team were then treated to a lovely roast dinner cooked by Helen's mum to set us up well for the journey home!
The following Saturday, I travelled to Kidderminster to be part of the team for a Musical Man evening with the New Life Together choir. The choir had been superbly trained and there was a large audience who seemed very responsive to Roger's testimony of God's work in his life.
One of my office jobs this month has been to create a video of photos from Roger's 70th birthday bash in Tamworth which is now live here on the CMM Youtube channel. If you were there, see if you can spot yourself! I have also proofread the new files for the Simeon vocal score, which will be going for reprint soon.
As my internship draws to an end, so does my time with the CMM choir. At the start of this month, I was asked to lead a rehearsal with each choir. I was pretty nervous, particularly as I hadn't led a full rehearsal with the East Birmingham choir before, however everybody survived so I guess it must have been okay! One of my lasting memories will be the incident from that week involving a rather large spider at the West Birmingham choir and the effect that it had on the front row of sopranos! Unfortunately, I have only been able to make it to one of the choir's performances of Rock, however I was very honoured to receive some lovely cards, gifts and well-wishes from the members and committee – it has been a pleasure to be part of the choirs and I very much hope that we will meet again in the future.
As this blog post draws to a close, I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone I've crossed paths with during my time with CMM – I have met some truly lovely people. I'd like to give especial thanks to Roger and Mary for taking me on, to the office staff for being so welcoming, providing me with lots of jobs to do and coping with my aversion to making tea, to all the associates I have met who have made me feel so at home when on team, to the couple I have stayed with over my office days for keeping me wonderfully well fed and watered and to the people who have given me lifts to and from stations and rehearsals. It has been a real privilege to be part of CMM this year and to have the opportunity to explore different aspects of music and faith, and the ways in which those are so closely intertwined. I am planning to stick around on the associates list so very much hope to see many of you again at some point, but for now, it's goodbye from me.
Love,
Rachel
xx
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| Sunday lunch in South Wales! |
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