The New Community Choir
Is meeting every Monday night 7.30 – 8.30
at St Nicolas Place, the old looking building on the corner of Kings Norton Green.
We’re singing fun songs in harmonies. So far we’ve sung Use Somebody and Price Tag and we’re working on Mister Bojangles – the Nina Simone version.

We’re charging £4 a session although we’re in the process of applying for funding so hope to be able to drop that a lot very soon.

We’ll be doing our first performance at Candles and Carols on the Green on Saturday 17 December. Come and have a listen and see what you think….

All new members are welcome. Get in touch if you, or anyone you know, want to know more.

Website
My new website is up and running which is very cool.
It’s just the cabaret page on my website but I’ve got a more memorable site to hold the info too. I’ve named it after a name a few of my friends call me. Upside Down Swan. They say that I look all frantic to the world but acually I’m calm and totally in control underneath.

You can view it on

http://www.upsidedownswan.com/

You can view the new videos on there. I’d love to know what you think of them.

Vocalist Concert
I need to announce the date for the next vocalist concert at MAC, 3 March 2012. A chance for my students to sing a song in front of a friendly audience and/or try new things out.

Exam

I did a singing exam. It was always my dirty secret that while I have my ALCM in Musical Theatre I didn’t have Classical Grade 8 with ABRSM. So I did it earlier this year.  Also did it because I thought it would only be a good thing to put myself in my students shoes with a straight singing exam.

I had lots of fun in my singing lessons, not least with the opera star that is Wendy Dawn Thompson

http://www.wendydawnthompson.com/index.php?page=profile

very exciting stuff, got my teeth into the acting side again too which I also loved.

Community Choir
It seems like months ago the ladies at my local library asked me if I knew of any community choirs and seemed to be hinting to me to set one up. It seems like days later I went to the Northfield Arts Forum and met Laura Yates and they got me all fired up that this could be funded and so could happen.

All of a sudden the first rehearsal/meeting to gauge interest is on Monday. I am hoping that there will be a brilliant turn out and that we’ll have so many interested parties that the funding application simply has to be taken up.
Proper details are
Monday 10 October 2011, 7pm till 8.30. At St Nicolas’ Place on Kings Norton Green.
We’ll have a sing and chat and work out where we want to go with the choir and what we all want to do.

I’m sure there are other things but I can’t remember.  Let me know if I’ve forgotten something….

Oh yes, got Twitter….. I’m called upsidedownswan so have a search for me if you do the whole Twitter thing…

Just a little note to make sure folks know about my new show Rebecca Schwarz Sings Again, which I’ll be performing at the Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath on Monday 18 July 2011.   http://www.kitchengardencafe.co.uk/  tickets available soon

Tickets just a fiver and I’ve even got support from my lovely friend Abigail Seabrok http://abigailseabrook.com/

Oh, and did I mention I’ve finally posted some songs on youtube?  You can see them on this link….

http://www.youtube.com/user/RebeccaSchwarzUK?feature=mhee

So you can now see what I do.  Let me know what you think.

1 – the terrified students managed to get on stage and sing

2 – the ones who were terrified last year did so much better this year

3 – the many many little, or less little, achievements of students.  From the belting that we couldn’t be sure would happen, the sore throats that didn’t hold them back, the lovely way they supported each other.  Oh the list goes on and on, I feel so sentimental about it all.

And then there was my concert.  I was so scared but people looked intense when I was doing my intense songs and people laughed when I was meant to be funny.  There have been some gorgeous comments and I eagerly await them being posted on the main site.  When I get the video I will put a bit of it up on youtube too, and link it up with this site.

See, what a cool day/night

Ooo what can I write about? Well, I’m very excited as it looks like I may have another dabble with Classical singing. Also I’m definitely putting on another pair of student concerts on 7 May at MAC. Oh, and if my voice has come back fully by the end of March I will be perform the shows I was due to perform in September at Artsfest afterwards.

I didn’t want to write about how I lost my voice as it’s been really rubbish and it’s not the best way to sell yourself as a singing teacher. But I did. I shouted at my two lovely godsons because they were running off and climbing trees and I couldn’t chase them as I was looking after Benny too (he was only 10 months then).

I learned my lesson the hard way. Don’t shout when you’ve got a sore throat. Your voice may go. Mine did. Completely. For 2 weeks, and now, nearly 6 months on, I still l have loads of problems with my singing. So this performance will be a really big deal.

On the plus side I believe that losing my voice has made me realise how much I love my voice and I believe I could now work with rehabilitating voices. So every cloud and all that.

Right off to sit down before the little one, (not so little now, nearly 16 months!), wakes up and demands stuff.