Giles Woodforde talks to the man who leads a choir from rehearsal to showtime in a day

‘Without the luxury of protracted rehearsal time, I have to think quickly on my feet — literally — and avert any possible disasters I see looming!” says Oxford Orpheus conductor Robert Dean. “Fortunately, my work as an opera conductor gives me an advantage here, as there is no predicting what can sometimes happen on stage to divert musical concentration in the singers.”

Robert is describing Oxford Orpheus’s annual Come and Sing concerts, which have been raising money for local charities for the past nine years. Last year more than £6,000 went to the Oxford MND Care and Research Centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital, and this same cause is being supported this year. With only one preliminary workshop held in advance, Orpheus rehearses and performs a large-scale choral concert all in a single day — a process that would normally take weeks, if not months.

“You do feel slightly terrified when you’ve got a performance in only a few hours’ time,” admits choir member Peter Shaw. “Robert Dean’s skill is in showing you that you can do it — or rather that we can all do it together. He raises our expectations, and gives us the confidence to tackle these works.

“I’ve been in choirs all my life, and have sung in a lot of shows for Oxford Operatic Society. The Come and Sings have presented some great opportunities to tackle serious, artistic works that I sometimes hadn’t done before.”

Peter has sung in all nine Come and Sings, as has alto Jo King. They began with Handel’s Messiah in 2006.

“I sang when I was at school, and then not for decades,” says Jo. “ I started with a ‘non-singers’ choir made up of people who thought they couldn’t sing! So the Come and Sing, being a one-day event, was actually a big step for me. But I did know quite a lot of the Messiah from way back at school — it was a bit like taking up bike riding again after a long gap.”

This year it is Beethoven’s Mass in C and Haydn’s Mass in Time of War. How, I ask conductor Robert Dean, does he choose the works?

“I must personally respond to the music. If I am enthusiastic about it, I can more readily communicate that enthusiasm through words and gesture: beseeching, pleading, drawing blood — if necessary! — and a commitment to the task in hand.

“At the end of a very long day, I want the singers to have enjoyed themselves, but also to be enriched by their participation in an extraordinary coming together of like minds and voices, singing choral masterpieces for a common cause.”

This truly is an “extraordinary coming together”: singers now come from all over Britain. Your neighbour may well be a complete stranger — so, as singer Jo King puts it cheerfully, “You are jolted out of any comfort zone you might have from rehearsing standing next to your familiar friends.”

Oxford Orpheus
Oxford Town Hall
Saturday, February 21
Audience tickets, and details of any remaining single places: 01865 250440 or at bookings@oxfordorpheus.com