The "Ashley Chorale" was formed in early 2007 as an experiment to let singers from larger groups, such as choral societies or harmony goups, experience proper unaccompanied singing in true A Cappella style - with a smaller number of voices to a part - instead of being just one voice lost amid so many others.
The initial idea was to run just a small number of sessions to see if people liked singing this way, and then see what developed.
Some people came for one or two meetings but felt too exposed when having to sing their part alone, or found the music not what they were used to, or simply did not blend and so retreated to the safety in numbers of their choral society or harmony group.
That left an enthusiastic group of about ten to twelve voices who found this type of singing exciting and challenging. The voices blended very well and the sound produced was immediately felt to be right. (Phew1. What a pleasure to find that "note bashing" was reduced to a minimum allowing us to sing through well over a dozen pieces every time we met.)
Most importantly, we all got on well and so it was agreed to continue. With only a few changes we have remained together for Almost TEN years now, meeting about every four to six weeks singing mainly for pleasure.
Just now we can call upon up to Fourteen singers, and we tend to meet with maybe eight to ten depending on availability which seems to give us just the right balance.
We are not a performance group - although we think we should get out and do a concert - but although we treat our music very seriously we have a lot of fun in the process and there is nothing solemn, serious or "Po-Faced" about us.
We welcome enquiries from singers who feel this is something they might like to try.
That is us:-
The Ashley Chorale