Is this an auditioned choir? Can I invite my friends to join us?
Camberville Somerchoir is fast-paced and there is an expectation that people learn their notes and rhythms at home with provided materials, and practice on their own if they have to miss a rehearsal.
Since 2025, we have been holding hearings for each individual singer in late May / early June, before the start of rehearsals. This is principally due to balance issues of voice parts within the choir, but also levels the playing field between those who have participated before and new singers, and helps us to establish a waiting list if necessary. We don’t want to be snooty and exclude people, but we want to make sure rehearsals can be fast-paced, fun, and relatively stress-free for everyone.
Anyone is welcome to audition, and we are always especially seeking tenors and basses!
Auditions are low-pressure and friendly. You will do a range-check and vocal warmups with piano, and sing a pre-determined excerpt from one of the pieces for the summer. There is no sight-reading component.
Alternatively, if it is not practical for you to audition in person, we can accept a recorded audition.
To be added to the mailing list so that you will hear about auditions for next summer, email cambervillesomerchoir@gmail.com.
Why do you hold hearings?
While we are honored that so many people want to join us, we have in the past had a much larger number of sopranos than altos, and more altos than tenors or basses. This led to balance issues and us asking some people to sing parts that were not vocally healthy for them. Additionally, we sometimes had to ask half of the people in the room to sing super soft and the other half to sing super loud to get the chords in balance - there's more room for musicality and subtlety if we start with a balanced sound.
Some groups hire tenors and basses to fill out their sections, but that is neither in our budget nor what we want this group to be about socially. We want everyone to be on the same footing and part of the same community.
We have had issues where a large number of folks have dropped out at different points over the course of rehearsals. While that happens for a number of valid reasons, we want to try to have a firmer roster from the get-go and to have an organized waiting list to draw from.
If you're a newcomer, we don't know your voice! Hearing everyone individually will help us place folks where they will sound their best and sing their healthiest rather than guessing based on what they filled out in a spreadsheet or what we remember from 9 months ago.
Different repertoire means different divisi! The B1 part of last year's music could be the B2 part of this year's, the T1 part of one piece could be higher than the A2 of a different piece, or the S1 part could be a fourth higher than it ever went last year. Different repertoire also may call for different techniques for different voice parts - belting and mixing, falsetto and full voice, straight tone and warm vibrato, etc. The more we get to know each of you as a singer, the better we can be at asking folks to do things that are reasonable and vocally healthy for them.
When and where are rehearsals?
Generally, we rehearse on Wednesday evenings (7pm-9:30pm) between early June and late August, with performances at the end of August.
Rehearsals are at University Lutheran Church (UniLu), 66 Winthrop St, Cambridge. It is convenient to the Harvard T stop. Parking is, well, Harvard Square, but it's generally possible to find on-street parking in the area.