I am a member of two choirs and of course both have shut down for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis. I'm on the committee of one of them and at our last meeting, on 12th March, we decided to postpone our concert scheduled for 4th April. There had been significantly fewer people at our previous rehearsal as the message was beginning to get through that social distancing was important.
As the lockdown continues, it is becoming increasingly clear that the government is advising over 70s to maintain their isolation as much as possible. This is going to have a very serious effect on lots of organised social events: it seems to me that choirs are are heavily dominated by old buggers. In the case of the choir whose committee I am on, the chairman has just passed 60. I think he's our youngest man. We have 4 or 5 sopranos who are in their 30s, but the vast majority of our ladies are of pensionable age. I think that apart from the chairman and me, every committee member, and our conductor, are over 70.
I think a lengthy lockdown for over-70s will do massive damage to choral societies all over the UK. Choral singing is a tradition that has gone back a very long time, and certainly in the Victorian era there were very large, thriving choral societies. Its future is looking pretty bleak at the moment.
