It now seems likely that ‘freedom day’ will be postponed for a fortnight, making 5 July the magic date. So, in theory, Laudemus can go ahead this summer, giving us the opportunity to sing properly together as a choir – something we all need so badly.
There remain a couple of potential difficulties. By back-tracking on allowing choirs to rehearse indoors from 17 May, and refusing to publish the science supposedly behind the u-turn, the DCMS has opened up the possibility that choir singing could remain restricted after lockdown ends. Plenty of high-level lobbying is going on to try to ensure this does not happen.
If restrictions are still recommended, we will be in the hands of the Church of England, and it remains to be seen whether or not individual incumbents will be allowed a degree of discretion as to what takes place in their church buildings. Certainly there was a lot of anger from March 2020 onwards at the C of E’s ‘one size fits all’ attitude, so we can hope that a more flexible approach to risk will be adopted. In the meantime, the Laudemus admin team continues to plan for a wonderful week’s singing.