"Did he say THONG?!?"

("he" being Mark Elder. And the answer was "yes", and it was very amusing at the time, but I can't remember now what the context was!)

Music Makers piano rehearsal tonight. I don't think there are any non-choir people reading this, but in case there are, I'd better explain what a piano rehearsal is. Slightly confusing term, because we do of course rehearse with a piano 95% of the time! You see, when we perform with the orchestra, the concert is conducted by a top internationally renowned conductor (usually - but not always - Mark Elder, who's the Hallé Music Director and Principal Conductor). But we don't rehearse with the conductor until we already know the music really well; our normal weekly rehearsals are with Jamie, who's the Hallé Choral Director. (He does conduct a few concerts himself, but mainly his job is to prepare the choir for concerts.) When the concert is imminent, we rehearse with the orchestra (obviously), conducted by the conductor of the concert; there are only one or two of these "orchestral rehearsals". (Of course it'd be lovely to rehearse with the orchestra the whole time, but it'd be unbelievably expensive!) And in order to save time (and hence expense) with the orchestra, there is usually a "piano rehearsal" just before the first orchestral rehearsal. This is a rehearsal at which the conductor of the concert comes to rehearse with the choir, but not the orchestra (hence "piano rehearsal"). It's an opportunity for the conductor to clarify speeds and other details, and to listen to the choir without having to worry about the orchestra. (The piano in question is played by our regular accompanist, the extremely amazingly wonderful David Jones - he's SO good that on the rare occasions that he makes an audible mistake, a shocked ripple runs through the choir...)

Anyway, that's what a piano rehearsal is. So tonight Mark came to see us - tomorrow night is the orchestral rehearsal (only one this time) and Thursday night is the concert. As always with Mark, it was an inspirational evening and everyone left grinning. He had some very nice things to say about the Tippett gig (in particular, he said that in the Spirituals he could understand every word - high praise indeed!) Many laugh-out-loud moments, but Jamie had us giggling before Mark even turned up - he made us practise facial expressions (for example, "your 'crotchet = 152 der duh-duh der duh-duh der And Therefore Today' face") and then consolidated the amusement by extending his evil KitKat warmup exercise to "kitty katty kitty katty". (Could've been worse, at least he didn't insist on Lavender Leather...)

Ooh, I just remembered. You remember the cute tenor soloist with the beanie? Well, I thought I saw him when I got to the rehearsal tonight, but I assumed I'd imagined it. But I hadn't, because he (and the bass soloist) are singing with us for this project (gig and recording) due to our numbers of men being rather low. I'd tell you what Sylvia said about the bass guy, who was sitting in front of her, but she'd only be embarrassed :p

Tonight also featured a 20 year service badge presentation - whenever someone's "time is due", the tradition is that Mark presents them with a special pin that they wear on their choir outfit. This time it was Jean's turn, and Mark (as usual) said all the right things, and (as she sat down again) said "Now... what would you like to sing for us?" I'm told that while the rest of the choir was laughing at this, Jean called to him "This!" So everyone was happy :-)

Falling asleep now, so I'll just list the Markisms I scribbled down in the back of my score. (As an aside... I have so many things written on my actual music - not amusing comments, but actual instructions - that in some places I'm now having to write new instructions in the margin and draw my attention to them with arrows. So I'm INCREDIBLY impressed that there seem to be quite a few people in the choir who can apparently remember all these instructions WITHOUT WRITING ANY OF THEM DOWN. Wish *I* had a memory as good as theirs! And amazingly it seems to be the ones who don't make it to all the rehearsals who have THE BEST MEMORIES OF ALL. Funny, that.)

• Mark's story about performing Mahler 6 on a Saturday night in Brighton, in which during his intro he mentioned how long it lasted, and a man gasped "I've got a bus to catch!"

• Mark: "We've all got to agree on how short the king is!"

• Mark: "I'd even breathe, everybody." Choir: "Hurray!"

• Mark's impression of Elgar in conversation with Jaeger

• The look on Mark's face when he turned round and caught Jamie, who was sitting behind him, doing an escalator impression to the men (non-choir people: this is to remind them to think downwards when singing upwards)

• Mark: "I saw Janet Baker do that once. I'll never forget it. 11 o'clock in the morning, in Edinburgh. No, sorry, 11.30." (He was referring to her bending her knees when singing a high note.)

• Jamie and Mark doing a knee-bend duet is the image I can't get out of my mind :p