... Yes, I still have that bit on the brain!
I'm full of awe for the work Fanny's put in on the Russian, in order to teach it to us. She must have spent hours and hours reciting it to herself. She did get a few whoops and rounds of applause last night for her performance, mind you :-)
We did the second half of the 3rd movement in detail, plus singthroughs of the first and last movements. So we've now done the whole of The Bells pretty thoroughly (well, apart from a few pages in the middle of the 3rd movement that got overlooked). It's mostly vaguely familiar by now - even some of the words!
Sectionals next week, and we also get to see Xenia the extremely Russian lady - whee! I bought a Teach Yourself Russian book yesterday - been meaning to do so for ages. No idea when I'll actually get to teach it to myself though... I'm rather unimpressed that the ladies' sectionals are at WHGS, btw. I really, really, really, really hate going there. Grrr.
A few random things:
The Sudoku I was doing last night was the hardest one I've ever done, and I made a mess of it and had to start it again. But I finished it tonight in the bath \o/ If you want to try it, it's this one.
Latest weird search that led someone to this blog: "listen to the choir singing double double by macbeth". I presume this is a reference to the Harry Potter film that featured a choir doing just that.
Graham E sent me an mp3 (thanks Graham) of a Jon Christos interview from Classic FM. If you want to have a listen, it's here.
And finally... the George Bush joke that Fanny was referring to is this one :-)
Friday, September 30, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Facial urge Jamie!
I have a thingy set up that tells me how many people visit this blog. It also tells me what page they came from to get here. Most people come from the choir website (which I really must update properly sometime!) but occasionally they come from a different Blogger site (presumably via the random "next blog" thing) or from a search engine. I'm always fascinated to see what search terms led people to me. But my favourite so far is a recent one - someone actually found the choir blog by doing a search on the words "facial urge Jamie", because all three of those words appear on it in various places. The mind boggles to think what they were actually looking for....
I also noticed that someone had come here from Dancerjen's blog, and this turns out to be Jeni Entwistle, who was a member of the alto section for a while before moving to Finland. (Her most recent blogging appears to be here. Jeni, if you ever read this, great to hear how you're doing!) She has some interesting comments about the choir: here, here and here. The last one is about the Brahms Song of Destiny concert, which I'm alarmed to find that although it was less than a year ago and I know I sang in the concert, I can't remember a single note of!
Anyway. More Bells last night. We did the second movement and quite a lot of the third. It's starting to sink in, although I had the damn Casualty theme stuck in my head all night as a result of the bit that quotes it. Fanny knows the Russian really well - it's obvious that she's spent a lot of time working on it. Although I'm not sure what prompted the Fannyism I scribbled on page 38: "It's like the party game you play when you're all really drunk, and someone leaves the room and you have to guess who it was." :-)
I have to admit that several of the 2nd altos (me included) were doing Sudoku puzzles while not singing. But we were still keeping up the "loud and wrong" tradition... Fanny kept asking the altos to do their part first, when she stopped to note-bash. I was getting paranoid about this and thinking it meant that she thought we were doing it wrong, when it seemed to me that we were actually getting it right more often than the rest of the choir. But someone pointed out that that's possibly why she asked us to go first :-)
I also noticed that someone had come here from Dancerjen's blog, and this turns out to be Jeni Entwistle, who was a member of the alto section for a while before moving to Finland. (Her most recent blogging appears to be here. Jeni, if you ever read this, great to hear how you're doing!) She has some interesting comments about the choir: here, here and here. The last one is about the Brahms Song of Destiny concert, which I'm alarmed to find that although it was less than a year ago and I know I sang in the concert, I can't remember a single note of!
Anyway. More Bells last night. We did the second movement and quite a lot of the third. It's starting to sink in, although I had the damn Casualty theme stuck in my head all night as a result of the bit that quotes it. Fanny knows the Russian really well - it's obvious that she's spent a lot of time working on it. Although I'm not sure what prompted the Fannyism I scribbled on page 38: "It's like the party game you play when you're all really drunk, and someone leaves the room and you have to guess who it was." :-)
I have to admit that several of the 2nd altos (me included) were doing Sudoku puzzles while not singing. But we were still keeping up the "loud and wrong" tradition... Fanny kept asking the altos to do their part first, when she stopped to note-bash. I was getting paranoid about this and thinking it meant that she thought we were doing it wrong, when it seemed to me that we were actually getting it right more often than the rest of the choir. But someone pointed out that that's possibly why she asked us to go first :-)
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
O kak zvonka (rhymes with "Wonka")
Sorry for delay. I've been really busy.
I have no idea what "o kak zvonka" means, but it is by far my favourite line of The Bells at the moment.
We did most of the piece (well, except the 2nd movement, but that's really easy) with Fanny last week. (Jamie is off in Argentina with his chamber choir.) Flicking through, I don't seem to have written much new stuff down, apart from on page 35: "Don't worry about that SHSH, that's just to differentiate it from SH..."
The alarm bell bit is now somewhat less alarming, and some of the words in the piece as a whole are starting to seem familiar. No doubt this will change :p
I've bought a recording of it now, and can't decide whether I like it or not. But in case anyone wants to have a listen, I've put the mp3s online. (For study purposes only, of course, and I'll remove them after the concert.) The files are quite large - be warned.
1st movement (7.8 MB)
2nd movement (15.1 MB)
3rd movement (10.1 MB)
4th movement (14.5 MB)
Finally, a heads-up from Sheena. "The CD that some of the choir recorded with Jon Christos is due to be released on 3rd October; it's called Northern Light. Also, there'll be a documentary about Jon Christos on ITV, currently scheduled for 6th October."
I have no idea what "o kak zvonka" means, but it is by far my favourite line of The Bells at the moment.
We did most of the piece (well, except the 2nd movement, but that's really easy) with Fanny last week. (Jamie is off in Argentina with his chamber choir.) Flicking through, I don't seem to have written much new stuff down, apart from on page 35: "Don't worry about that SHSH, that's just to differentiate it from SH..."
The alarm bell bit is now somewhat less alarming, and some of the words in the piece as a whole are starting to seem familiar. No doubt this will change :p
I've bought a recording of it now, and can't decide whether I like it or not. But in case anyone wants to have a listen, I've put the mp3s online. (For study purposes only, of course, and I'll remove them after the concert.) The files are quite large - be warned.
1st movement (7.8 MB)
2nd movement (15.1 MB)
3rd movement (10.1 MB)
4th movement (14.5 MB)
Finally, a heads-up from Sheena. "The CD that some of the choir recorded with Jon Christos is due to be released on 3rd October; it's called Northern Light. Also, there'll be a documentary about Jon Christos on ITV, currently scheduled for 6th October."
Monday, September 12, 2005
"Thou art weighed in the balance... and found wanting..."
This is the point (just before "SLAIN!") at which we started Belshazzar yesterday, and I must admit I thought it was possibly an ominous place! But as it turned out it wasn't too bad at all, and there were places that were incredibly thrilling by the time we came to the performance. This line was one of them, actually, as was the very beginning. The men just sounded FANTASTIC. True, there may have been a few wrong notes on "howl ye", but on the whole the harmony was pretty close to what it should have been, and the sound was wonderful.
EDIT: Because there seem to be loads of people searching for the title phrase and ending up here, I should clarify that it's a quote from the Bible, from the book of Daniel (chapter 5). Belshazzar, king of Babylon, has a feast during which all sorts of false gods are worshipped. During this, a hand appears, writing on the wall words that Daniel explains means "thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting". And that night Belshazzar is killed. ("Slain!") There is a famous musical version of this called "Belshazzar's Feast" by William Walton, and that's the Belshazzar that this post refers to.
The end of the "trumpeters and pipers" bit did go extremely flat in performance, justifying Jamie's decision to tell the lower strings not to play their chord that points this out. But in the rehearsal it wasn't all that far out - less than a semitone the last time, I think. And even in the performance there were several other places where the orchestra came in after an a cappella bit and we'd stayed bang in tune. Quite impressive, when you think about it!
I suppose I ought to backtrack a bit. There were noticeably less people in the hall this year. I guess this was maybe because it was Belshazzar and not Fauré's Requiem - people who didn't know Belshazzar possibly didn't come because they weren't brave enough to sing something they didn't know, and people who did know Belshazzar possibly didn't come because they know how hard it is! But I think it was a good decision to choose it, because most of the people there will never get another chance to perform it - it's not exactly a work that amateur choral societies do very often - and even though many of them were terrified, they all seemed to be having a whale of a time. (The Parry and the Mendelssohn did reassure them, though. It was great to hear "I Was Glad" with that many voices, and the cellos in the Mendelssohn did indeed sound as lovely as Jamie had promised!)
I spent much of the time (when I wasn't singing) running around on Jamie's behalf. (You will be amused to hear that he arrived for the day in a chauffeur-driven car with darkened windows. I suggested that maybe being on BBC Radio Lancs had gone to his head!) Also I got to meet the very lovely baritone soloist, Roland Wood. Sadly I didn't get to use any gaffer tape, but I had some with me just in case...
Anyway, I'm sure there are other things I could say about the day, but I'll let the pictures tell the story. Thanks to Liz and Graham for taking them. They're all now online.
EDIT: Because there seem to be loads of people searching for the title phrase and ending up here, I should clarify that it's a quote from the Bible, from the book of Daniel (chapter 5). Belshazzar, king of Babylon, has a feast during which all sorts of false gods are worshipped. During this, a hand appears, writing on the wall words that Daniel explains means "thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting". And that night Belshazzar is killed. ("Slain!") There is a famous musical version of this called "Belshazzar's Feast" by William Walton, and that's the Belshazzar that this post refers to.
The end of the "trumpeters and pipers" bit did go extremely flat in performance, justifying Jamie's decision to tell the lower strings not to play their chord that points this out. But in the rehearsal it wasn't all that far out - less than a semitone the last time, I think. And even in the performance there were several other places where the orchestra came in after an a cappella bit and we'd stayed bang in tune. Quite impressive, when you think about it!
I suppose I ought to backtrack a bit. There were noticeably less people in the hall this year. I guess this was maybe because it was Belshazzar and not Fauré's Requiem - people who didn't know Belshazzar possibly didn't come because they weren't brave enough to sing something they didn't know, and people who did know Belshazzar possibly didn't come because they know how hard it is! But I think it was a good decision to choose it, because most of the people there will never get another chance to perform it - it's not exactly a work that amateur choral societies do very often - and even though many of them were terrified, they all seemed to be having a whale of a time. (The Parry and the Mendelssohn did reassure them, though. It was great to hear "I Was Glad" with that many voices, and the cellos in the Mendelssohn did indeed sound as lovely as Jamie had promised!)
I spent much of the time (when I wasn't singing) running around on Jamie's behalf. (You will be amused to hear that he arrived for the day in a chauffeur-driven car with darkened windows. I suggested that maybe being on BBC Radio Lancs had gone to his head!) Also I got to meet the very lovely baritone soloist, Roland Wood. Sadly I didn't get to use any gaffer tape, but I had some with me just in case...
Anyway, I'm sure there are other things I could say about the day, but I'll let the pictures tell the story. Thanks to Liz and Graham for taking them. They're all now online.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
SLAIN!
Well, that's how my feet feel, at least. My feet are more sore than my voice, so I guess I must have finally learned how to sing for a prolonged amount of time without overdoing it. Although those sitting near me may disagree :p
Am very, very tired after today, so a Sing With The Hallé report will have to wait till tomorrow. But I do finally have the promised cute baby pictures. Meet Riley :-) [EDIT: Photos now removed, sorry.]
Am very, very tired after today, so a Sing With The Hallé report will have to wait till tomorrow. But I do finally have the promised cute baby pictures. Meet Riley :-) [EDIT: Photos now removed, sorry.]
Friday, September 09, 2005
"Some time I haven't even HEARD of"
is when Jamie said he was due to be on BBC Radio Lancashire this morning, to talk about Sunday. Graham E (who can always be relied upon to remember stuff like this) sent me the mp3 of the show. (There is a bit more after Jerusalem, so don't give up...) Download it here (6.6 MB).
Thursday, September 08, 2005
You knew I meant "I Was Glad", right?
... when I said Zadok? For some reason those two works always merge together in my head. Tonight I arrived at the rehearsal, mentioned to someone that I was looking forward to doing Zadok, wasn't in the least fazed when this person had no recollection that we were doing it, and then didn't bat an eyelid when Naomi handed me a copy of I Was Glad. I even sat with the copy on my knee and talked about it being Zadok.... I worry about my mind sometimes :p
So we sang I Was Glad. Which was great. Not Zadok, but just as good. Bit more of The Bells - did the funeral bells bit (which wasn't quite as hard as the alarm bells) and then revisited the alarm bells. ("It's amazing how this has stuck!" commented Jamie after tonight's first attempt at it... he claimed he could hear correct stuff! We'd just done our "Loud and Wrong" thing again - don't know if any of the other sections were more successful, since we couldn't hear them most of the time :p )
We had the lovely Jonathan accompanying us tonight, by the way. We'd love to know whether or not he was sight reading The Bells. If he was, it was extremely impressive!
And then the first half of Belshazzar, in the second half. So we've now sung all of it (well, except the "Slain!" page). Should be exciting on Sunday... Oh, and someone mentioned my list of Gerontius scribblings, so I thought I might post the (much shorter) list of random stuff I've got scribbled in my Belshazzar score.
p1: bar 5, Isaiah - I don't think I've ever heard this chord convincingly correct. The outer parts always seem to end up an octave apart.
p7: bars 1 and 5 - it's not just the men; a large number of the altos always sing the bottom note of these octave leaps wrong (they end up on the same note as the sops).
p17: bar 3, 1st altos - most people sang a Bb instead of a C here, last time.
p19: bar 5, 1st altos again (sorry, this is the last one) - this always makes me cringe because the two alto parts are supposed to be an octave apart, yet the 1sts always sound really flat to me at this point. So do several of the other parts, to be fair - I have arrows pointing upwards all over the page - I just notice the 1sts more because of the octave.
p40: figure 28, I have written (and I think this is a Kent Nagano instruction - it's definitely a single instruction rather than a composite from several performances, anyway): "Bright, enthusiastic, well-accented, short, lots of text, interesting... silvery."
p42: anvil on beat 2 of 1st bar; one of the offstage brass bands plays for the first time at the end of bar 2.
p43: whip on bottom line
p45: bottom line, R band in first 2 bars, followed by L band in next 2 bars
p47: For some reason I find it impossible to come in at the bottom of the page if I listen to what the orchestra is playing. The only way I can do it is if I tap the beat with my finger and ignore all else. Weird, I don't usually have to do that.
p73: Oddly enough, on this page I have written "DON'T follow trumpets!"
p85-97: Really hard to feel the time signature here, unless you write in the "big bars" and number the smaller bars as 4 beats. (If you don't know what I mean, ask me to show you my score. Or, look at the top of page 86, where it starts the numbering for you. The "big barlines" go after each 4th bar.)
p95: penultimate bar, choir 1 has a different rhythm to choir 2, but I don't think I've ever heard it sung as written.
p96: Top line = Grandstand bit!
p100: Alto part (start of bottom line) = Muppets Swedish chef bit :p
p111 (fig 74) - p116: Another "big bars" bit like before (they start the numbering for you)
p120: (last line of piece) I have no idea what quasi senza rit. means, despite knowing the meaning of the individual words...
So we sang I Was Glad. Which was great. Not Zadok, but just as good. Bit more of The Bells - did the funeral bells bit (which wasn't quite as hard as the alarm bells) and then revisited the alarm bells. ("It's amazing how this has stuck!" commented Jamie after tonight's first attempt at it... he claimed he could hear correct stuff! We'd just done our "Loud and Wrong" thing again - don't know if any of the other sections were more successful, since we couldn't hear them most of the time :p )
We had the lovely Jonathan accompanying us tonight, by the way. We'd love to know whether or not he was sight reading The Bells. If he was, it was extremely impressive!
And then the first half of Belshazzar, in the second half. So we've now sung all of it (well, except the "Slain!" page). Should be exciting on Sunday... Oh, and someone mentioned my list of Gerontius scribblings, so I thought I might post the (much shorter) list of random stuff I've got scribbled in my Belshazzar score.
p1: bar 5, Isaiah - I don't think I've ever heard this chord convincingly correct. The outer parts always seem to end up an octave apart.
p7: bars 1 and 5 - it's not just the men; a large number of the altos always sing the bottom note of these octave leaps wrong (they end up on the same note as the sops).
p17: bar 3, 1st altos - most people sang a Bb instead of a C here, last time.
p19: bar 5, 1st altos again (sorry, this is the last one) - this always makes me cringe because the two alto parts are supposed to be an octave apart, yet the 1sts always sound really flat to me at this point. So do several of the other parts, to be fair - I have arrows pointing upwards all over the page - I just notice the 1sts more because of the octave.
p40: figure 28, I have written (and I think this is a Kent Nagano instruction - it's definitely a single instruction rather than a composite from several performances, anyway): "Bright, enthusiastic, well-accented, short, lots of text, interesting... silvery."
p42: anvil on beat 2 of 1st bar; one of the offstage brass bands plays for the first time at the end of bar 2.
p43: whip on bottom line
p45: bottom line, R band in first 2 bars, followed by L band in next 2 bars
p47: For some reason I find it impossible to come in at the bottom of the page if I listen to what the orchestra is playing. The only way I can do it is if I tap the beat with my finger and ignore all else. Weird, I don't usually have to do that.
p73: Oddly enough, on this page I have written "DON'T follow trumpets!"
p85-97: Really hard to feel the time signature here, unless you write in the "big bars" and number the smaller bars as 4 beats. (If you don't know what I mean, ask me to show you my score. Or, look at the top of page 86, where it starts the numbering for you. The "big barlines" go after each 4th bar.)
p95: penultimate bar, choir 1 has a different rhythm to choir 2, but I don't think I've ever heard it sung as written.
p96: Top line = Grandstand bit!
p100: Alto part (start of bottom line) = Muppets Swedish chef bit :p
p111 (fig 74) - p116: Another "big bars" bit like before (they start the numbering for you)
p120: (last line of piece) I have no idea what quasi senza rit. means, despite knowing the meaning of the individual words...
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Oh, Alarm Bell!!!
Whee! Choir reconvened tonight, after the summer break. I got the impression everyone was as pleased as I was to be back :-) Lots to do though. Maggie got everyone in the mood by starting the warmup with the Macarena. Yes, really :p
Started with the Mendelssohn thingy we'll be starting with on Sunday (for the Sing with the Hallé day). It's pretty easy - just what's needed to get everyone singing. And it prompted some early Jamieisms.... "I've been thinking about Sunday (not without fear!) ... What you could really help with, folks, is singing a little closer to the beat!" (Hmm. That one seemed funnier at the time!) Oh, and also "I heard a lot of lovely mistakes. It was a real joy!"
We had a very quick look at three of the four movements of The Bells. Not performing this till November, but it's pretty hard so it's just as well we started early. I think it'd be quite hard even if it wasn't in Russian... mind you, at least we get to work with the wonderful Xenia again (must find out what the correct spelling is). She's the "XdB" mentioned on the schedule, in case anyone had wondered. In the meantime we get stuff like "The little squiggle above that note is a tiny non-existent Y".... Isn't Russian great? :p
The Bells in question are sleigh bells, wedding bells, alarm bells and funeral bells. We didn't have time to run through the funeral bell movement, but we did all the rest. The alarm bell movement was by far the hardest, but I very much enjoyed Jamie's extremely dramatic reading of the lyrics to prepare us for it! I feel that the 2nd altos (of course) won when it came to singing as many of the notes as possible. Many of these were totally incorrect, of course (at least from me) but we like to be enthusiastic :-) (When I was at school the Director of Music's motto for choral singing was always "LOUD AND WRONG!" and I have tried to follow his advice ever since.)
Right at the end we read through the second half of Belshazzar. I'm absolutely delighted that we'll be doing this seated in two choirs, as we haven't the last few times we've done it, and it's just not the same. We had the 2nd sopranos behind us tonight, which was a pleasant change (and an added bonus in the fact that they didn't talk incessantly... although the few 1st altos who usually make it really hard to hear anything did actually shut up a bit in the second half, presumably as a result of Jamie pointing out that they make rehearsals unnecessarily unpleasant for those near them - so yay!)
More tomorrow, when there'll presumably be the first half of Belshazzar, the last bit of The Bells, and maybe even a bit of Zadok....
Started with the Mendelssohn thingy we'll be starting with on Sunday (for the Sing with the Hallé day). It's pretty easy - just what's needed to get everyone singing. And it prompted some early Jamieisms.... "I've been thinking about Sunday (not without fear!) ... What you could really help with, folks, is singing a little closer to the beat!" (Hmm. That one seemed funnier at the time!) Oh, and also "I heard a lot of lovely mistakes. It was a real joy!"
We had a very quick look at three of the four movements of The Bells. Not performing this till November, but it's pretty hard so it's just as well we started early. I think it'd be quite hard even if it wasn't in Russian... mind you, at least we get to work with the wonderful Xenia again (must find out what the correct spelling is). She's the "XdB" mentioned on the schedule, in case anyone had wondered. In the meantime we get stuff like "The little squiggle above that note is a tiny non-existent Y".... Isn't Russian great? :p
The Bells in question are sleigh bells, wedding bells, alarm bells and funeral bells. We didn't have time to run through the funeral bell movement, but we did all the rest. The alarm bell movement was by far the hardest, but I very much enjoyed Jamie's extremely dramatic reading of the lyrics to prepare us for it! I feel that the 2nd altos (of course) won when it came to singing as many of the notes as possible. Many of these were totally incorrect, of course (at least from me) but we like to be enthusiastic :-) (When I was at school the Director of Music's motto for choral singing was always "LOUD AND WRONG!" and I have tried to follow his advice ever since.)
Right at the end we read through the second half of Belshazzar. I'm absolutely delighted that we'll be doing this seated in two choirs, as we haven't the last few times we've done it, and it's just not the same. We had the 2nd sopranos behind us tonight, which was a pleasant change (and an added bonus in the fact that they didn't talk incessantly... although the few 1st altos who usually make it really hard to hear anything did actually shut up a bit in the second half, presumably as a result of Jamie pointing out that they make rehearsals unnecessarily unpleasant for those near them - so yay!)
More tomorrow, when there'll presumably be the first half of Belshazzar, the last bit of The Bells, and maybe even a bit of Zadok....
Monday, September 05, 2005
New baby!
Just got a call from Laurie (Rachel's partner). She's had a baby boy, 6 lb 11 oz, at 4.30 pm yesterday (Sunday) (which I think was the actual due date). This was after 48 hours labour followed by a Caesarian, but mother and baby are both doing fine. They'll be in hospital for a few days yet, but any comments left here will be passed on by Laurie, I should imagine. (And he promises to send me some photos soon!) They are 90% sure of the name, but I won't tell you what it is just yet, in case they change their mind.
This is going to make me late for work, but...
Graham E just emailed to point out that our Music Makers CD is released today! Remember that the Hallé gets more money from it if you buy it from their website...
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Eek! A month?!?
So sorry that I've neglected this blog for all that time, if you've been checking regularly. Back in the groove now though :-)
Spent most of the last month at home mainly playing World of Warcraft, so I have no excuse. I did spend 5 days in Glasgow, though (at the World Science Fiction Convention - I have some fabulous T shirts as a souvenir!) and I have sailed quite a bit. Back at work now, though, so the elves of Azeroth will have to manage without me...
Choir starts back on Wednesday. I've just spent a while updating the online schedule (if you don't have that bookmarked, do so now, because remember that it's deliberately not usually linked from anywhere else, and not Googleable - clever eh?). Oh, and the choir concerts page too.
I must say the thing I'm looking forward to most at the moment is the Sing with the Hallé day, but I can't decide whether I'm more excited about the prospect of the sound of all those people singing what is already one of the loudest pieces there is (and I'm presuming that for once none of the brass will have to be reined in!)... or finding out how on earth Jamie plans to teach it to everyone in just a few hours! (It's not even as if it's the only piece we're doing that day!) I think, on balance, the latter intrigues me more :p
Update on DVDs of our Proms performance: Five people have asked for copies so far. If anyone else wants one, now is the time to say so. The video file has now been transferred to the computer of the friend who's agreed to burn the DVDs. I don't want to nag him about it though, because he's doing it as a favour (and refusing to accept any money from me for doing it, so don't anyone try to give me any!) but I'm sure he'll do them pretty soon, if only to reclaim his disk space.
And finally - my very good friend Rachel Brown (of the 1st altos), who was very pregnant the last time most of you saw her, is in labour as we speak! Exciting! I'll post here if there's an update. Otherwise, see you on Wednesday :-)
Spent most of the last month at home mainly playing World of Warcraft, so I have no excuse. I did spend 5 days in Glasgow, though (at the World Science Fiction Convention - I have some fabulous T shirts as a souvenir!) and I have sailed quite a bit. Back at work now, though, so the elves of Azeroth will have to manage without me...
Choir starts back on Wednesday. I've just spent a while updating the online schedule (if you don't have that bookmarked, do so now, because remember that it's deliberately not usually linked from anywhere else, and not Googleable - clever eh?). Oh, and the choir concerts page too.
I must say the thing I'm looking forward to most at the moment is the Sing with the Hallé day, but I can't decide whether I'm more excited about the prospect of the sound of all those people singing what is already one of the loudest pieces there is (and I'm presuming that for once none of the brass will have to be reined in!)... or finding out how on earth Jamie plans to teach it to everyone in just a few hours! (It's not even as if it's the only piece we're doing that day!) I think, on balance, the latter intrigues me more :p
Update on DVDs of our Proms performance: Five people have asked for copies so far. If anyone else wants one, now is the time to say so. The video file has now been transferred to the computer of the friend who's agreed to burn the DVDs. I don't want to nag him about it though, because he's doing it as a favour (and refusing to accept any money from me for doing it, so don't anyone try to give me any!) but I'm sure he'll do them pretty soon, if only to reclaim his disk space.
And finally - my very good friend Rachel Brown (of the 1st altos), who was very pregnant the last time most of you saw her, is in labour as we speak! Exciting! I'll post here if there's an update. Otherwise, see you on Wednesday :-)
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