Happy birthday Mozart :-)

But first some news that has no connection with Mozart. Barbara points out this Guardian article. For those who aren't registered and can't be bothered, an excerpt:

The BBC plans to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ this Easter with an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester featuring pop stars from The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and featuring songs by The Smiths and New Order. In the programme, called Manchester Passion, a character representing Jesus will sing the legendary Joy Division anthem Love Will Tear Us Apart before dueting his arch-betrayer Judas on the New Order hit Blue Monday, according to senior church sources involved in the production.

Mary Magdelene, the penitent whore of the New Testament, is also getting in on the act: she is being lined up to sing the Buzzcocks hit Ever Fallen in Love (with Someone You Shouldn't have) accompanied by a string band. Former Happy Monday and Celebrity Big Brother winner Bez will play a disciple. The climax of the event sees Jesus sing the Smiths classic song Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now as he is being flayed by Roman soldiers. He will then come face-to-face with his Roman prosecutor Pontius Pilate with the two of them singing a duet of the Oasis hit Wonderwall.

The BBC, which plans to show the event live on BBC3 on Good Friday, insisted the event was inspired by "the way Bach and other composers fused music and the Passion story". The "contemporary retelling" of Jesus' last hours will begin with the messiah - who is yet to be cast - singing the Robbie Williams hit Angels, which will mark his procession into Jerusalem. In this case, Jerusalem will be represented by Manchester's gay and red light area near Canal Street and the Passion scene will pass via Chinatown and St Peter's Square to culminate in Albert Square. The march will be followed by members of the public who will be encouraged to join in the singing of relevant anthems, which include the M People hit Search for a Hero Inside Yourself. ... The event will end with the resurrected Jesus singing an as yet undisclosed song from the top of Manchester's town hall.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? As Barbara says, "they might even want a world class choir to take part".... EDIT: The BBC dispute some of the details, and I suppose they ought to know...

Anyway, in honour of Mozart's 250th birthday, a couple of mp3s for you: Ronda Alla Turca and the first movement of Symphony no. 25 (aka the Amadeus theme). Not the only Mozart there is, of course, but you've all probably got it all on CD anyway - I've just put these up in case there's someone who has no Mozart CDs and wants to celebrate the anniversary :-)

Sorry for the delay in posting, anyway. I did mean to post last night but Blogger was down. Not a huge amount to say about the rehearsal though. We sang every note of both symphonies, and did a bit on the Russian. I don't think Natalia was too impressed (particularly by the dirty E vowel, which made her sigh and shake her head rather a lot) but unfortunately there wasn't time to do any more work on the linguistic side of the project. Jamie, as usual when time is against us and things aren't going too well, kept amazingly calm and patient. I think everything will be much better with the orchestra, anyway - the trainee accompanists are probably great pianists, but they're nowhere near as good as David at following the beat, with the result that they were frequently several beats behind Jamie. This really didn't help!

I don't seem to have written down many Jamieisms. There was:

"Let those 4 bars be an oasis of vocal good health."

"You're like a mighty beast. Be the beast more often!"

... and that was it! Lots of opportunities for more next week though.

Oh, and Pat showed us the new ladies' sashes, which may even be ready for the first Shostakovich gig. Very exciting - we got the current ones in 1996! There was some concern that they look orange rather than red, but I trust that was just due to the lights. (And to those people who are assuming they're red "to fit in with the Youth Choir", which several people said last night - that's not true. The colour is to fit in with the Hallé brand colours (black, grey, white, red - remember?) and that's why the Youth Choir red was chosen. The Hallé has wanted to replace the turquoise sashes ever since the new branding came in. The colour was a no-brainer - I believe the delay is due to them being unable to agree on the fabric...) Also some concern that it sounds as if we have to sew them ourselves, but maybe Pat saw the looks of horror on the faces of large numbers of the altos (and, I assume, the sopranos too) because she finished her speech with the promise that she would try to make as many as possible herself. She's a star :-)

Oh, and finally - a mystery solved! Remember when I wrote about the last carol concert, I said there was an artist sitting in the side circle and I wondered who it was? I now know the answer! Martin Yule, one of our 1st tenors (and someone who I knew very well by sight but never knew his name until tonight) came over to tell me that it was his son who was the artist, and the painting (I think he said painting, although it might be drawing) is in their living room and he will try to bring it to show us next week! It wasn't a commission or anything, he just loves to draw :-)