Mark's on the radio tonight!

He's on Classic FM on The Guest List. "The conductor Mark Elder tells us why taking charge of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester was a chance not to be missed." 10pm till midnight, but I don't know what stage of the programme he'll be on. Thanks to Sheena for pointing this out.

EDIT: He was on right at the start, for half an hour including music, but Graham E has sent a recording that helpfully has just the chat (about 10 minutes - 9MB). Mark didn't mention the choir! We will have to have words >.<

She also alerted me to a concert by the Alteri chamber choir (conducted by David Jones, the Hallé accompanist, and featuring several Hallé singers). It's at Manchester Cathedral on Saturday 18th February and features the music of Jeffrey Lewis. Details are here and a flyer here.

No reviews yet for Thursday's gig, at least not that I can find. The commodore of my sailing club was there, though, and said it was fabulous and the choir was the highlight. He didn't hear the siren, though... Graham E sent me an email saying "here's the men's entry" and after my initial shock that he thought I might want to see such a thing, I noticed (with some relief) that he'd attached an mp3 rather than a picture, and guess what - no siren! In my defence, Libby says she didn't notice it was missing either :-)

Graham's email reminded me of another one he sent me a while ago, alerting me to the fact that our Music Makers CD was picked as one of the best classical albums of 2005 by the Manchester Evening News.

While searching for Shostakovich 2 reviews, I did find two interesting things. Firstly, this Times review says that our concert is not to be missed, which is nice... but I noticed an odd thing. It doesn't say anywhere what Shostakovich was actually played in the concert under review! Pity, because he obviously really liked it... This Independent review is better though. Listen to this bit, when it moves from reviewing the BBC Phil concert to the Hallé concert: "Though the gap between Manchester's symphony orchestras has closed of late, the following night's performance was of a far higher quality. Where the BBC Phil use Bridgewater Hall's flattering acoustics like a therapeutic bath, the Hallé have found a way to cut through the gloss without losing any glow or shimmer." Go team!