Well, the MEN review thinks we all were. I suppose there are worse things to be called. We did better than the soprano soloist, who wasn't mentioned at all (at least not in connection with the Fauré)!
A few bits of other news to pass on, so this will be a bit listish:
Mark is conducting the Last Night of the Proms! This is probably something everyone knew except me, but I'm pointing it out in case you missed it. All the details are now online. Oh, and it appears we're not in the Proms in the Park again - it's the BBC Phil. (With the ubiquitous Heather Stott!)
Jamie's Oxford chamber choir is doing something interesting-looking in June. (On a Wednesday night, too, so I guess he won't be conducting us that night...) It's called the Oxford Blues service - "Choral Evensong in the jazz idiom, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3" - and looks like great fun! "The work deliberately allows scope for improvisation from both the singers and conductor...."
Incidentally, I recently discovered that the "Master Tallis's Testament" idea for a concert programme is not new to us - see this post (from the On An Overgrown Path blog over a year ago). I wonder whether or not Jamie knew about that before he concocted ours. Great minds do think alike, though :p
Oh, and the media interest in the Manchester Passion has died down now, but I did see this article on the Guardian blog this week, which mentions it in fairly glowing terms.
For those who've signed up for the People's Chorus, Barbara points out this site to help you learn it. The BBC site says we will know by 12th May whether we're in it or not, and that there will be links to websites with the music on them.
And finally, I've just remembered that I planned to write something about the War of the Worlds live show. The following is an excerpt from the LJ post I did about it, so to anyone who is on my LJ list, apologies for the duplication!
I accidentally saw The War of the Worlds twice last Sunday. First, the Tom Cruise film, which it's possible I might have almost enjoyed (although not a lot) if it hadn't claimed to be "The War of the Worlds". As it was, I didn't.
Then, that night, I saw the live show of the Jeff Wayne version. (Times review here.) It had special effects that were fairly laughable - probably not only less than a millionth of the budget for the Tom Cruise film, but I wouldn't be surprised if the budget was less than 10% of the special effects for *McFly* (which was the last show I saw at the MEN Arena). It also had a film playing on a screen behind the musicians most of the way through, when there were no live soloists onstage. And this film looked as if it had been filmed on someone's phone and edited with free software. Oh, and (I'm sure this is the bit you'll all have read about) it had a disembodied head which was supposed to look like Richard Burton in his heyday, which moved its mouth in sync with the narration (and waggled its eyebrows alarmingly from time to time - and it winked during the curtain call...) And it had Russell Watson playing a small role (Parson Nathaniel), and I really hate Russell Watson.
And yet.
It was FABULOUS. I LOVED it. Even without the comparison with Tom Cruise I would've loved it. And I hadn't expected to love it quite as much as I did, so I wanted to examine the reasons behind this experience, because I was thinking about this during the show.
See, what was great was that they played the whole album, live, so that it sounded more or less exactly like the recording. And of course this is not always the most exciting thing to do in a live performance - I know many people (including myself) who would rate a gig as fairly boring if there were NO changes from versions I'd heard before. But in this case it was vital. The whole audience appeared to be more or less the same age as me (I'd estimate there were at most 10% there who were more than 10 years older or younger than me). And EVERYONE my age owned this album. It came out in 1978 (when I was in the 3rd year at school) and was played to death for years afterwards. I had a freaky experience with it on my first astronomical camping trip in 1980 (long story). In the past 28 years, I've heard it gradually less frequently, but it's never quite left my head, and I think you'd be hard-pushed to find someone in their late 30s/early 40s who doesn't think of this album whenever the phrase "War of the Worlds" is mentioned.
So, actually seeing it live was an unbelievable thrill. The visual aspect wasn't all that thrilling, but seeing the orchestra (who played far less than I'd always thought) and a band including HERBIE FLOWERS on bass (I'd totally forgotten that was him), and then to cap it all JUSTIN HAYWARD singing his original bits (he is 60 this year but didn't sound any different to how he used to with the Moody Blues)... wow.
And I just kept thinking how very familiar it all was. To the extent that, for example, everyone in the audience knew exactly when the interval would be, because we all owned the album on vinyl and knew when side 1 ended. And it occurred to me that today's younger music-listening generation will never have that feeling, as a result of shuffle play and single tracks from iTMS etc. And I'm sure none of them are worried about that at all - well, neither am I really, but it does sadden me slightly to know that shared musical experiences like the one I witnessed that night are a dying breed.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Friday, April 28, 2006
Welcome the altos into the f-ray
This was Jamie's worst pun tonight (and there were some really bad ones... e.g. "You have great looks but no loo-x!" to the sops who weren't using the right vowel on Lux Aeterna...). It referred to the last two chords of the Sanctus. (What do you think Fauré had against altos? Must read his life story sometime to try and find out!)
Not much to say, actually. Just about everything went wrong for me today (including a crisis I only discovered when I got home tonight) so it was good that the concert went well - it was a very welcome oasis of loveliness! I thought we did rather well. The soloists sounded a bit better tonight (but still not spectacular). Well, actually, the baritone was fine, but the sop was still flat. (She sounded pretty good in the weird Debussy song in the first half though. In fact, the whole of the first half was weird! Not unpleasantly so, though.) But the choir was great :-) Particularly the sops, actually. They sounded fantastic. There were several places where I had a huge grin on my face because of the loveliness from the other side of the choir!
Oh, and Jamie used the "keep the tiller in the water" analogy again. I wanted to tell him how little sense this makes, but there was no time, because we rehearsed till about 7.29 pm (well, it felt like it) and then I had to get changed. But I will explain boats to him the next chance I get :p
I'll write more tomorrow (maybe) but am off to sleep now, having spent the time since I got home preparing school stuff for tomorrow. Non-teachers conveniently forget these details when they complain about the length of our holidays!
Not much to say, actually. Just about everything went wrong for me today (including a crisis I only discovered when I got home tonight) so it was good that the concert went well - it was a very welcome oasis of loveliness! I thought we did rather well. The soloists sounded a bit better tonight (but still not spectacular). Well, actually, the baritone was fine, but the sop was still flat. (She sounded pretty good in the weird Debussy song in the first half though. In fact, the whole of the first half was weird! Not unpleasantly so, though.) But the choir was great :-) Particularly the sops, actually. They sounded fantastic. There were several places where I had a huge grin on my face because of the loveliness from the other side of the choir!
Oh, and Jamie used the "keep the tiller in the water" analogy again. I wanted to tell him how little sense this makes, but there was no time, because we rehearsed till about 7.29 pm (well, it felt like it) and then I had to get changed. But I will explain boats to him the next chance I get :p
I'll write more tomorrow (maybe) but am off to sleep now, having spent the time since I got home preparing school stuff for tomorrow. Non-teachers conveniently forget these details when they complain about the length of our holidays!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
"I can only see the bottom half of your body!" said the organist to the conductor...
So, this is the Beetham Tower. Hands up who's heard of it? Tallest UK building outside London, etc.? ... OK, now hands up who's noticed that it is RIGHT OPPOSITE THE BRIDGEWATER HALL?
No, me neither, until tonight, and that was only because the sunset was glinting prettily off the side of it (not the side in that picture, sadly). In my defence, I don't often have reason to look up that high in the city centre (the light pollution makes the stars invisible, see) and the bottom of the building isn't that different from all the other new buildings.
Anyway. Orchestral rehearsal for the Fauré tonight. Went OK, although the highlight was definitely finishing over an hour early! No huge disasters from our point of view. We were somewhat disappointed with the soloists - the baritone was OK but nothing spectactular, and the soprano was flat. The fact that there was no applause at the end of the Pie Jesu was very telling, I thought. But maybe they'll both rise to the occasion tomorrow.
We didn't have much time with Jamie, hence no Jamieisms. Although there were an alarming amount of giddy-ups from him during the off-the-voice arpeggio warmup...
Letter H of Libera Me
Yes, you're right, I should be asleep, but (a) I can't sleep, and (b) I'm waiting for one of my cats to come in :-)
I can see I'm going to be wiped out by the end of this week. Back to school yesterday, GCSE coursework to sort out for 2 subjects, any number of other urgent things that have to be done this week... and we have choir tonight (piano rehearsal), tomorrow (orchestral rehearsal) and Thursday (concert)! Argh! At least it's a fabulous piece that I love dearly (Fauré's Requiem, for those who aren't paying attention).
Not much to report, actually, so in a minute I'm going to treat you to my "notable bits of Fauré's Requiem". I know you want to hear that! Not even any Jamieisms (well, except something I forgot to write down at the time, about the altos and tenors keeping an eye on each other's bits... it made Dr Liz giggle!)
We've got a new temporary choral administrator, called Rosie. She was extremely well received by the choir, particularly by the men... being young and pretty probably helped there, mind you :p But the ladies of the choir were equally delighted to meet Micha Hamel, the conductor. He looked even younger in the flesh than in his pictures, but was very lovely... Not the loudest of voices - I had trouble hearing what he said at times, and I wasn't right at the back - but other than that he was very clear about what he wanted, which is a good thing in a conductor.
Dr Liz and I watched at the break, as the person who was picked for the semi-chorus but then asked to reaudition to stay in the choir (I don't think it's a huge secret who this is, but I feel that it's not up to me to name her in such a public forum as this) - confronted Jamie. They had quite a long chat, but I don't think she was entirely satisfied by his answers. One of these was that when choosing the semi-chorus, he was choosing good, reliable sight-readers.
...
(That's a pause while you imagine my reaction to that! I will say no more.)
Oh, and I saw the live show of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds on Sunday night. Might write about that tomorrow, though, because both the cats are now in :-) So I'll cut to the "notable bits", which I actually wrote down first, but not before reminding you all to sign up for the People's Chorus if you haven't yet done so!
Anyway, here we go... Fauré's Requiem - the Notable Bits!
Well, actually, first of all I'm going to list my favourite bits, because they're ALL notable :-) Wendy and I were pointing them out to each other as we went along. The title of this post - Letter H of Libera Me - is the one I've decided is probably my favourite of the whole piece. It's the alto/bass low bit - actually, though, the whole of the Libera Me is possibly my favourite bit. Well, actually, the whole Requiem :-)
Other good bits:
• 3rd bar of A in Sanctus (first time the orchestral bass note changes)
• 2nd bar of B in Sanctus (bass note descends to F, and we're suddenly, and very unexpectedly, in D minor)
• Letter E of Sanctus (the horn bit!)
• 2 bars later (the men's bit!)
• Letter G of Agnus Dei (horns again...)
• 2nd bar of B in Pie Jesu (nice chord, and also the first time the soloist has orchestral accompaniment; until then, she sings with the organ, and the orchestra play in the gaps)
• 3rd bar of B in In Paradisum (men's chords)
Other general info about the instrumentation:
The violas and the cellos are both split into 2 parts throughout (in the Sanctus, the 2 viola parts play arpeggios in contrary motion most of the way through).
The first thing the violins play is, very unusually, not until bar 5 of the Sanctus, and even then they're muted. They don't play in the Pie Jesu. The first unmuted thing they play is the big Agnus Dei intro. Oh, and the bit right after letter G of the Agnus Dei LOOKS like the beginning, but this time the violins play too. (Then in Libera Me they don't play till the fast bit.)
There are 2 harps, who only play in the Sanctus, Pie Jesu and 2nd half of In Paradisum, and they play the same as each other most of the time.
The altos only sing the last 2 notes of the Sanctus, and not much more in In Paradisum. (All altos know this, but other parts might not have noticed!)
The trumpets don't play again after the Sanctus (no, not even in the loud bit of Libera Me).
The flutes and clarinets only play in the Pie Jesu.
The "Lux aeterna" bit (2 before E) in the Agnus Dei is what I think of as "the Fauré Requiem bit". I think this is because there's a bit in Mozart's Requiem that's very similar, and I knew the Fauré many years before I first heard the Mozart. The fact that the latter predates the former by over 100 years doesn't seem to have registered with that part of my brain :p
---
Anyway, sleep!
I can see I'm going to be wiped out by the end of this week. Back to school yesterday, GCSE coursework to sort out for 2 subjects, any number of other urgent things that have to be done this week... and we have choir tonight (piano rehearsal), tomorrow (orchestral rehearsal) and Thursday (concert)! Argh! At least it's a fabulous piece that I love dearly (Fauré's Requiem, for those who aren't paying attention).
Not much to report, actually, so in a minute I'm going to treat you to my "notable bits of Fauré's Requiem". I know you want to hear that! Not even any Jamieisms (well, except something I forgot to write down at the time, about the altos and tenors keeping an eye on each other's bits... it made Dr Liz giggle!)
We've got a new temporary choral administrator, called Rosie. She was extremely well received by the choir, particularly by the men... being young and pretty probably helped there, mind you :p But the ladies of the choir were equally delighted to meet Micha Hamel, the conductor. He looked even younger in the flesh than in his pictures, but was very lovely... Not the loudest of voices - I had trouble hearing what he said at times, and I wasn't right at the back - but other than that he was very clear about what he wanted, which is a good thing in a conductor.
Dr Liz and I watched at the break, as the person who was picked for the semi-chorus but then asked to reaudition to stay in the choir (I don't think it's a huge secret who this is, but I feel that it's not up to me to name her in such a public forum as this) - confronted Jamie. They had quite a long chat, but I don't think she was entirely satisfied by his answers. One of these was that when choosing the semi-chorus, he was choosing good, reliable sight-readers.
...
(That's a pause while you imagine my reaction to that! I will say no more.)
Oh, and I saw the live show of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds on Sunday night. Might write about that tomorrow, though, because both the cats are now in :-) So I'll cut to the "notable bits", which I actually wrote down first, but not before reminding you all to sign up for the People's Chorus if you haven't yet done so!
Anyway, here we go... Fauré's Requiem - the Notable Bits!
Well, actually, first of all I'm going to list my favourite bits, because they're ALL notable :-) Wendy and I were pointing them out to each other as we went along. The title of this post - Letter H of Libera Me - is the one I've decided is probably my favourite of the whole piece. It's the alto/bass low bit - actually, though, the whole of the Libera Me is possibly my favourite bit. Well, actually, the whole Requiem :-)
Other good bits:
• 3rd bar of A in Sanctus (first time the orchestral bass note changes)
• 2nd bar of B in Sanctus (bass note descends to F, and we're suddenly, and very unexpectedly, in D minor)
• Letter E of Sanctus (the horn bit!)
• 2 bars later (the men's bit!)
• Letter G of Agnus Dei (horns again...)
• 2nd bar of B in Pie Jesu (nice chord, and also the first time the soloist has orchestral accompaniment; until then, she sings with the organ, and the orchestra play in the gaps)
• 3rd bar of B in In Paradisum (men's chords)
Other general info about the instrumentation:
The violas and the cellos are both split into 2 parts throughout (in the Sanctus, the 2 viola parts play arpeggios in contrary motion most of the way through).
The first thing the violins play is, very unusually, not until bar 5 of the Sanctus, and even then they're muted. They don't play in the Pie Jesu. The first unmuted thing they play is the big Agnus Dei intro. Oh, and the bit right after letter G of the Agnus Dei LOOKS like the beginning, but this time the violins play too. (Then in Libera Me they don't play till the fast bit.)
There are 2 harps, who only play in the Sanctus, Pie Jesu and 2nd half of In Paradisum, and they play the same as each other most of the time.
The altos only sing the last 2 notes of the Sanctus, and not much more in In Paradisum. (All altos know this, but other parts might not have noticed!)
The trumpets don't play again after the Sanctus (no, not even in the loud bit of Libera Me).
The flutes and clarinets only play in the Pie Jesu.
The "Lux aeterna" bit (2 before E) in the Agnus Dei is what I think of as "the Fauré Requiem bit". I think this is because there's a bit in Mozart's Requiem that's very similar, and I knew the Fauré many years before I first heard the Mozart. The fact that the latter predates the former by over 100 years doesn't seem to have registered with that part of my brain :p
---
Anyway, sleep!
Sunday, April 16, 2006
I am the Resurrection
Loads of people are coming here looking for stuff about the Manchester Passion, most of them wanting song lists and cast lists - so I'll point you all to this Wikipedia page about it, which has both. I just edited it myself, because it had a couple of things missing - most reports haven't mentioned the inclusion of Hallelujah or Ever Fallen In Love, probably because they were both only played by the orchestra; and I haven't seen anywhere that mentions the lovely Chris Bisson, who ended up being Barabbas. (I'm sure I read that Barabbas was supposed to be Bez, but he only appeared as one of the criminals in the van. At least, I'm pretty sure that was him - can anyone confirm or deny?)
Everyone seems to have either loved or hated the Passion. From the reports I've seen, the vast majority thought it was great (try googling or searching blogs to see LOTS more opinions), but then you could argue that people who hated it would be less inclined to write about it. To answer two common objections, though: Quite a few people complained that it made no sense for Peter to sing "I am the Resurrection", but he only sang the verse (i.e. not actually mentioning the Resurrection at all), and if you look at the lyrics, you'll see that they fit Peter quite well. And as for the inclusion of a Robbie Williams song, the official line on that was "Yes I know Robbie Williams isn’t from Manchester but the argument is that he was in Take That who were managed from a Manchester base. Some might say that’s a bit tenuous but there you are. It’s too late to change it now."
One more thing I forgot to mention about the Passion - the fact that technically it all went amazingly well, except for one notable thing. At the end (after the live transmission) when they were having the singalong, the crowd shouted for Tim Booth to come to the front and sing "Sit Down" (his own song, but it wasn't him that got to sing it in the show). And he did... but could the BBC get his mic to work? Or could anyone even run out and give him a handheld mic? Apparently not :-( Oh well - at least we SAW him sing it, even if we couldn't hear him at all!
Anyway. What else did I want to mention? Loads of stuff that's much more choir-related! To start with, I discovered a choral singer's blog, which appears to have been going for quite a while. (The most recent article made me blink... for a moment I thought Jamie had had a church named after him!) I've not read everything, but there are a couple of particularly relevant articles: The missing chamber choirs of Manchester, and The missing church choirs of Manchester. See what you think.
Another fascinating website I found recently: Musipedia. This is a way to identify tunes in various ways, including singing to your computer! It didn't manage to identify what I was looking for, but maybe you'll have better luck. (And maybe one of you can answer my question: you know the Wembley song? "Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee..." What is the name of the original tune? I have a few more football-song-related queries, but that's the one I most urgently need to know... and have been totally unable to find the answer to...)
And did you know about Google Latin?
A specifically Hallé Choir thing I've been meaning to say for ages: I'm really disappointed by the low number of people who have said they'll do the Sheffield gig next month. (Only 62% of the ladies.) It's really frustrating, because I absolutely love doing out-of-town concerts, and the vast majority, in the questionnaire, said they wanted to do more of them. But unfortunately if such low numbers sign up, we are unlikely to get to do ANY - the Hallé Concerts Society have a reputation to uphold, and since they do several concerts a year at Sheffield, Leeds, Hanley etc., they don't want to risk their relationship with those venues by putting on sub-standard concerts. And choral concerts with not enough singers to balance the orchestra count as sub-standard. So unless they are confident that the choir will turn out when requested, they won't book concerts that involve us. And THAT means that if we don't get more ladies going to Sheffield than are currently on the list, we are unlikely to get to go anywhere else any time soon. (And of course there is a similar problem with regard to "home" concerts. Everyone said in the questionnaire that they wanted to do more of the really big works - but when we rarely have more than 100 of the choir on the platform, they're just not going to book concerts that need a huge choir! There is of course the option of bringing in another choir - which we all hate, but there isn't much choice in the circumstances - but that costs them a lot of money so they are more likely in the future to just not put on concerts with big choirs...)
Anyway, baseball is on soon (yay!) so I'll stop. Go Braves!
EDIT: One more thing. Just updated our concerts page and noticed that we now have a replacement conductor for the Fauré. Micha Hamel - he's younger than me, and looks quite striking, doesn't he?
Everyone seems to have either loved or hated the Passion. From the reports I've seen, the vast majority thought it was great (try googling or searching blogs to see LOTS more opinions), but then you could argue that people who hated it would be less inclined to write about it. To answer two common objections, though: Quite a few people complained that it made no sense for Peter to sing "I am the Resurrection", but he only sang the verse (i.e. not actually mentioning the Resurrection at all), and if you look at the lyrics, you'll see that they fit Peter quite well. And as for the inclusion of a Robbie Williams song, the official line on that was "Yes I know Robbie Williams isn’t from Manchester but the argument is that he was in Take That who were managed from a Manchester base. Some might say that’s a bit tenuous but there you are. It’s too late to change it now."
One more thing I forgot to mention about the Passion - the fact that technically it all went amazingly well, except for one notable thing. At the end (after the live transmission) when they were having the singalong, the crowd shouted for Tim Booth to come to the front and sing "Sit Down" (his own song, but it wasn't him that got to sing it in the show). And he did... but could the BBC get his mic to work? Or could anyone even run out and give him a handheld mic? Apparently not :-( Oh well - at least we SAW him sing it, even if we couldn't hear him at all!
Anyway. What else did I want to mention? Loads of stuff that's much more choir-related! To start with, I discovered a choral singer's blog, which appears to have been going for quite a while. (The most recent article made me blink... for a moment I thought Jamie had had a church named after him!) I've not read everything, but there are a couple of particularly relevant articles: The missing chamber choirs of Manchester, and The missing church choirs of Manchester. See what you think.
Another fascinating website I found recently: Musipedia. This is a way to identify tunes in various ways, including singing to your computer! It didn't manage to identify what I was looking for, but maybe you'll have better luck. (And maybe one of you can answer my question: you know the Wembley song? "Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee..." What is the name of the original tune? I have a few more football-song-related queries, but that's the one I most urgently need to know... and have been totally unable to find the answer to...)
And did you know about Google Latin?
A specifically Hallé Choir thing I've been meaning to say for ages: I'm really disappointed by the low number of people who have said they'll do the Sheffield gig next month. (Only 62% of the ladies.) It's really frustrating, because I absolutely love doing out-of-town concerts, and the vast majority, in the questionnaire, said they wanted to do more of them. But unfortunately if such low numbers sign up, we are unlikely to get to do ANY - the Hallé Concerts Society have a reputation to uphold, and since they do several concerts a year at Sheffield, Leeds, Hanley etc., they don't want to risk their relationship with those venues by putting on sub-standard concerts. And choral concerts with not enough singers to balance the orchestra count as sub-standard. So unless they are confident that the choir will turn out when requested, they won't book concerts that involve us. And THAT means that if we don't get more ladies going to Sheffield than are currently on the list, we are unlikely to get to go anywhere else any time soon. (And of course there is a similar problem with regard to "home" concerts. Everyone said in the questionnaire that they wanted to do more of the really big works - but when we rarely have more than 100 of the choir on the platform, they're just not going to book concerts that need a huge choir! There is of course the option of bringing in another choir - which we all hate, but there isn't much choice in the circumstances - but that costs them a lot of money so they are more likely in the future to just not put on concerts with big choirs...)
Anyway, baseball is on soon (yay!) so I'll stop. Go Braves!
EDIT: One more thing. Just updated our concerts page and noticed that we now have a replacement conductor for the Fauré. Micha Hamel - he's younger than me, and looks quite striking, doesn't he?
Saturday, April 15, 2006
"Ironically, we're waiting for Jesus to come down!"
... said Keith Allen after the Manchester Passion went off air. (They wanted to have a bit of a singalong with the whole cast and crowd, but Jesus was still at the top of the Town Hall tower, from which he'd sung his last song.)
It was fun! Not seen the whole of the broadcast yet, because the traffic getting out of town was so bad that I didn't get home till 11.30 (normally I'd have been on the train, but helpfully there were engineering works. Typical.) But from the bit I saw, they weren't focussing on where we were standing. Not to worry - we were right at the front so had a fabulous view. (I took a couple of pictures before and after the show - will put them online shortly.)
The singing (of the "communal choir") was not quite as successful as they'd hoped, I suspect. Although there were lots of people singing. The problem was one of placement - the volunteer singers weren't all together, we were scattered through the crowd in groups. I think it would have been a lot better if all the singers had been where we were - we were put in the ridiculously named "golden circle" (i.e. right in front of the stage) as we were assumed to be the best (quite rightly!) But also in the golden circle were a load of people with guest passes - relatives of the cast, etc., I think - and most of them didn't sing at all but spent the whole time talking very loudly so they could hear each other over the speakers. Oh well. We sang very loudly anyway :-)
There was a warmup comedian guy before the show, called (I think) John Warburton. He explained to the crowd what would happen and what they were asked to do: "Don't cheer Jesus. if they set him free it'll all go wrong! ... It seems a bit harsh, but it's already happened, to be honest." He also sang Oasis's Live Forever so we could warm up our voices - of course, we hadn't practised that one and only knew one line of the lyrics, but still! Oh, and he got the crowd to do a "Manchester wave", which consisted of that hand symbol with the thumb, forefinger and little finger raised, and shouts of "ee!" as these hands were raised in one direction, and "ah!" when the wave came back the other way. It was more amusing than it sounds, honest!
There was also: "Anyone here from London?" [a few people cheer; rest of crowd boo] "Don't boo them, they're only here to steal our water!"
I still have a list of things I wanted to mention, but I'm off to Harrogate in a minute, so I'll finish tomorrow.
EDIT: Pics from yesterday are online here. (Still waiting for cats to come in before I can go out!) At first I was disappointed that the one of Jesus on the edge of the stage talking on his phone was spoiled by the lights. But in hindsight I think it's kind of appropriate!
It was fun! Not seen the whole of the broadcast yet, because the traffic getting out of town was so bad that I didn't get home till 11.30 (normally I'd have been on the train, but helpfully there were engineering works. Typical.) But from the bit I saw, they weren't focussing on where we were standing. Not to worry - we were right at the front so had a fabulous view. (I took a couple of pictures before and after the show - will put them online shortly.)
The singing (of the "communal choir") was not quite as successful as they'd hoped, I suspect. Although there were lots of people singing. The problem was one of placement - the volunteer singers weren't all together, we were scattered through the crowd in groups. I think it would have been a lot better if all the singers had been where we were - we were put in the ridiculously named "golden circle" (i.e. right in front of the stage) as we were assumed to be the best (quite rightly!) But also in the golden circle were a load of people with guest passes - relatives of the cast, etc., I think - and most of them didn't sing at all but spent the whole time talking very loudly so they could hear each other over the speakers. Oh well. We sang very loudly anyway :-)
There was a warmup comedian guy before the show, called (I think) John Warburton. He explained to the crowd what would happen and what they were asked to do: "Don't cheer Jesus. if they set him free it'll all go wrong! ... It seems a bit harsh, but it's already happened, to be honest." He also sang Oasis's Live Forever so we could warm up our voices - of course, we hadn't practised that one and only knew one line of the lyrics, but still! Oh, and he got the crowd to do a "Manchester wave", which consisted of that hand symbol with the thumb, forefinger and little finger raised, and shouts of "ee!" as these hands were raised in one direction, and "ah!" when the wave came back the other way. It was more amusing than it sounds, honest!
There was also: "Anyone here from London?" [a few people cheer; rest of crowd boo] "Don't boo them, they're only here to steal our water!"
I still have a list of things I wanted to mention, but I'm off to Harrogate in a minute, so I'll finish tomorrow.
EDIT: Pics from yesterday are online here. (Still waiting for cats to come in before I can go out!) At first I was disappointed that the one of Jesus on the edge of the stage talking on his phone was spoiled by the lights. But in hindsight I think it's kind of appropriate!
Friday, April 14, 2006
As he faced the sun he cast no shadow
I'm off out in half an hour to sing in the Manchester Passion. And I have a list of things I've been meaning to blog about, so let's see how many of them I can cross of my list before I have to leave... (please forgive me if this post is a bit bullet-point-ish!)
I'm looking forward to the Passion, but resigned to the fact that whenever I've been on TV in a group, the BBC seem to like to show lots of the person next to me but always cut me off... But then I have been on TV (on my own) more than most people, so I can't really complain! Full report later, anyway. (Hallé singers to watch out for: me, Alison, Liz L, Lizzy A, and Barbara. Plus Liz's brother and a couple of sixth form girls who were brothers with me in Joseph.)
Gen asked me to point out this, which is the scary news story about atttacks in Manchester. I'd already heard this news before Dr Liz pointed out the same thing, with the added detail that most of the attacks have happened on or near the road where she lives! Eek!
Mentioning Dr Liz reminds me that I realised in horror the other day that she very helpfully wrote down notes from last Wednesday's rehearsal (which I missed due to Joseph) and I haven't included them! So here goes:
'There are no rits in heaven, surely, it just goes on'
Not many Jamieisms tonight (apart from the one above, referring to an ethereal part of the requiem), but lots of markings for our Fauré scores. I tried writing all of them down in my copy and a piece of paper, but I got confused. Basically, I think this sums it up... if in doubt, don't breathe!
Most of the rehearsal was spent on the Fauré. We didn't sing all of it, but did pick out the most important bits. I appear to be one of the few people who don't know it backwards (the only time I've sung it was at the first 'Sing with the Hallé' day) so it helped my preparation for the sight reading test at tomorrow's vocal assessment (eek!).
We worked on Psalm 67 again. It started sounding rather unfamiliar and insecure, but quickly came on. The men in particular were helped by speaking in an American accent.
No word from Jamie about last Saturday's performance. I think he was living by the mantra my mother uses... "if you don't have anything good to say about a situation then don't say anything at all". But the general consensus from the people sitting near me was that they were pretty ashamed of how it went (I wasn't there, but will be this weekend).
To close the reheasal we sang the last 4 pages of the Vaughan Williams. Sounded good, mostly!
Thanks, Liz :-)
Talking of vocal assessments, I got my letter yesterday. Nothing spectactular, but a bit better than last time (Jamie even said some nice things OTHER than "great sight reading"!) But then I got a call last night from someone who was understandably baffled... because she'd just got her letter, and has been asked to reaudition to stay in the choir... yet she was chosen by Jamie for the semi-chorus only a few weeks ago! I'll be interested to see how this one develops...
To change the subject completely, I watched a really interesting master class online the other day, by Barbara Cook. It covers singing Irving Berlin songs. Interesting stuff, even if you might not agree with all of it. If you're going to watch, better do so soon, as I don't know how long they'll keep it online. (It's over 2 hours long, but if you're short of time, just watch the first singer - about 25 minutes - as the work she does with all the other singers is similar.) (Oh, and you will need a good broadband connection to make it play properly, I suspect.)
Bit more exciting news: I got an email from someone at the BBC:
"Dear Choir,
The People's Chorus is a major BBC-4 music event - we're looking for a chorus of 1,000 singers to record Tallis' most famous work - 'Spem in Alium'. This massive choral undertaking is an exciting opportunity for the public to perform at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall on Saturday June 10th 2006. The piece will be rehearsed from scratch, with the thousand voices forming eight choirs, culminating in a performance at the end of the day of one of the most marvellous and sublime pieces of music in the world.
If you want to be part of this fantastic music event, please contact us via the BBC Four music web page here or send an SAE to PO Box 2631, Bristol BS8 9BG.
Thank you!"
To which my reaction was "Ooooooooooooh!" Only tiny problem is that England's first game in the World Cup is that afternoon... but they tend to do better when I don't watch :p
That's a week before our Hallé prom, and for those who haven't seen the set list:
Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus
Verdi: Requiem - Sanctus
Orff: Carmina Burana - O Fortuna
Fauré: Requiem - Agnus Dei
Wagner: Lohengrin - Bridal Chorus
Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Mozart: Requiem - Dies Irae and Lacrimosa
Puccini: Madama Butterfly - Humming Chorus
Handel: Zadok the Priest and Hallelujah Chorus
Verdi: Il Trovatore - Soldiers' Chorus
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana - Easter Hymn
What else can I write quickly? Oh yes... Graham E points out that there are a few reviews of the Hallé's Wasps CD appearing, and they all seem under the impression that it's Hallé Choir men that are singing on it - not helped by the fact that it says Hallé Choir on the CD! I know the reasons why it's NOT the Hallé Choir, and have no problem with them (short answer: it was recorded a couple of days after our London trip last July, and the sessions were all during the day, and it was felt impractical to expect enough members of the choir to be able to take more days off work). But it was never mentioned that it would have our name on the CD!
Anyway, I must go now. I'll include the rest of my list with my Passion report... later tonight hopefully :-)
I'm looking forward to the Passion, but resigned to the fact that whenever I've been on TV in a group, the BBC seem to like to show lots of the person next to me but always cut me off... But then I have been on TV (on my own) more than most people, so I can't really complain! Full report later, anyway. (Hallé singers to watch out for: me, Alison, Liz L, Lizzy A, and Barbara. Plus Liz's brother and a couple of sixth form girls who were brothers with me in Joseph.)
Gen asked me to point out this, which is the scary news story about atttacks in Manchester. I'd already heard this news before Dr Liz pointed out the same thing, with the added detail that most of the attacks have happened on or near the road where she lives! Eek!
Mentioning Dr Liz reminds me that I realised in horror the other day that she very helpfully wrote down notes from last Wednesday's rehearsal (which I missed due to Joseph) and I haven't included them! So here goes:
'There are no rits in heaven, surely, it just goes on'
Not many Jamieisms tonight (apart from the one above, referring to an ethereal part of the requiem), but lots of markings for our Fauré scores. I tried writing all of them down in my copy and a piece of paper, but I got confused. Basically, I think this sums it up... if in doubt, don't breathe!
Most of the rehearsal was spent on the Fauré. We didn't sing all of it, but did pick out the most important bits. I appear to be one of the few people who don't know it backwards (the only time I've sung it was at the first 'Sing with the Hallé' day) so it helped my preparation for the sight reading test at tomorrow's vocal assessment (eek!).
We worked on Psalm 67 again. It started sounding rather unfamiliar and insecure, but quickly came on. The men in particular were helped by speaking in an American accent.
No word from Jamie about last Saturday's performance. I think he was living by the mantra my mother uses... "if you don't have anything good to say about a situation then don't say anything at all". But the general consensus from the people sitting near me was that they were pretty ashamed of how it went (I wasn't there, but will be this weekend).
To close the reheasal we sang the last 4 pages of the Vaughan Williams. Sounded good, mostly!
Thanks, Liz :-)
Talking of vocal assessments, I got my letter yesterday. Nothing spectactular, but a bit better than last time (Jamie even said some nice things OTHER than "great sight reading"!) But then I got a call last night from someone who was understandably baffled... because she'd just got her letter, and has been asked to reaudition to stay in the choir... yet she was chosen by Jamie for the semi-chorus only a few weeks ago! I'll be interested to see how this one develops...
To change the subject completely, I watched a really interesting master class online the other day, by Barbara Cook. It covers singing Irving Berlin songs. Interesting stuff, even if you might not agree with all of it. If you're going to watch, better do so soon, as I don't know how long they'll keep it online. (It's over 2 hours long, but if you're short of time, just watch the first singer - about 25 minutes - as the work she does with all the other singers is similar.) (Oh, and you will need a good broadband connection to make it play properly, I suspect.)
Bit more exciting news: I got an email from someone at the BBC:
"Dear Choir,
The People's Chorus is a major BBC-4 music event - we're looking for a chorus of 1,000 singers to record Tallis' most famous work - 'Spem in Alium'. This massive choral undertaking is an exciting opportunity for the public to perform at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall on Saturday June 10th 2006. The piece will be rehearsed from scratch, with the thousand voices forming eight choirs, culminating in a performance at the end of the day of one of the most marvellous and sublime pieces of music in the world.
If you want to be part of this fantastic music event, please contact us via the BBC Four music web page here or send an SAE to PO Box 2631, Bristol BS8 9BG.
Thank you!"
To which my reaction was "Ooooooooooooh!" Only tiny problem is that England's first game in the World Cup is that afternoon... but they tend to do better when I don't watch :p
That's a week before our Hallé prom, and for those who haven't seen the set list:
Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus
Verdi: Requiem - Sanctus
Orff: Carmina Burana - O Fortuna
Fauré: Requiem - Agnus Dei
Wagner: Lohengrin - Bridal Chorus
Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
Mozart: Requiem - Dies Irae and Lacrimosa
Puccini: Madama Butterfly - Humming Chorus
Handel: Zadok the Priest and Hallelujah Chorus
Verdi: Il Trovatore - Soldiers' Chorus
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana - Easter Hymn
What else can I write quickly? Oh yes... Graham E points out that there are a few reviews of the Hallé's Wasps CD appearing, and they all seem under the impression that it's Hallé Choir men that are singing on it - not helped by the fact that it says Hallé Choir on the CD! I know the reasons why it's NOT the Hallé Choir, and have no problem with them (short answer: it was recorded a couple of days after our London trip last July, and the sessions were all during the day, and it was felt impractical to expect enough members of the choir to be able to take more days off work). But it was never mentioned that it would have our name on the CD!
Anyway, I must go now. I'll include the rest of my list with my Passion report... later tonight hopefully :-)
Saturday, April 08, 2006
"Elgar started out as an organ scholar. Well, after being a small child, of course."
This is my favourite quote of tonight, and it's from the lovely Jonathan Scott. We all knew that he's (a) a fantastic pianist; (b) a fantastic organist; (c) very cute, particularly as he smiles ALL THE TIME. But until tonight I didn't realise that he had a website (go and look... some nice pictures, and a very full concert calendar, although it doesn't mention ours)... or that he's such a good stand-up comic! He kept it in reserve, too - he was fairly solemn when he introduced his pieces in the first half, but when he introduced the Elgar, the audience (and the choir!) was in tears of laughter by the time he actually played it :-)
Great concert tonight. Just about everything went really well (in particular, I'm pretty sure we stayed in tune all the way through - no mean feat!) The coming on worked brilliantly, which was a relief because I'd ended up being in charge of it. The going off was a bit of a muddle, partly because some people hadn't read Cathy's sheet of instructions but mainly because there was no chance to practise it, as this afternoon's rehearsal overran by 10 minutes. (I don't think Jamie realises quite how much bad feeling this creates, or he'd be more careful not to do it. It's very frustrating to have a great rehearsal, and get to the end of it with everyone thinking "this concert will be GREAT!" - and then spend 10 extra minutes removing that mood and replacing it with "well, now I'm not going to have time to do all the things I need to do before the concert! I'm sick of this happening every time!") But it wasn't so bad that the audience will have noticed, so no worries.
Only other tiny niggles - the 1st sops got very behind at one point in Laudibus in Sanctis, and only the fact that everyone else was watching (and stuck to the beat) prevented the thing falling apart. But it got back on track on the next page. Oh, and it was REALLY hot in the hall. So much so that I felt a bit dizzy at times. No doubt everyone else thought it was just the right temperature, though - I'm almost always too hot :p
Jamie seemed pretty pleased about the concert. He was certainly delighted in the rehearsals this afternoon and last night. A few Jamieisms (and quite a few John Wayne impressions, but they were all rather visual):
"Folks, you look like choral commuters!" (this was to the people who had their heads buried in their copies)
"The ee vowel is kind of like the Aga of your singing."
(To the 2nd altos, after we gasped in horror when he asked the tenors to help us on a low bit): "There's a lot of pride in your section. I admire it. Remember, I was one of you once. ... If you've got a new counter-tenor joke, I'd be glad to hear it!"
Anyway, we have two weeks off now! I must say I'm ready for a break (from everything, not just choir). Today was the first day in weeks that I haven't had a headache, and my blood pressure was measured again on Thursday and was higher than ever. And tomorrow is the first day in weeks I don't have to leave the house at all - I'm GREATLY looking forward to it! I haven't had a free evening since last Friday. Last weekend was all choir and Joseph, and this week has gone: Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, choir, choir, choir. Joseph was fabulous fun, though!
I've just realised I haven't mentioned my vocal assessment, which I came back to do on Thursday. I sang FANTASTICALLY... but only in the car and the practice room. Unfortunately as soon as I got in front of Jamie, things were less good. Although, I must say that his reaction to seeing me didn't help - there was no "Great to see you, Jocelyn - thanks for coming back after waiting for four and a half hours on Sunday!" What he actually said was "Oh. Just when we thought we'd made up some time!" So I didn't exactly feel welcome!
But anyway, my solo was OK. Sight reading was perfect (I'm pretty sure) note-wise, but my breathing had started to go by then and I was breathing far too often. (Breathing is my worst thing, but it's got much better over the last couple of years. But annoyingly there was no sign of this on Thursday!) By the time I got to the vocal exercises, I knew my breathing was terrible, and this of course made things worse. Nothing went disastrously wrong, but it was frustrating because I know I can do it so much better. (There have been a couple of times when I've managed to produce a sound for Maggie that's caused her to say "If you sing like that at your vocal assessment, Jamie will fall off his chair." Well, he stayed very definitely seated!)
I'm sure I've forgotten lots of things, but I'm falling asleep so I'll post again when I am thinking more clearly :-)
Great concert tonight. Just about everything went really well (in particular, I'm pretty sure we stayed in tune all the way through - no mean feat!) The coming on worked brilliantly, which was a relief because I'd ended up being in charge of it. The going off was a bit of a muddle, partly because some people hadn't read Cathy's sheet of instructions but mainly because there was no chance to practise it, as this afternoon's rehearsal overran by 10 minutes. (I don't think Jamie realises quite how much bad feeling this creates, or he'd be more careful not to do it. It's very frustrating to have a great rehearsal, and get to the end of it with everyone thinking "this concert will be GREAT!" - and then spend 10 extra minutes removing that mood and replacing it with "well, now I'm not going to have time to do all the things I need to do before the concert! I'm sick of this happening every time!") But it wasn't so bad that the audience will have noticed, so no worries.
Only other tiny niggles - the 1st sops got very behind at one point in Laudibus in Sanctis, and only the fact that everyone else was watching (and stuck to the beat) prevented the thing falling apart. But it got back on track on the next page. Oh, and it was REALLY hot in the hall. So much so that I felt a bit dizzy at times. No doubt everyone else thought it was just the right temperature, though - I'm almost always too hot :p
Jamie seemed pretty pleased about the concert. He was certainly delighted in the rehearsals this afternoon and last night. A few Jamieisms (and quite a few John Wayne impressions, but they were all rather visual):
"Folks, you look like choral commuters!" (this was to the people who had their heads buried in their copies)
"The ee vowel is kind of like the Aga of your singing."
(To the 2nd altos, after we gasped in horror when he asked the tenors to help us on a low bit): "There's a lot of pride in your section. I admire it. Remember, I was one of you once. ... If you've got a new counter-tenor joke, I'd be glad to hear it!"
Anyway, we have two weeks off now! I must say I'm ready for a break (from everything, not just choir). Today was the first day in weeks that I haven't had a headache, and my blood pressure was measured again on Thursday and was higher than ever. And tomorrow is the first day in weeks I don't have to leave the house at all - I'm GREATLY looking forward to it! I haven't had a free evening since last Friday. Last weekend was all choir and Joseph, and this week has gone: Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, choir, choir, choir. Joseph was fabulous fun, though!
I've just realised I haven't mentioned my vocal assessment, which I came back to do on Thursday. I sang FANTASTICALLY... but only in the car and the practice room. Unfortunately as soon as I got in front of Jamie, things were less good. Although, I must say that his reaction to seeing me didn't help - there was no "Great to see you, Jocelyn - thanks for coming back after waiting for four and a half hours on Sunday!" What he actually said was "Oh. Just when we thought we'd made up some time!" So I didn't exactly feel welcome!
But anyway, my solo was OK. Sight reading was perfect (I'm pretty sure) note-wise, but my breathing had started to go by then and I was breathing far too often. (Breathing is my worst thing, but it's got much better over the last couple of years. But annoyingly there was no sign of this on Thursday!) By the time I got to the vocal exercises, I knew my breathing was terrible, and this of course made things worse. Nothing went disastrously wrong, but it was frustrating because I know I can do it so much better. (There have been a couple of times when I've managed to produce a sound for Maggie that's caused her to say "If you sing like that at your vocal assessment, Jamie will fall off his chair." Well, he stayed very definitely seated!)
I'm sure I've forgotten lots of things, but I'm falling asleep so I'll post again when I am thinking more clearly :-)
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
"I've got the River Nile backstage in a bin liner."
That's not a Jamieism, before you wonder. And the first part of this post is not actually choir-related, but I wanted to share something that amused me so much yesterday morning that I'm still giggling about it :-) (Apologies to anyone who's here from LJ, because this is a repeat, but the two audiences are fairly mutually exclusive, I think.)
I'm being a brother in Joseph this week, as many of you are aware. The show is at a nearby school that I've been helping out with their musical rehearsals as part of a staff exchange thingy. Me actually taking part in the show wasn't part of the plan, let alone ACTING (which I'm not very good at). But there are 11 brothers in Joseph, and they are counted and named individually on several occasions, so it doesn't work if there are less. So when one dropped out a few weeks ago, they asked if I'd be in it, since I knew all the words... I feel EXTREMELY old, since everyone else on stage is over 20 years younger than me :p
The quote in the title is something I heard the producer say last week, which greatly amused me at the time. But I didn't realise what she meant till yesterday, during the technical rehearsal. We'd just finished "Poor Poor Joseph", which involves camels and Ishmaelites and Joseph being sold as a slave. We were about to go on to "One more angel in heaven", which involves cowboys. And the producer wandered onstage with a very long piece of blue material.
PRODUCER: Where d'you want this?
DIRECTOR: What is it?
PRODUCER: The river!
DIRECTOR: What river?
PRODUCER: The River Nile!
DIRECTOR: What's that for?
PRODUCER: So they can cross over it to get to Egypt!
DIRECTOR: Well, unless it can become the Colorado River, it's not going in, because we're doing the cowboy song now.
Hee! Now I realise that's not that funny written down. But I have been giggling ever since at the thought of this poor woman bringing on the RIVER NILE. From a BIN LINER. And being sent away because it was too late :p
Anyway, today was the dress rehearsal and the opening night, and I'm pleased to report that the River Nile did make it into the performance. (It wasn't explained that that's what it was, though... I wonder how many of the audience realised?) There were a few problems with mics (aren't there always?) but on the whole things went well. I get to do it all again tomorrow and Wednesday. I believe there'll be a DVD, if anyone's interested in seeing it :p
And then on Thursday I may get to do my vocal assessment. Yes, mine was supposed to be yesterday. But I didn't do it, despite being there for almost 5 hours! I'll explain why in a minute. The reason I was there for that long was of course that I'd volunteered to be the organiser for the day (I wouldn't have, if I'd known I'd have a 4 hour rehearsal immediately beforehand, but that was only arranged last week!) It was all rather chaotic at the start. David was 15 minutes late, so we started late and then got later due to Jamie's illness (see below). Then, the assessment room was such a pigsty that Maggie and I and the security guard removed 2 binliners full of rubbish (literally). It looked as if it had been used as a dressing room for their school production, and I presume they had the show on Friday night and thought "we can clean this on Monday". It really was unfit for human use, and I have asked Cathy to make a complaint. Certainly we shouldn't be charged the full amount. Particularly given that it was so very cold! The security guard (a fabulous guy called Jimmy) found a fan heater for the assessment room, but there was no heating on anywhere else, so the foyer (where we we waiting) was freezing, and the warmup rooms were very inappropriately named! Also, I'd forgotten that the Youth Orchestra and Youth Choir rehearse at WHGS on a Sunday afternoon, so the first hour's worth of singers had to compete with extremely loud excerpts from Carmen above them!
The other big problem was that Jamie was not at all well. He came out of Dorothy's assessment halfway through (escorted by Maggie) and stayed outside for quite a while. I was expecting him to come back and ask if I could somehow cancel the rest, but he continued, although he did leave the room on 3 or 4 more occasions. By the end the poor guy looked close to collapse. (After he went back in after his first long break, he didn't play the piano again - he asked David to play for the sight reading too, so we jiggled the process slightly to accommodate this.)
That's why I didn't do my own assessment - I was supposed to be on near the start, but said I'd go last since I was staying anyway, so as to get the schedule closer to what it should be. But at the end he looked so bad I offered to come back on Thursday and do it then, and he accepted. I do hope he's had a good rest today...
I must say I enjoyed having the chance to chat to people I never normally get the chance to meet. And everyone had a fabulous attitude - we were almost an hour late at some points, yet no-one complained or even looked fed up, they just all took it in their stride. I think my egg helped... I got these for Rachel B for her birthday recently, and when I saw them I decided I had to get some for myself too. And it occurred to me that they're so calming that it might be a good plan to take one to WHGS. So I did, and put it on a stool for people to stare at, and it occasioned much comment! One of the Youth Choir mums came back several times to look at it, and made a note of the website I got it from (which is iwantoneofthose.com... WARNING: do not visit that site unless you are totally broke. Because otherwise, you soon will be!)
Oh, and talking of 1st altos not having their brains switched on (sorry, ladies!), the person who turned the wrong way coming out of the assessment room (and consequently tried to exit the building via a door marked clearly "this door is alarmed", and set the alarm off), and the person who arrived over 2 hours early because she got confused about the 24-hour clock? Both 1st altos :-)
Finally... most amusing choice of solo? I think it has to be Abi's. It was fairly incongrous in Italian, till we realised that the translation was something about throbbing bosoms.... definitely a conversation-starter! The tenors were very excited :p
I'm being a brother in Joseph this week, as many of you are aware. The show is at a nearby school that I've been helping out with their musical rehearsals as part of a staff exchange thingy. Me actually taking part in the show wasn't part of the plan, let alone ACTING (which I'm not very good at). But there are 11 brothers in Joseph, and they are counted and named individually on several occasions, so it doesn't work if there are less. So when one dropped out a few weeks ago, they asked if I'd be in it, since I knew all the words... I feel EXTREMELY old, since everyone else on stage is over 20 years younger than me :p
The quote in the title is something I heard the producer say last week, which greatly amused me at the time. But I didn't realise what she meant till yesterday, during the technical rehearsal. We'd just finished "Poor Poor Joseph", which involves camels and Ishmaelites and Joseph being sold as a slave. We were about to go on to "One more angel in heaven", which involves cowboys. And the producer wandered onstage with a very long piece of blue material.
PRODUCER: Where d'you want this?
DIRECTOR: What is it?
PRODUCER: The river!
DIRECTOR: What river?
PRODUCER: The River Nile!
DIRECTOR: What's that for?
PRODUCER: So they can cross over it to get to Egypt!
DIRECTOR: Well, unless it can become the Colorado River, it's not going in, because we're doing the cowboy song now.
Hee! Now I realise that's not that funny written down. But I have been giggling ever since at the thought of this poor woman bringing on the RIVER NILE. From a BIN LINER. And being sent away because it was too late :p
Anyway, today was the dress rehearsal and the opening night, and I'm pleased to report that the River Nile did make it into the performance. (It wasn't explained that that's what it was, though... I wonder how many of the audience realised?) There were a few problems with mics (aren't there always?) but on the whole things went well. I get to do it all again tomorrow and Wednesday. I believe there'll be a DVD, if anyone's interested in seeing it :p
And then on Thursday I may get to do my vocal assessment. Yes, mine was supposed to be yesterday. But I didn't do it, despite being there for almost 5 hours! I'll explain why in a minute. The reason I was there for that long was of course that I'd volunteered to be the organiser for the day (I wouldn't have, if I'd known I'd have a 4 hour rehearsal immediately beforehand, but that was only arranged last week!) It was all rather chaotic at the start. David was 15 minutes late, so we started late and then got later due to Jamie's illness (see below). Then, the assessment room was such a pigsty that Maggie and I and the security guard removed 2 binliners full of rubbish (literally). It looked as if it had been used as a dressing room for their school production, and I presume they had the show on Friday night and thought "we can clean this on Monday". It really was unfit for human use, and I have asked Cathy to make a complaint. Certainly we shouldn't be charged the full amount. Particularly given that it was so very cold! The security guard (a fabulous guy called Jimmy) found a fan heater for the assessment room, but there was no heating on anywhere else, so the foyer (where we we waiting) was freezing, and the warmup rooms were very inappropriately named! Also, I'd forgotten that the Youth Orchestra and Youth Choir rehearse at WHGS on a Sunday afternoon, so the first hour's worth of singers had to compete with extremely loud excerpts from Carmen above them!
The other big problem was that Jamie was not at all well. He came out of Dorothy's assessment halfway through (escorted by Maggie) and stayed outside for quite a while. I was expecting him to come back and ask if I could somehow cancel the rest, but he continued, although he did leave the room on 3 or 4 more occasions. By the end the poor guy looked close to collapse. (After he went back in after his first long break, he didn't play the piano again - he asked David to play for the sight reading too, so we jiggled the process slightly to accommodate this.)
That's why I didn't do my own assessment - I was supposed to be on near the start, but said I'd go last since I was staying anyway, so as to get the schedule closer to what it should be. But at the end he looked so bad I offered to come back on Thursday and do it then, and he accepted. I do hope he's had a good rest today...
I must say I enjoyed having the chance to chat to people I never normally get the chance to meet. And everyone had a fabulous attitude - we were almost an hour late at some points, yet no-one complained or even looked fed up, they just all took it in their stride. I think my egg helped... I got these for Rachel B for her birthday recently, and when I saw them I decided I had to get some for myself too. And it occurred to me that they're so calming that it might be a good plan to take one to WHGS. So I did, and put it on a stool for people to stare at, and it occasioned much comment! One of the Youth Choir mums came back several times to look at it, and made a note of the website I got it from (which is iwantoneofthose.com... WARNING: do not visit that site unless you are totally broke. Because otherwise, you soon will be!)
Oh, and talking of 1st altos not having their brains switched on (sorry, ladies!), the person who turned the wrong way coming out of the assessment room (and consequently tried to exit the building via a door marked clearly "this door is alarmed", and set the alarm off), and the person who arrived over 2 hours early because she got confused about the 24-hour clock? Both 1st altos :-)
Finally... most amusing choice of solo? I think it has to be Abi's. It was fairly incongrous in Italian, till we realised that the translation was something about throbbing bosoms.... definitely a conversation-starter! The tenors were very excited :p
Saturday, April 01, 2006
"Relax on the men, and altos... do it with me"
(I know, I know, I have a filthy mind! But the title IS an actual Jamieism from this afternoon. What can I say? It amused me :p )
So, those who didn't do tonight's pre-concert concert will be wondering how it went and what we sang. The second question is easier to answer:
Mihi autem nimis
Salvator mundi
Christe qui lux
Loquebantur
O nata lux
Hymn - O God our help...
Lord, thou hast been our refuge (1st part only)
Hymn - How shall I sing that majesty
Nunc Dimittis
The more eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that there are two items on that list that we hadn't rehearsed before today. They weren't hard, though (although when Jamie invited the audience to join in those two items - they were given the same sheets we had - I don't know how many of them did, but I couldn't hear any of them) (but then again, there were probably only about 40 people there). A good idea to do them, I think - "O God our help in ages past" is of course quoted in "Lord, thou hast been our refuge", and the other hymn is, it turns out, the Tallis theme that the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is a fantasia on :-) (The fact that the orchestra were playing this in what Jamie described as "the post-concert event" is the whole reason for the Vaughan Williams/Tallis programme, if you recall.) So both these hymns were good for illustrative purposes, and in particular the Tallis one - that I, at least, had never heard before - was fascinating. (I arrived 5 minutes late at the rehearsal this afternoon, having been unable to change my plans at such short notice to include the extra time it takes to get to WHGS, and they were singing it when I got there. It took me a minute to work out what it was and why they were singing it, but when I did I was delighted!) If you click the link above, it should take you to a web page that plays an audio file of the hymn. There are a couple of wrong notes, but it's close enough that you should recognise the tune.
There were a few more Jamieisms from this afternoon, but before all of them was a quote from Ken that worried some of us after the first few words, because he looked so serious! "Due to all the hurtful comments about the inadequacy of my little bell, I haven't brought it today." This caused Jamie to play a brief burst of If I were a bell (from Guys and Dolls) on the piano, and he spend several minutes improvising on this theme in the break...
Jamieisms included: "Was that a rant?" (after a bit of a rant about the fact that no-one knows any hymn tunes any more); "Can you do it like the French man? Dieu!" (this referred to the start of the word 'generation'); "Bit more goo. I haven't used that word in ages! I've missed it!"; "Release with Jamie - the aerobics video..."; "Ladies, put a ring round the gentlemen's quavers there."; "Let's have no aitches in this choir... apart from at the beginning of the Hallelujah Chorus, once a year."
He got a bit annoyed at the end - with good reason - when we ran through the things we'd rehearsed on Thursday, and several of the problems that we'd fixed then seem to have unfixed themselves. I suspect there are still a few dimwits in the choir who think their memories are so good they don't need to write stuff down. Or something. ARGH.
Then followed a very quick dash into town to find refreshment and get changed in the hour we had. A far-too-long proportion of my hour was spent queuing in Starbucks with Lisa and Libby. The Mount Street one (nearest to the B Hall) was closed for some reason, so I went to the one the other side of the town hall, where there turned out to be a very long queue and some very slow staff. But I got my coffee in the end.
And then, the concert. I suppose it wasn't really too bad, but it was nowhere near as good as it should have been. Main problem: everything went flat. Secondary problem: not everyone was paying attention, so when Jamie asked sections of the choir to sing their part alone for demonstration purposes (which he'd said he was going to), it didn't always work, because of people not using their brains. For example: in Salvator Mundi he asked the sops to sing their opening phrase. No problem. Then he asked the altos and the basses to sing their opening phrases, to illustrate that THEY ARE THE SAME AS THE SOPRANO PHRASE BUT IN DIFFERENT OCTAVES. Now, to be fair, he said "altos" when he meant "2nd altos"... but surely any 1st alto who was paying attention would notice that their part is NOT the same as the sopranos? So the 1st altos sang when they shouldn't have, and the point of the demonstration was lost as a result. Sorry, 1st altos, I love you all dearly, but you weren't very switched on there!
That was by no means the only mistake though. The men managed to sing the whole of the second line of Christe qui lux a tone apart instead of in unison, when asked to demonstrate it. (It was perfect when they sang it again though.) There were quite a few mistakes in the semi-chorus too. (They were still at the note-bashing stage this afternoon... you'd think they would have done some work at home if they knew they didn't know it... Sorry, I'm still incredibly bitter about the whole semi-chorus thing! I'll get over it eventually... although probably not any time soon, because I'm still distraught about not being picked for that English Rhapsody CD, and that was YEARS ago. But just the mention of anything to do with that CD sets my teeth grinding.)
But oh, the flatness. While I'm upsetting all and sundry, I may as well say that I'm sure it's the sopranos who are the main cause of the pitch problems. Sorry, sops. It sounds to me as if they START slightly flat, and they get flatter bar by bar. You can hear their lines sag. (In the concert, Jamie stopped O nata lux half way through. It was probably because we were running out of time, but I was so relieved, because it had gone so incredibly flat in the previous few bars, I couldn't see how it could recover. (The other horror moment is that "so passeth it away and we are gone" bit in the VW. I dread it every time, because it ends on a unison E flat, and I can always hear the sops going lower and lower as they approach it, so there's no way it'll end with us and them on the same note.)
(Oh, and btw, to correct an urban legend - I do NOT have perfect pitch. But I do have a good memory for pitch, good enough that I can usually give a pretty good approximation of any note I'm asked for. But you know when we do exercises in the warmup, and they go up by a semitone each time? I never have any clue what notes I'm singing then, because it takes me a few seconds to decide what pitch it feels like, but the pitch changes before I can work it out.)
I suspect that there are some sopranos (I know it's not all of them - some of them are really musical) who don't actually listen to the rest of the choir - they are so used to having the tune that they expect everyone else to follow them. Of course they usually have an orchestra to keep them on track, but whenever there's an a cappella bit it's almost always the sops who drag the pitch down. The frustrating thing, of course, is that everyone in the choir knows (a) what we need to DO to stay in tune, and (b) that we CAN stay in tune. For example, on Thursday we sang Loquebantur for about 15-20 minutes, and when Jamie played the chord at the end, it was exactly the same as at the start. And that's by no means an isolated example - we all know that during a rehearsal when we're on a roll, which we have been quite a few times lately, the pitch stays spot on. So when it doesn't, it's doubly frustrating!
OK, that was a rant :-)
So, those who didn't do tonight's pre-concert concert will be wondering how it went and what we sang. The second question is easier to answer:
Mihi autem nimis
Salvator mundi
Christe qui lux
Loquebantur
O nata lux
Hymn - O God our help...
Lord, thou hast been our refuge (1st part only)
Hymn - How shall I sing that majesty
Nunc Dimittis
The more eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that there are two items on that list that we hadn't rehearsed before today. They weren't hard, though (although when Jamie invited the audience to join in those two items - they were given the same sheets we had - I don't know how many of them did, but I couldn't hear any of them) (but then again, there were probably only about 40 people there). A good idea to do them, I think - "O God our help in ages past" is of course quoted in "Lord, thou hast been our refuge", and the other hymn is, it turns out, the Tallis theme that the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is a fantasia on :-) (The fact that the orchestra were playing this in what Jamie described as "the post-concert event" is the whole reason for the Vaughan Williams/Tallis programme, if you recall.) So both these hymns were good for illustrative purposes, and in particular the Tallis one - that I, at least, had never heard before - was fascinating. (I arrived 5 minutes late at the rehearsal this afternoon, having been unable to change my plans at such short notice to include the extra time it takes to get to WHGS, and they were singing it when I got there. It took me a minute to work out what it was and why they were singing it, but when I did I was delighted!) If you click the link above, it should take you to a web page that plays an audio file of the hymn. There are a couple of wrong notes, but it's close enough that you should recognise the tune.
There were a few more Jamieisms from this afternoon, but before all of them was a quote from Ken that worried some of us after the first few words, because he looked so serious! "Due to all the hurtful comments about the inadequacy of my little bell, I haven't brought it today." This caused Jamie to play a brief burst of If I were a bell (from Guys and Dolls) on the piano, and he spend several minutes improvising on this theme in the break...
Jamieisms included: "Was that a rant?" (after a bit of a rant about the fact that no-one knows any hymn tunes any more); "Can you do it like the French man? Dieu!" (this referred to the start of the word 'generation'); "Bit more goo. I haven't used that word in ages! I've missed it!"; "Release with Jamie - the aerobics video..."; "Ladies, put a ring round the gentlemen's quavers there."; "Let's have no aitches in this choir... apart from at the beginning of the Hallelujah Chorus, once a year."
He got a bit annoyed at the end - with good reason - when we ran through the things we'd rehearsed on Thursday, and several of the problems that we'd fixed then seem to have unfixed themselves. I suspect there are still a few dimwits in the choir who think their memories are so good they don't need to write stuff down. Or something. ARGH.
Then followed a very quick dash into town to find refreshment and get changed in the hour we had. A far-too-long proportion of my hour was spent queuing in Starbucks with Lisa and Libby. The Mount Street one (nearest to the B Hall) was closed for some reason, so I went to the one the other side of the town hall, where there turned out to be a very long queue and some very slow staff. But I got my coffee in the end.
And then, the concert. I suppose it wasn't really too bad, but it was nowhere near as good as it should have been. Main problem: everything went flat. Secondary problem: not everyone was paying attention, so when Jamie asked sections of the choir to sing their part alone for demonstration purposes (which he'd said he was going to), it didn't always work, because of people not using their brains. For example: in Salvator Mundi he asked the sops to sing their opening phrase. No problem. Then he asked the altos and the basses to sing their opening phrases, to illustrate that THEY ARE THE SAME AS THE SOPRANO PHRASE BUT IN DIFFERENT OCTAVES. Now, to be fair, he said "altos" when he meant "2nd altos"... but surely any 1st alto who was paying attention would notice that their part is NOT the same as the sopranos? So the 1st altos sang when they shouldn't have, and the point of the demonstration was lost as a result. Sorry, 1st altos, I love you all dearly, but you weren't very switched on there!
That was by no means the only mistake though. The men managed to sing the whole of the second line of Christe qui lux a tone apart instead of in unison, when asked to demonstrate it. (It was perfect when they sang it again though.) There were quite a few mistakes in the semi-chorus too. (They were still at the note-bashing stage this afternoon... you'd think they would have done some work at home if they knew they didn't know it... Sorry, I'm still incredibly bitter about the whole semi-chorus thing! I'll get over it eventually... although probably not any time soon, because I'm still distraught about not being picked for that English Rhapsody CD, and that was YEARS ago. But just the mention of anything to do with that CD sets my teeth grinding.)
But oh, the flatness. While I'm upsetting all and sundry, I may as well say that I'm sure it's the sopranos who are the main cause of the pitch problems. Sorry, sops. It sounds to me as if they START slightly flat, and they get flatter bar by bar. You can hear their lines sag. (In the concert, Jamie stopped O nata lux half way through. It was probably because we were running out of time, but I was so relieved, because it had gone so incredibly flat in the previous few bars, I couldn't see how it could recover. (The other horror moment is that "so passeth it away and we are gone" bit in the VW. I dread it every time, because it ends on a unison E flat, and I can always hear the sops going lower and lower as they approach it, so there's no way it'll end with us and them on the same note.)
(Oh, and btw, to correct an urban legend - I do NOT have perfect pitch. But I do have a good memory for pitch, good enough that I can usually give a pretty good approximation of any note I'm asked for. But you know when we do exercises in the warmup, and they go up by a semitone each time? I never have any clue what notes I'm singing then, because it takes me a few seconds to decide what pitch it feels like, but the pitch changes before I can work it out.)
I suspect that there are some sopranos (I know it's not all of them - some of them are really musical) who don't actually listen to the rest of the choir - they are so used to having the tune that they expect everyone else to follow them. Of course they usually have an orchestra to keep them on track, but whenever there's an a cappella bit it's almost always the sops who drag the pitch down. The frustrating thing, of course, is that everyone in the choir knows (a) what we need to DO to stay in tune, and (b) that we CAN stay in tune. For example, on Thursday we sang Loquebantur for about 15-20 minutes, and when Jamie played the chord at the end, it was exactly the same as at the start. And that's by no means an isolated example - we all know that during a rehearsal when we're on a roll, which we have been quite a few times lately, the pitch stays spot on. So when it doesn't, it's doubly frustrating!
OK, that was a rant :-)
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