Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

Isn't that the best name ever? I just discovered this guy (yes, I know - now - that he's been around for years, I'm not very observant!) He's a Dutch footballer who signed for Celtic last week, and scored on his debut a few days later. What I love is that they use the long version of his name - I heard a bit of the commentary for that game, and that's what made me notice him. And look at his shirt! (EDIT: for those searching for the mp3 of his song, is this what you wanted?)

Yes, I know that's not in any way choir-related, I just wanted to point him out to you :p

(Oh, and while we're on the subject of totally unrelated stuff, have a look at this website, that sells proper sweets like they used to have when I was little!)

Well, actually, I could start my music-related stuff with some links, couldn't I? Firstly, if you're going to London in the near future, try Play. Doesn't that look fun? (If anyone's already tried it, I want a report, please!)

Next, I found this newsletter (from the American Choral Directors' Association) by accident. It takes a while to load, but when it does, you'll see that on page 2 there's a section called "Warming Up Your Altos". Scroll down to read it. I was amused by the idea of the "alpha alto" :p I could understand the advice better if I knew what Julia Child sounded like, though (I've heard the name, but know nothing else about her).

I'm still enjoying the Proms. I think my favourite one so far has to be the Sibelius 5 from last Friday, but that's partly because I love that piece so much. Mind you, I also love Mozart's Requiem, but I was a tiny bit disappointed in the performance because the soprano soloist's tuning seemed less than perfect in several places. Was that just me? (I was surprised, because she's actually one I've heard of before!) (Actually, while we're talking about people singing out of tune, what about Franz Ferdinand? At the Reading/Leeds Festival, that was on TV all weekend. Again, a powerful performance, but the singing was so out of tune! I couldn't believe the commentators didn't, well, comment. And again, a disappointment, because I really like Franz Ferdinand.)

Oh, and The Bells was OK, I guess (although not as good as ours!) I couldn't make out many of the words, although "o kak svonka" stood out for some reason... and no Mikhail! Good to hear the piece again though, I haven't listened to it since we sang it.

Anyway, it occurred to me that there may be some people in the choir who weren't around the last time we sang in the Last Night of the Proms (well, strictly, the Proms in the Park - incidentally, I note that that page still doesn't mention us, although they have added Katie Melua, who was added to the bill ages after we were... but the good news is that it implies that Sky digital viewers can, if they choose, watch just the Manchester prom, uncut!). So I thought they might like to know what happened :-)

It was in 2004, and involved the Hallé rather than the BBC Phil, and was in Cathedral Gardens rather than Heaton Park. The plans changed somewhat after they were first mooted, at least partly because the BBC issued so many tickets that there was no room for a stage to hold both the orchestra and the choir at the same time. So the plan was that the orchestra would play for most of the concert, and then they'd come off and the choir would replace them to lead the crowd in the patriotic stuff. Except for the Fantasia on British Sea Songs, which... well, when we discovered what the plan for THAT was, we decided we'd be amazed if it worked. It had 4 consecutive new folk song arrangements inserted into the middle of it, each of which was to be sung by a different choir. None of these choirs were to be in the same hall - or even the same CITY - as the orchestra which would be accompanying them (i.e. the BBC SO in London). The added bits were "Ar hyd y nos" (All through the night) from Swansea, "The Road to the Isles" from Glasgow, "Danny Boy" from Belfast and "The Rio Grande" from Manchester. (I couldn't work out at first why only Manchester wasn't singing a 'local' song, but later my question became why it was only Manchester that had an actual sea song. I never found out the answer to this.)

We sang through the Rio Grande a couple of times before the day, and it was a fun arrangement. But on the day, guess what! Things didn't go entirely according to plan. We were asked to be onstage from 12.30 to 1.30 pm on the day of the gig, the plan being that at some point during that time, Leonard Slatkin (famous American conductor) would make time during his rehearsal with the BBCSO at the RAH to rehearse The Rio Grande, which is the bit that we were singing live with them via satellite link. Well, at 1.25 the link finally went live. We heard him saying grumpily "why do they need to rehearse it? We sent a CD of us practising it!" (which was true, but live's never *quite* the same...) Then he said "OK. Rio Grande, from the top." Then they started playing the National Anthem, which confused us somewhat. *Then* they went into the Rio Grande, and all was well until about bar 10, when the link died. The choir starts singing in bar 13....

We stood around while various BBC people talked furiously on walkie talkies and headsets, but no more was forthcoming from the speakers. At 1.40 we were told that the orchestra in London had left the hall (as you know, orchestras *never* stay a minute past the scheduled end of rehearsal - their management won't let them as they all go on higher pay rates if they do) and we'd missed our one chance to rehearse with them. So we went to plan B, which was "busk it on the night - and if the link goes, just keep singing and hope we're in the same place as them if/when it comes back". That's live TV for you, folks!

Sad, though, that even the *BBC* couldn't get it right. You'd think they'd had enough practice. You'd think it would be straightforward, but I've been involved in many TV recordings/broadcasts over the years and I can't actually remember a single one where there wasn't some technological mishap! I suspect the problem is insufficient gaffer tape :p However, to be fair to them, it *did* work pretty well on the night. That's the bit they *do* seem to be good at.

(I believe that there were many other non-technical things that went wrong that day, but despite that I really enjoyed it. Sadly, I know that lots of the choir didn't, and people still talk about that gig as an example of one where EVERYTHING went wrong. I must've been lucky.)

EDIT: Updated schedule is now online at the usual location. Email me if you don't have the link.

Mikhail Petrenko fan club

Is there one? There should be! Remember this post about the fabulous young Russian bass soloist who was a last-minute stand-in for The Bells? Well, I watched Saturday's Prom (I've seen much more of the Proms this year than I usually do - the combination of Sky Plus and HDTV means they all get recorded automatically without me having to remember, and they look great!) and it ended with Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. I hadn't realised this involved any singing, given that we didn't sing it in our Shostakovich festival, and I thought we sang everything. But it turned out to involved a male-voice chorus and a bass soloist, and it was Mikhail! (He is obviously making a career of being a stand-in, because he wasn't the published soloist for this Prom, and he'd already been a stand-in for Prom 2.) He was as fabulous as I remembered, and the reviews were mostly great. Personally I wasn't at all impressed with the men in the choir, though - they appeared to be mumbling most of the time, although the sound was OK (not great, just OK). You know how men look when they're being forced to sing something they don't really know? In a foreign language? They looked like that. I was quite surprised when I realised that it was an actual Russian choir who could presumably speak Russian without even having to think about it!

I notice that The Bells is tonight's Prom, featuring the LPC, who sang it with us - let's see how they manage without us! Can't believe they didn't return the invitation! Let's also see if their bass soloist turns up... we may yet see Mikhail again :-)

Other news: orchestral musicians are still having problems with airline security, and sadly there seem to be a lot of stupid people who can't see why. Just read the comments on that article. Unbelievable.

And the football season is fully under way - I was at Old Trafford on Sunday and witnessed United's impressiveness at first hand. I have a season ticket for the first time ever, which I'm very excited about. I'd expected to miss a few matches due to choir, but in fact the first two matches I'll be missing will be due to weddings! The second home game of the season is on 9th September, when Meg and Tom are getting married (not to mention the Last Night of the Proms and the 24-Hour Race at West Lancashire Yacht Club!), and although I can go to the third one, the fourth is on 30th September, when Rachel and Laurie are getting married! Luckily I love weddings, so I don't mind too much having to miss football matches for them, especially when it's such lovely people :-)

Pete to win!

I'm still ridiculously addicted to Big Brother, but thank goodness it finishes this Friday, so I can have music on in the background instead of housemates arguing. It's weird that I like BB so much, because I detest all the other reality shows... go figure...

Anyway, this is just a quick post to alert you to two new music-related blogs I just discovered. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra have just started a joint blog, with posts so far by a cellist and a trumpeter. Example: "Towards the end we were required to “whisper in any order in random rhythm ‘ss’ ‘k’ ‘f’ and tongue click”. Being a loud-mouthed brass-player type, this is what I’ve been waiting my whole playing career for!! We were also asked to make wind noises, an instruction I think the trombones took a bit too literally." And there's also a very entertaining blog by a harpist, called Twang Twang Twang. I particularly liked the Joyce Grenfell harpist sketch :-)

I've added both those blogs to my sidebar (i.e. that list over there to the right of my page) so you can keep an eye on them. (They both have RSS feeds, if you're au fait with all that. So does this blog, for that matter, if you hadn't noticed.)

Oh, and also, in case you missed it, orchestral musicians are having big problems as a result of the new air travel rules.

Art thou troubled? Music will calm thee.

I've been in a foul mood for most of the last week. But then yesterday I had a singing lesson, and now I'm in a good mood :-) (Just to be clear, it wasn't so much the lesson that cheered me up, it was the hours of singing I thought I'd better do beforehand!) So if you're fed up for whatever reason, do try going and having a warble. All the things I've been fed up about lately are still exactly as they were, but today they seem less end-of-the-world-ish. So, yay!

I was going to post the other day to tell you that I was in Forsyth's and noticed that someone has actually published the sheet music for the Honda advert, and Forsyth's have it on sale at £3.95. I was very good and didn't buy it ("when would you ever use it?" I hear you ask, but that's not stopped me buying stuff in the past!) but go and have a look if you're curious.

As a result of singing-lesson-induced enthusiasm, I spent ages last night sorting out sheet music and CDs and iTunes playlists. And in the process I discovered that there are several songs I'd really like to have a recording of, but can't find one (there were a lot more than these, but I found quite a lot on the iTMS) - so if you have any of these you could send me an mp3 of, or let me know of a CD to buy, I'd love to know! A Hymn to the Virgin - Rubbra; A Lullaby - Hamilton Harty; A slumber song of the Madonna - Michael Head; Perduta ho la pace - Verdi; Silver - Armstrong Gibbs; Song to the Seals - Granville Bantock; Why am I always the bridesmaid? (music hall song)

To change the subject, a few links to point out: using music to predict when volcanoes will erupt; a review of Paris Hilton's new album which amused me greatly ("She sings like a woman who has heard of something called singing, can't be sure of exactly what it might entail, but is fairly certain you do something a bit like this."); and news that Katie Melua will be joining us at the Proms in the Park next month.

And finally, it occurs to me that I still have several "great choral moments" to share, so this seems as good a time as any to bring out another one! Well, two. Neither of which is strictly choral, but they're both choir-related...

The first is one that I was reminded of while sorting music yesterday. I found a song by Menotti, and this reminded me of the time - MANY years ago (not sure how many, but it was in the Free Trade Hall) - when we did Amahl and the Night Visitors. Actually, it must have been not long after I joined the choir (which was in 1993), because it was while I was sitting on the front row (John Currie used to put all the new people on the front row, which delighted me but thoroughly annoyed some of the older members who believed you should start at the back and move forward only every few years!). Why do I remember that? Well, this was a semi-staged performance, and the lead characters were in costume and acted as well as sang. And at one point during the gig, several members of the choir from the front row, including me and Ian Benton, had to go out to the front and give someone something (I think we were shepherds giving our gifts to the baby Jesus or something - it's a nativity story, in case you didn't know).

Anyway, that wasn't the moment I remembered. The Great Moment is one that probably won't mean much to anyone who wasn't there, but to those who were... Let me take you back. We REALLY didn't like this work while we were rehearsing it. There was very little to sing, and what there was seemed a waste of time. So we weren't looking forward to the performance at all. But on the night, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who got totally swept up by the thing. Amahl is a little crippled boy, you see, and the kid they had playing him (from the Manchester Boys' Choir, I think, although I could be wrong) was BRILLIANT. And at the end, when he was miraculously cured... well, there were more than just audible sniffs at the moment when he threw his crutches away and walked without them. I, personally, was in floods of tears, and it wasn't just me. As I remember it, most of the women in the choir were in a similar state, and the men were trying to cover up their own emotions by mocking the weeping women :p

Heh, that took longer to explain than I expected! I could leave the second Great Choral Moment for another time. But it could be ages before I have this much energy again, so here goes :-)

This one is much more recent (November 2004) and involves several current choir members, but I'm not sure whether any of them found it as funny as I did! I'm paraphrasing a post I wrote for my LJ at the time, so this will be more thorough than might otherwise be the case.

Jackie H is friends with a tenor soloist (Martin Toal) who had sung a few national anthems at major sports fixtures, and he'd asked her to arrange a group of singers (mainly Sotto Voce) to be the backing choir when he sang at the Tri-Nations rugby league final (Great Britain v Australia) at Elland Road in Leeds. We were asked to prepare standard Last Night of the Proms stuff (Land of Hope & Glory, Rule Britannia, Jerusalem) in addition to the English and Australian national anthems. We had to learn the latter from memory (we already knew all the rest) - it has somewhat odd words which we found hard to get right.

The Great Moment happened before we'd sung a note. We arrived at 2.30 as instructed. We said we were the singers. We were ushered to a very impressive dressing room - well, it was two adjoining rooms. The men announced that they'd have the room with the TV in (typical!). But then the ground staff guy who'd shown us in said "no, the men will have to go elsewhere, only girls allowed in here". Well, we were even more impressed at this. Until, a few minutes later, the guy came back and admitted he'd meant "only Girls Aloud in here"... he was somewhat embarrassed that he'd thought we were Girls Aloud (there were 8 women, of which I was, I think, the youngest...)

That was the Moment (which still cracks me up every time I think of it - I was mistaken for one of Girls Aloud!) but I should probably tell the rest of the story in case anyone is curious...

That was the first I knew Girls Aloud were singing too - I don't think the rest of the choir hadn't heard of them, but I was very excited by this news. Even more so when we were shown to our actual dressing room, which turned out to be shared with about 20 soldiers (Paras, in fact) (in desert uniform, which they'd been asked to wear because they'd all been to Iraq) and the cheerleaders (who wore England rugby kits, but they'd all rolled up their shorts at the waist so that they were really short). So everyone had some eye candy :p

There was lots of sitting around, interspersed with a brief rehearsal, then at 5.50 we were led into the players' tunnel. (The kickoff was 6.15.) This was the first we saw of Girls Aloud, who were performing on the pitch. The ground was packed, the players were out warming up behind Girls Aloud, and there were TV cameras EVERYWHERE. Then everything happened in a rush - the players all suddenly came off and went back into their changing rooms, and we were told to get into position on the pitch sharpish, because things were 2 mins behind schedule. So we dashed onto the pitch as Girls Aloud dashed off, and it was straight into Land of Hope & Glory. So exciting standing there during the long instrumental intro, waiting to sing - the atmosphere was fantastic.

We had to skip Rule Brit and Jerusalem due to time running out, but then they brought the players out, and wow! Loads of fireworks let off. Confetti shot into the air above the entrance. The soldiers fired their guns (I don't know what they were, but there were two and they were huge. We thought they looked like howitzers, but none of us was sure. They banged very loudly, anyway.) 1812 overture played over the PA (the loud bit with cannons). The players came and lined up right in front of us, the Great Britain team to our left and the Australian team to our right, and two soldiers stood in front of us on the red carpet holding the Tri-Nations trophy. The Aussie team looked just... well, BIGGER than the GB team. But all the players looked fierce.

We sang both the anthems - amazingly I remembered all the words to the Aussie one, although there was some creativity going on in the bass section behind me... - and then nearly tripped over a cameraman in trying to get off the pitch. We'd been warned to move as soon as the last anthem finished, because kickoff would be seconds later, and they weren't wrong - the red carpet was rolled up and whisked away before half the choir was even off the podium, and as I entered the players' tunnel the hooter for the start of the match went off and nearly deafened me.

That was the end of our involvement. We were home in time to see the second half. Of course, it all ended in tears - Great Britain got slaughtered. I suspect I cursed them. Martin Toal (the tenor soloist) lost his lucky charm status as a result - until that day, England (or Great Britain) had never lost a match at which he sang the national anthem, apparently.

More Great Choral Moments another time. Until then, keep singing :-)

"Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa."

Well, there were supposed to be quite a few choir people coming to my house tonight, but one by one they all cancelled, so I have a huge pile of sausage rolls to eat on my own. Luckily I adore sausage rolls! I should really have continued with the tidying, but instead I spent the last couple of hours watching Field of Dreams, which is one of the best films there is - I've seen it loads of times and it still makes me cry. (In a good way.) (If you've never seen it, go and buy the DVD immediately!)

Just thought I'd post a few links I've collected over the past few weeks.

Sting's next album will be "an album of 16th-century music performed entirely on ... voice and lute, there are a few four part harmonies that I sing and it's all music from the 16th century." I'm looking forward to this - Sting is one of my all-time heroes (along with Nelson, David Beckham, Clark Kent and others...)

A list of tongue twisters. Some of these are even more difficult than Jamie's "red leather, yellow leather, lavender leather" exercise!

Something called the Amen break, which I'd never heard of before. (Here's an mp3 of it.)

A list of all the musical genres there are, allegedly.

Some theories about why opera singers are fat.

A list of band name origins. (I like the Pretenders one - I never knew that!)

A thing about what classical performers wear (mentions Mark Elder).

William Byrd's theory about why everyone should learn to sing.

And finally, a really fascinating one that I could stare at for hours: a constantly-changing display of what's playing on American radio stations right now. No idea how it works but it's very cool!