"He's got a wedding ring." "He's got a RING."

The subject of this exchange (overheard in the ladies' dressing room) was, of course, the fabulous Gianandrea Noseda, who conducted our concert last night. No idea where he gets all his energy from - I've never seen a conductor move so much! And he did grunt very loudly throughout the performance - he did in the rehearsals, but we wondered whether or not he would in the performance. Amazingly my mum said it wasn't audible from where she was (in the circle). Oh, and she also said that she sat next to someone whose husband was in the choir, who informed her that the choir couldn't follow Gianandrea's beat and couldn't understand a word he said! Speak for yourself, mate :p

(It's true that his beat was very different to Mark's - I was particularly fascinated by the way he used his fingers - but I found it very clear.)

The gig went quite well, although there was a bit of a disaster with the stands and sits, which resulted in us being seated for the central a cappella section. I heard a few people say this made no difference, but I think it did (although not a HUGE difference). The fact that we had already deliberately sung several of the quieter sections seated meant that the audience probably didn't notice anything was amiss, but the whole choir knew, and I think that made a difference psychologically. As I've said before, I've always hated the system of the choir following one person for stands and sits, rather than everyone taking responsibility for it. At least this time the mistake resulted in us sitting for too long rather than standing too long - I'm really glad it was that way round, my feet have been killing me all week!

I missed Wednesday's rehearsal because I was too exhausted to do anything other than sleep when I got home from work. Pathetic, I know, but I don't miss many choir things. But did I miss any good Jamieisms?

I need to go and do some work now (and possibly World of Warcraft - not had time for that all week) but first let me unload some links.

This page on h2g2 is a choral singer's guide to surviving concerts. Not much that's news to most of you, probably, but interesting nonetheless. (If you have time, do look round other parts of h2g2 - it's fascinating!)

This is a classical music quiz that was featured in the Guardian the other day. I only got about half of them right - see if you do any better!

A Scottish choir has found a novel way to get new singers - they're even making a charge for it! I'll be fascinated to see if it works. (You may need to register to read that story, but it's free.)

Most popular search leading people to this blog is still Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink song (there are more requests for that than for everything else combined), but other recent searches that have amused me include: tips conductors choir altos high notes; learn alto part of amen; and singing instructions to sing like Axl Rose :p

And finally, in case you, like me, have always meant to take a picture of the Mark Elder painting that's backstage in the Bridgewater Hall, here it is (I saw Graham taking one yesterday and that reminded me). (Oh, and I almost forgot to say - the picure at the top of this post is one I took last night while walking back to the Bridgewater Hall from Felicini, which is that relatively new restaurant opposite the Palace Theatre. Alison and I had a fabulous meal there last night - I can thoroughly recommend it. They have an outdoor terrace at the back, where you can sit by the canal. Trust me, that's much nicer than it sounds!)

Every time we say goodbye

This was my favourite moment of Thursday night's ladies' sectional, although the whole of it was great fun (the sectionals usually are!) It was when Jamie was pointing out the change from major to minor just before the "Ihr stürzt nieder" bit in Beethoven 9. This reminded him of the song, so he played it on the piano and we all sang along. Lovely :-)

There was also a slightly bizarre rambling Jamieism that started with the phrase "Who was it I was talking to in Singapore? Unruffled Ruffles..." and went on to describe a tablecloth being pulled out from underneath a pile of stuff including Maggie's teacup. It went on to include "Let's get physical!" and "It might not even occur to Mark to ask you to do tablecloths!" Sadly I can't actually remember what all this was trying to illustrate, nor did we ever find out who he was talking to in Singapore!

Other stuff I wrote down: Jamie's impression of a worm drinking rain (this was totally visual, but did amuse me at the time!) Also "Woo hoo! ... Can you write that in?" (there'd been a whole string of complex, very specific instructions to get the sound he wanted... you had to be there...) And finally, advising on how to pronounce "muss", "Moose! ... That's not an accusation."

Also there was news of two recordings - our English landscapes CD (that includes As torrents in summer) is due out very soon (possibly October), and discussions are taking place about the recording of our a cappella concert from earlier this year. At the very least we should be able to hear it ourselves eventually, and there's a possibility that it may get a wider release. Whee!

The day that the rains came down

It took me an hour and a quarter to get to work this morning. It's only 16 miles! Didn't help that I was still in a bad mood from last night, and a couple of annoying things happened during the morning, so by lunchtime I was totally fed up. However, things improved after that, and hopefully tonight's ladies' sectional will be so good that I'll be cheerful tomorrow. (I probably will be anyway, in the knowledge that tomorrow night I don't have to go out again once I get home from work, and I can sleep as long as I like!)

Thanks to all those who left comments and sent supportive emails after my last post. They were very much appreciated. I'm relieved to know I'm not the only alto who disagrees with what was said last night! Anyway, I'm off out in a minute, but I just thought I'd post to say that the updated schedule is now online in the usual place, complete with football fixtures (which I'd previously forgotten to add). Also, a few links:

A fan page for the lovely Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the baritone from the Last NIght of the proms. Wasn't he fabulous? I do hope he comes to sing with us sometime :-)

Another story about Mark's speech (from the Guardian), followed by one from the Independent, followed by an article by someone who disagrees, followed by yesterday's news that all the lobbying seems to have worked.

An interesting story about how many classical music lovers will have tried cannabis, and how hip-hop fans have more sex... (Graham unearthed this one - thanks Graham!) EDIT: the same story reported in the Guardian.

And finally, confirmation that Jamie didn't invent the word Nairn (he used it as an example of pronunciation last night but couldn't remember what it was, so the choir was convinced he'd invented it. But it's a place in Scotland).

Not much of an alto rep

My term of office on the choir committee ends at the AGM, so after that I'll no longer be an alto rep. And tonight I decided that maybe that's just as well, as there are a significant number of altos with whom I disagree on an awful lot of things. Many of them are people I regard as friends, and I hate disagreeing with them, but I do. And I feel even worse when they approach me as an alto rep and ask me to pass on their views, because although of course I will report any views aired to me, I know that I'll also be saying that I disagree with them. (I do tell them that I disagree, of course, which probably doesn't fill them with much confidence in me, but I can't lie.)

Some issues on which I differ from many of the altos (I suspect they're in the minority, but I'm not 100% sure) (I *am* sure that they believe themselves to be in the majority, though):

1. I really enjoyed the Proms in the Park, both times we've done it. I'd be delighted to do it again. Yes, I was slightly irritated to arrive and then find I could have got there much later, but that's not the first time that's happened, and once I was there I enjoyed it, even while waiting.

2. I'm not particularly bothered that we didn't do the Bridgewater Hall 10th anniversary concert.

3. I support Jamie and trust him on artistic decisions. (Yes, of course there are occasions when he does something I don't like, or that I disagree with, but on the really important issues I think he generally gets it right.)

4. I *am* extremely bothered that if he has to put up with many more attacks like tonight's, we'll lose him.

5. I think Jessica is doing an excellent job.

6. I think it is totally unacceptable to talk while the conductor is talking, whether it's Jamie or Gianandrea or Mark.

But, maybe I am alone in these views. Despite that, I do feel a bit bad now that I didn't say anything at the time, but I decided that the people who were upset were SO upset that they wouldn't have wanted to hear what I had to say, and that a better plan would be to speak to Jamie afterwards. Which I did, and he was not at all happy.

(Sorry to non-choir people who won't know what went on at tonight's rehearsal, I don't plan to relive it all.)

One good thing came of tonight, though, which is that United won. And look who scored the first goal :-)

Anyway. Time to sleep.

P.S. Happy birthday to Justin Walker, should he ever read this!

The bride wore blue, Joel sang falsetto, and a deep fat fryer fault caused the race computers to fail

In case you're wondering, the three events of the title are unrelated, other than that they all took place yesterday and I witnessed all of them :-) (I was just trying to work out why I'm so tired, given that I had a good long lie-in today, but yesterday was so busy - I didn't get home till 3 a.m. after having been on the go since just after noon - that I guess just one night's sleep wasn't enough to recover!)

The day started with me having to dash to my mum's to hand over my United season ticket to my brother, so he could go and watch the Tottenham game in my place. He'll also be using my ticket on Wednesday to see United play Celtic in the Champions' League. (Hmm, that reminds me, I haven't told Jessica about football fixtures that clash with choir, although in my defence she hasn't asked... Must do that soon. In the meantime, you may like to note that United are at home on Wednesday night!) I'm particularly annoyed about having to miss the Celtic game, because of course it means I'll miss Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink! Oh well. (Incidentally, I've noticed a few people searching for the Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink mp3 - I wonder if this is what they're looking for?)

Then it was off to Holy Trinity Platt Lane for the choir rehearsal for Meg and Tom's wedding, followed by the wedding itself. This was just lovely. Some reasons why, in no particular order: Meg wore a lovely blue outfit made from some material she'd bought in India a few years ago. They had a London bus (with a ribbon on it!) that took them away from the church afterwards. They had both memorized their vows - very brave, and impressive! There were more than 40 people in the choir that sang during the service, and it sounded fabulous (though I do so say myself). The congregation was also full of singers (I presume the reason they didn't invite everyone to sing in the choir was lack of space - it was rather cramped, and those of us who were late for the rehearsal had to sit on the floor at the back as it was). The hymns and readings were all lovely. The choir solo bits went very well - As Torrents in Summer is of course well known to most of us, but Patrick Hadley's My Beloved Spake (which was the centrepiece of the service) was new to me, and it's gorgeous. And we also did Rutter's The Lord Bless You and Keep You, which several people had thought a bit too cheesy... yet those same people were taken aback to find that that was what moved them to tears! Oh, and the organist was our own Jonathan, who was unexpectedly free when they asked him. He wasn't very happy with the organ, but you'd never know it from his playing :-)







After the wedding there was cake and champagne, and then I set off for Heaton Park for the Proms. On arrival, I was about to try to get changed in the car (they'd told us to arrive in our choir outfits as there would be no changing facilities) when I realised that in the panic to get out of the house on time I'd left my choir frock at home. Argh. So I had to go back for it, but this wasn't a huge problem because we weren't singing till right at the end.

By the time I got back to the park, I was just in time to see Katie Melua start her set. (In this picture you may just be able to make out some of the Youth Choir hanging about right at the side of the stage - several of them were quite obsessive about her, and waited near her dressing room for ages in the hope of meeting her. Don't know whether or not they did.)



Eventually it was time for us to line up to go on. This was somewhat chaotic, because there weren't many Hallé Choir members there (loads were at Tom and Meg's evening reception, and many others just couldn't make it), but there was the whole of the Youth Choir, plus the Hallé Youth *Orchestra* (no idea if they test their singing when they audition them, but anyway). They started off with the main choir in a long row along the back, with the orchestra in two rows in front of us, and the youth choir at the front. But most of the boys in the youth choir and orchestra were taller than most of the Hallé Choir, so there had to be a bit of a reshuffle so we could all see (and be seen!) I ended up in the middle of the 2nd row, next to a trumpeter called Joel, who (as has been mentioned) planned to sing falsetto. He was aided and abetted in this by James, who I recognised (he's in the youth choir) but couldn't work out what was different about him, till I realised that last time I saw him he had a red nose :p

It was very late by the time we got on stage, but the crowd seemed delighted to see us. It was slightly frustrating to be able to hear Mark etc. from London but not see them (and we didn't hear his speech at all, because they turned the feed off at that point while Jamie and Heather Stott rehearsed the crowd). But we had great fun anyway. I don't think we were shown on TV at all, according to people I know who watched it (I sky-plussed it and am just watching the start of the concert as I write this), but never mind. We did get our name mentioned a lot, if only by Heather Stott, and that was the main reason for doing the gig in the first place.

(Oh, and there was a sound technician who was the spitting image of Jay from Jay and Silent Bob, but when I pointed this out to Joel he'd never heard of them. I suppose it is a bit of a cult thing... And before I leave the Proms, did you all remember to watch the prom with Andrew? Wasn't he good?)



Anyway, after the Prom I set off for Southport, to watch a bit of the 24 hour race on the Marine Lake. I love this event - last year I watched for the full 24 hours, and I would have done the same this year if I could. The team from my sailing club did really well last year, finishing 6th, but when I arrived this year (I was about to say "last night" but in fact it was after midnight when I got there) there was much grumbling. They'd started well - they were 1st after the first 2 laps, and still 3rd several hours later. But then there had been a power failure caused by a fault with a deep fat fryer, and this had caused the race computers to go haywire. Normally they publish results every half hour or so during the whole 24 hours (there is a handicap system, so it's not just a case of which boat crosses the line in which order on each lap, they do it on average lap times after the handicaps are taken into account) but the computers were down when I arrived, and no results were published before I left. Some of the Hollingworth Lake sailors were upset because just before the computers went down, the latest results had their boat at 17th, when they'd been 3rd half an hour earlier, and they were positive that this was a mistake, because no-one had passed them - they'd been watching! The final results are now online, so I presume they sorted out the power failure, but Hollingworth Lake appear to have finished in 13th place, which will disappoint them if it's accurate, and infuriate them if they believe it to be incorrect.

Anyway, I really must do some work now - I've been putting it off for hours - but before I do, some links to share:

A story about Kent Nagano's first concert with his new orchestra.

Some news about a Schola Cantorum CD (it's from before Jamie conducted them, but has only just been released).

And finally, there was a query: What national anthem starts on a minor 3rd? Well, the obvious one seems to me to be the USA one (The Star-Spangled Banner), which has a descending minor third between its first two notes (now you see how that search led to this blog!), but there may be others...

"In Russia, everybody has a dog."

Well, I know I said I'd post this last night, but I fell asleep, so here's a quick version before I go to work.

Wednesday night was such fun. It was the piano rehearsal for Daphnis and Chloe with Gianandrea Noseda. I'm told there was quite a bit of swooning from certain members of the alto section when he walked in... He was full of energy and talked VERY quickly, and I should imagine many people couldn't hear a lot of what he said, but luckily I was directly in line with him and got most of it. I'd love to write reams about everything he said, but I haven't time, so I'll just list the main quotes I wrote down that amused us:

"I have to conduct in 4, unfortunately, because it's written in 4, this bloody music!"

"No sex any more. I will behave well." (by this point he'd used sexual metaphors to illustrate just about every point he'd made. Needless to say this continued for the rest of the rehearsal...)

"Kill someone with your voice!"

"I got a leg injury from it!" (this was when he described a game that used to take place at his school (in Italy - a boys' school) when he was 16 or 17 - the game involved them all piling on top of each other with no warning...)

"Lions, they are not insane."

"David, you are a great orchestra."

"[sing it] like if we take drugs." (After he clarified this, Jamie said "Well, if it's a lack of control you need...." - cue mock shock!)

"In Russia everybody has a dog. I asked one of them why. The answer? 'Because we get drunk very often, and forget where we live. The dog shows us the way home!' And in this section the 5/4 bars are just the dog." (This was my favourite thing all night - not so much this quote, as the fact that it turns out that the new bass who started on Monday is Russian! I didn't hear his name when it was announced, because the applause for "we have a new bass!" was still going on. Anyway, he spoke up at the point when the Russian dog story was introduced, and he and Gianandrea conversed in Russian for several minutes, to everyone's delight.)

EDIT: It's been pointed out to me by several people that I haven't included the premature ejaculation analogy (this is how Gianandrea described how to do a big crescendo to ff followed by subito p). I suspect this is because I was laughing so much at the time that I forgot to write it down :p

---

Gianandrea left after we'd sung all of Daphnis, leaving everyone inspired. I love it when that happens - you'd think it might occur at every piano rehearsal, but it doesn't - generally only with Mark Elder, but we can now add Gianandrea to the inspirational list! Anyway, then we had time to do Beethoven 9 - at last! We spent half an hour on it - amazingly, Jamie finished early (some people near me were muttering that he finished late, but as usual they'd forgotten that piano rehearsals are scheduled to end at 9.30).

Nothing really to report on Beethoven, although it was great to sing it, especially as we sang loads of the solo bits just for fun. More work on it is promised next week. Before then, the Proms... we even practised a bit for that! Well, sort of - we ended the warmup by singing "Jerusalem". Always invigorating :-)

You'll have to wait till tonight, but...

... when I get home from work I will report some of Gianandrea Noseda's words concerning sex, death, cannibalism, drug-taking, alcoholism and Russian dogs.

(Last night we had a great time!)

"So much of that is so very nearly right!"

(Dapnhis and Chloe on Monday night, that is, at our first rehearsal since July. We don't normally start back on a Monday, but the piano rehearsal, when we meet Gianandrea Noseda for the first time, is tonight!) (I'm supposed to be asleep, but I couldn't get to sleep due to millions of thoughts spinning round in my head, so I thought I'd try to unload some of the non-work-related ones - might help!)

Bits of the Ravel were indeed very nearly right, although of course it didn't sound as good as it did in July. We did sing all of it (although we spent rather more time on the first bit than the rest) and I think it'll be good on the night of the gig, although how impressed Gianandrea will be when he first hears it is less certain. Hopefully he'll take circumstances into account...

Couple of good Jamieisms to welcome us back, of which the one that got the biggest laugh at the time was this:

Jamie (to tenors): Can you sing it like you've got 5 horns? And you can choose which way they go?
Rest of choir: *boggle*
(tenors sing their line again)
Jamie (defiantly, to rest of choir): Does that sound better?
Rest of choir: *nods*
Jamie: Well, there you are.

There was also: "We could do the whole of Daphnis and Chloe as a Laurel and Hardy film!" (the film in question involved them only having 3 drinks for 4 people, and from Jamie's description I suspect it is Men o'War) (no, I didn't know, I looked it up!)

Bit of a fun exercise involving sliding chords, too, but I suspect you had to be there :-)

Must try to sleep again. But first, some things to point out:

1. Make sure you watch tomorrow's Prom (Thu) because it's the RPO, which, last I heard, featured the fabulous Andrew Nicholson on flute.

2. You'll no doubt be aware that Sunday's Prom was cancelled due to a fire, but did you realise it started in the artists' bar? Not sure why that amuses me so much :p Some people were wondering when was the last time a Prom was cancelled - seems it was in 1980 as a result of the Musicians' Union strike. And although now I've been reminded about the strike, I remember it very clearly (I was at Chet's at the time and it affected lots of the staff), I am ashamed to admit that I'd totally forgotten it happened.

3. The BBC is to follow up its Beethoven and Bach weeks with Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky next year.

4. This blog is the top Google result for .............mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm;pp - what I can't work out is what the searcher actually had in mind!

"Who’s top of the table? It’s not a London band..."

I was about to go to sleep, till I checked my email and found a comment from the fabulous Wendy pointing me towards an article I'd missed (thanks Wendy): the league table of British orchestras. Guess who's top! This is as it should be :-)

Long but good day today. I went to Hebden Bridge with a load of friends (some of whom I hadn't met before, but many of whom were current and past choir members). This was for a joint "hen day" for Meg and Rachel, who both get married in the next few weeks. The plan was to go for a walk and then have lunch, but the rain was so INCREDIBLY heavy that we had lunch first - a very long lunch - in the hope that it would ease off a bit. Well, it did, and we walked up an incredibly steep hill to Heptonstall, and then spent quite a while examining tombstones in the parish church graveyard in an effort to find two graves: that of Sylvia Plath, and one that someone remembered seeing on a previous visit, which allegedly ended with the line "She was a bad wife". We didn't find either, but it's a fabulous place, even in the rain! I recommend it.

Oh, and I'm getting a load of visitors to this site from this page, which is in Russian and appears to be about the lovely Mikhail Petrenko. Can anyone translate the bit where it links here? (it's at the bottom of the page) I'm curious, and the Google translator can cope with many languages, but not Russian :p

(In case you're wondering, the Honda ad searches are finally dying down, to be replaced with an amazing number of searches for either the picture of Eddie Izzard or asking how to pronounce Jesu!)