O holy marmalade

Tonight I did, for the first time, something I've always wanted to do :-) But before I tell you about it, let me get everything else out of the way.

Wednesday's rehearsal produced no Jamieisms, as there was no Jamie. (I don't know why, because I was having vocal coaching when the announcement was made.) It was David instead (which meant we had the lovely Jonathan on the piano - always a pleasure! And he was most amused at our gibbon impression...) and we did almost all of the Mozart C minor Mass. We're not performing it till February, but because it's a big sing and many people haven't done it before, Jamie wanted to start it early so it has time to sink in. I was disappointed that we didn't do my two favourite movements - Qui Tollis and Sanctus (I like them because of the antiphonal effect of the double chorus) - but no doubt we'll get to them soon enough. Also, I couldn't help thinking that a lot of the ladies will end up having to relearn the music we did on Wednesday, because I would put money on Jamie wanting to replace the SSA divisions with the high/middle/low parts we used for Ravel etc. And no, I don't know whether he plans to or not - it just seems to me to make sense.

Other stuff, in no particular order (and mostly nothing to do with choir!): The People's Chorus thing is being released on DVD on 11th December (just after it's on TV).

There's an ice rink in Piccadilly Gardens at the moment. I'm going skating with my family on the afternoon of Messiah day - anyone want to join us (at 3.15)? It'd be amusing if half the choir turned up for the gig with broken legs :p If you want to skate, on that or any other day, you can book online.

I was amused by this news story - Coventry City were playing QPR today, but their coach got stuck in traffic in London, so they abandoned it and all went on the tube! And the best part is that only one of them knew how to get to where they wanted to go, and he didn't even get picked to play :p

I can't understand, though, why a minor thing like that (funny as it is) is in the news, yet the recent huge stories from the world of sailing haven't hit the headlines at all. Last week was the news that Tony Bullimore, who'd been missing for ELEVEN DAYS, had been found safe and well. This would be newsworthy enough even without the fact that he's been missing before. And then there's been HIGH DRAMA in the Velux 5 Oceans Race (formerly the Around Alone race). It has been mentioned on the BBC site, but not unless you happened to look at their sailing page... Some of you might remember that in the Vendee Globe race in 1997 (that's the race that Ellen Macarthur almost won in 2001) not only did Tony Bullimore get rescued when assumed dead (as mentioned above), but Pete Goss became a hero by turning back to rescue a fellow competitor who'd capsized in horrendous weather, at huge risk to himself (the weather was so bad that no-one else could get there in time). Well, a similar thing has happened this week, but I've not seen it on the news at all. Alex Thomson, one of the favourites to win the race, had a disaster when his boat suffered an extreme structural failure and capsized. And Mike Golding, another of our top British sailors, went back to rescue him. The rescue turned out to be extremely difficult and dangerous, but Golding managed it. But now he's had trouble of his own (and that's after his boat was hit by a giant squid a few weeks ago!)... Let's hope he manages to fix it and get back in the race.

Anyway, I've been writing for ages and haven't yet got to tonight's event! It was the Mozart Requiem gig at Bury Parish Church, in which (thanks to the generosity of Dr Liz) I was singing the alto solo. That's the thing I've always wanted to do - sing a proper solo in a proper concert. (Yes, I've sung many things in the past that could be probably described as that, but you know what I mean.) And tonight I did! It was very exciting. I'm pleased it was this piece that I managed to get for my debut, because I know it really, really well (although not so much the solo bits), so I didn't have to spend any time learning the notes. I did have a couple of lessons - and practised quite a lot - in order to get the breathing and tone quality better, because those two things are not my best points! (To clarify - I have singing lessons regularly anyway, but I had two lessons in which we concentrated specifically on the Mozart.)

It was a scratch performance. To the uninitiated, that means it was performed by a group of people who only met for the first time on the day; there's no prior rehearsal. Needless to say, scratch performances are often not very good, but in this case the choir was surprisingly impressive - you'd never guess it was a scratch choir. (It did include two Hallé altos apart from me - Chris Hughes and Margaret Dickinson were there. Lovely to see Margaret, it's been a while!) There was no orchestra, but the accompaniment was played by Ronnie Frost on the organ, so it was pretty good. But my reason for mentioning that it was a scratch performance is that because of this, the conductor (Nick Castell, who was excellent) asked the soloists to sing in all the choruses as well. Advantages of this: 1. It's one of my favourite pieces, so I'd probably have had to try really hard not to sing it all; 2. It meant that I had already sung properly, in front of the audience, before having to sing on my own, which was much less nervewracking; 3. It meant I got a decent warmup (there was nowhere to do that before the concert). Disadvantages of this: 1. I got a bit carried away and sang too enthusiastically in some bits, giving myself a bit of a sore throat in time for my solos; 2. I had to stand up ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Stupidly, I hadn't registered that this would be the case, so I was wearing shoes with heels (low ones, that I wear at work all day, but still). I've been home for two hours now, and my feet are just starting to get their feeling back :p

I must admit, though, it was a really good feeling to remain standing when the whole choir around me sat down. (We were seated as a quartet in the middle of the choir, rather than at the front - there wasn't room for a soloists' row.) I like feeling special :-) So special, in fact, that the two tiny choristers on the front row kept turning round and staring at me (and the other soloists). This was really disconcerting, especially as they did it most often at the points where I was most nervous, i.e. right at the start of the first phrase I sang in each bit. Maggie, bless her, had warned me about all sorts of things related to being a soloist, most of which hadn't occurred to me - but she never mentioned the offputting antics of small children!

Anyway, everything went pretty well. So well, in fact, that the rehearsal finished an hour and a half early, and I don't think anything went wrong in the performance at all. My bit wasn't perfect by any means - the breathing wasn't great (although I can cover that up fairly well), and a couple of high notes were a bit croaky. But on the whole it was OK, and there wasn't anything I did that I was horribly embarrassed about, so I'm encouraged! It might be years before anyone asks me to be a soloist again, but at the moment I'm in a pretty good mood :-)

(Oh, and the title of this post? That's what the Manchester University choir apparently sings for Quam Olim Abrahe :p)