"Is it from the Queen?"

Just on my way out to tonight's rehearsal of The Kingdom. I put my "I'm blogging this" T-shirt on, and then realised that I haven't blogged about Saturday's concert! Oops!

It went very well. We even got to sit down at one point, to listen to Jonathan's organ solo. And they'd rigged up a camera and monitor so that Jonathan could see Jamie. Poor Maggie still had to sing from a raised pulpit with a canopy, which meant she was very visible and audible but she couldn't actually hear anything else when she was singing! I certainly couldn't tell, though - she sounded great. So did the choir, I thought - the tenors still didn't quite manage to sing their bare fifths in the Tavener (someone kept singing G sharps where there should only have been an E an a B), but apart from that I thought everything was pretty good. And it was a full house, too, which is always great to perform to. Hopefully there'll be even more people to hear the repeat performance in Manchester Cathedral this Friday (starts at 7.45 p.m., tickets available on the door - I think they're £10 each, concessions £6).

I'm sure there must have been some Jamieisms, but I'll look them up later tonight. (I'm particularly looking forward to tonight's rehearsal, because not only do we get to sight-read lots of new Elgar, we also meet the Associate Choir for the first time!) But I do remember the funniest moment, and for once it wasn't from Jamie. We were about to go onstage, and David Evans announced that he had a card to read to us, from a lady (Maggie, it transpired afterwards) who started "To my favourite choir..." to which Bruce said "Is it from the Queen?"