"If you DON'T praise his holy name, then we'll go into D minor, people, and it will be BAD."

It feels like much longer since I've updated here than it actually is. Sorry if it feels that way to you too!

Vaughan Williams is now a long-distant memory, because for the last couple of weeks it's been all Mendelssohn. (Incidentally, I'd forgotten how short Mendelssohn's life was - he died when he was 38.) I really like this piece, quite apart from its personal significance for me (being, as previously mentioned, the first thing I ever sang with the choir). It's a huge sing, though, and it'll be interesting to see whether any voices collapse under the strain, particularly as we're performing it more times than we do most things (we're doing this in Manchester, and at the Royal Albert Hall in the Proms, and in Valencia). My favourite bit is still the 4-part men's chord at the start of "The Night is Departing", but there are lots of other good bits too.

Last week we had a great rehearsal in which we sight-read through the whole thing. I love rehearsals like that (so much so that I gave up my ticket for that night's United game) but that's mainly because I love sight-reading. And yes, even though I have sung it before, it did feel like sight-reading... but bear in mind that it's over 15 years since I last sang it, and last time it was in English and this time it isn't, so there is no muscle memory (if indeed muscle memory works after 15 years!) On the whole the sight-reading was pretty successful - I do think most of the choir are getting better at this. (It occurred to me the other night that there's an easy way to tell - just from watching - who the best sight-readers are in any choir. Just wait for a page turn. There are still many singers (in all choirs) who only turn the page at the moment the music actually REACHES the end of the page. The good sight-readers will have turned several bars earlier.)

This week we didn't do the whole thing, but concentrated on some of the harder bits. There was also a ladies' sectional at which I'd expected we'd do the section where the men don't sing and the ladies are in 4 parts, but we didn't. I'd also expected we'd do the Planets, but we only spent 5 minutes reading through it at the end. Lots of people (who presumably hadn't done it before) seemed quite bemused by it, but I'm sure they'll find it easy enough once they've worked out which line to sing. The sectional was great fun though, as usual. I think it's because there are always far fewer people there than at the Wednesday rehearsals, so the atmosphere is much more intimate.

(They used to always alternate the sectional nights, so that people who have a regular commitment on a particular night, as so many of the choir do, don't always miss out. But recently all the ladies' sectionals have been on Thursdays and all the men's have been on Tuesdays, so any ladies who have to be elsewhere on a Thursday won't have been able to come to any of them. And it's been a pain when I've been trying to schedule rehearsals for my band, because Thursdays are the only nights none of us has any other regular commitment, so we usually rehearse on Thursdays, but since four of us sing in the choir we've found it extremely difficult to fit rehearsals in this year so far, due to the number of choir commitments on Thursdays.) (And even after we HAVE agreed dates, things keep happening to prevent us rehearsing as planned, due to people being ill or having to go into work. There are seven of us and we've NEVER yet had a rehearsal with more than five! One day...)

Anyway, at this week's ladies' sectional, we not only made lots of progress on the hard bits of the Mendelssohn, we were also treated to a one-man performance of My Evaline. (I recognised the tune but didn't know its name - I had to ask. It's from the Yale Songbook, a.k.a. "Songs of Yale", used by the Yale Glee Club.) Why? Because there's a bit in Mendelssohn 2 that is similar to a bit of "My Evaline"! There was also a bit of discussion of the Andrews Sisters (for those who've never heard them, their most famous song is probably Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and there's a documentary about them on BBC4 at 9pm this Friday.). I love rehearsals like that! (And I realise I've now said that about two totally different types of rehearsal - well, I love both types!)

The other choir-related excitement this week was that I've spent quite a bit of time fine-tuning the details of our get-to-Valencia-by-train plan. In the next day or two the tickets will go on sale for the Paris to Barcelona leg of the journey, so I wanted to be sure that we know exactly what we're doing, and at what time, and how long we need for each connection. The plan is now thoroughly worked out, and all we have to do is buy the tickets. I think I'm actually looking forward to the journey more than the concert - well, we'll be doing the same concert at least twice in other locations, but this journey will be a one-off! (In case you're wondering, it will cost about £240 total for each of us - £220 if we stay with friends in London on the Sunday night on the way back and take advantage of the cheap fares on the Monday.)

Anyway, I have a few links to share from the last week or two.

At Sydney Opera House they had a dawn concert for the victims of the Australian bush fires. There is a clip on the BBC news site, although it cuts out just as the choir is about to sing - if anyone finds a link to more of it, please let me know!

Meanwhile, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, they performed an opera in the bar after a power cut in the auditorium.

ACDA (the American Choral Directors' Association) has its own YouTube channel, where you can view lots of videos of choral performances. I've only looked at a few - please let me know if you discover one that you think everyone needs to see. (Thanks to ChoralBlog for alerting me to this.)

Here's a fascinating article about the technical aspects of a project to bring live opera to cyberspace.

From the front of the choir has had a great series of posts recently about "preparing to sing", but the one I found most interesting was the one that explained exactly why physical warmups are so important.

The Really Terrible Orchestra is having problems with other orchestras using its name. I'm very amused by this article: "Their CDs come with complimentary earplugs and their music is bereft of C sharps because it is a note that their principal bassoonist has never mastered." "Sometimes the orchestras' efforts are so excruciating that the conductor will stop a performance to offer his apologies to the audience." "“It does not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have been discovered to be playing different pieces of music by different composers, at the same time. We are The Really Terrible Orchestra and we shall go on and on.”

A nice story from the MEN about a member of the Youth Choir.

There is a new(ish) band called Fleet Foxes, and I just love their singing. Read this review of a concert they did in London this week. I would REALLY like to hear them live. (More reviews of their gig by The Times, the Financial Times and the Independent.)

Talking of London concerts, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela will be at the South Bank Centre for a week in April. (That's these people, in case you'd forgotten.) I think it was only announced a few days ago, but already all the tickets are almost gone. That's someone else I'd love to see live, particularly as they're doing (amongst other things) Concerto for Orchestra and The Rite of Spring, two of the most exciting pieces there are. (Their conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, has been in London this week conducting the Philharmonia, to rave reviews (Guardian, Times, FT.))

By way of contrast, there's someone who decided to go for a month without music and blog about it.

In the news yesterday: doctors are planning to do voice box transplants. I'm intrigued by this, mainly because I can't help wondering what effect this would have on the singing voice. The article doesn't mention this question, but I hope some scientist is poised to investigate!

In the news today: well, not really news, but further mention of the prevalence of drinking problems in orchestras. I'd be very surprised indeed if it transpired that this was a problem that affected OUR orchestra, but I'd love to know which orchestras they're talking about in the article.

Non-musical stuff: the Big Picture has a great series of photos from this year's Carnival in Rio.

A date for your diary: Saturday 28th March (8.30-9.30pm) is Earth Hour. Get ready to turn your lights out.

I'm fascinated by Twitscoop - a constantly-changing summary of what people are talking about RIGHT NOW, taken from millions of Twitter posts.

And finally - apparently cats are fascinated by this spider, but I haven't been able to get either of mine to look at the screen for long enough to notice it!

EDIT: I almost forgot... the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film (due for release on 17th July) has a new official website, where you can see a trailer and hear the new version of the theme tune. Over four months to go and I'm ridiculously excited!

The night is departing

Very busy week - out every night and have had loads of stuff to do at home too, which has meant not going to bed till... well, now! - so I'll write properly at the weekend. This is just a flying visit to let choir members know that, thanks to the wonderful Sheena, Mendelssohn 2 is now available on my mp3 page (also linked on right of this page). The choir on the recording isn't great, but they're good enough to help with notebashing at least. Oh, and my prediction about what language we're singing in turned out to be correct! Drat!

A demonstration of quality unaccompanied singing

I'm quite impressed with the MEN review of last night's concert, although their perception of what part of our performance was the best is interesting (by which I mean, I don't agree with it!) I really enjoyed the concert (well, our bit at least - the rest of the programme wasn't really to my taste, although the Britten thing was fun). I don't think we sang as well as we were doing last week, but it was amazing after the rehearsal the previous night, which did not go as well as we might have hoped (plus it ended with us receiving some very bad news). People always say that a bad dress rehearsal makes for a good concert, and it certainly worked in this case!

I actually got quite overcome at some point in the Gloria when I realised that the performance was going to be good after all, and couldn't sing properly for a minute or so because I had a lump in my throat. After that I was OK, but I got so excited by the end that I couldn't keep my breath for the very last phrase - a pity, because how often do the altos get to start *and* finish a piece? Oh well.

Anyway, no more Vaughan Williams for us - next up, Mendelssohn 2 and the Planets. I'm really, really hoping we do the Mendelssohn in English (which will probably guarantee it's in German...) because it was the first thing I ever did with the choir, in 1993, and we did it in English then, so that's the version I've got in my head. (I wasn't allowed to sing in the concert that time due to being "on probation", so this will be my first performance of it.) Does anyone have (or know of) a recording of it IN ENGLISH? I've been looking for one for the past 16 years and not managed to find one... In the meantime, if anyone has a recording in German that they'd be willing to share, I'd appreciate it. (I've never bought one because I've been holding out for the English version.)

Finally, a couple of links: talking of Mendelssohn, there is a sing-a-long-a-Mendelssohn day in May.

From the BBC, the healing power of drumming.

And a composer tries to recreate Neanderthal music.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

As if there weren't enough problems this week caused by the weather (although Manchester did pretty well compared to most enough places - there are still several inches of snow on the ground at my house, but this hasn't stopped me doing anything) I had a difficult day yesterday caused by a student sit-in. Apparently this started on Thursday, but the first I knew of it was on Friday morning when I arrived at the university (where I am currently temping) to find security staff all over the place. I was sent to three doors before they eventually let me in (I don't have a staff card, see, being a temp). Turns out the students had expanded into the post room, and our office is very near there.

So, not only was it a pain to get in (so I couldn't start work on time despite my train being early for once), we didn't receive any post and couldn't send any (there was one package that apparently HAD to go yesterday, so I spent a while after work trying to find a postbox with a wide enough opening, having bought stamps at lunchtime only to find that the package was too big for the nearby postbox, and I didn't have time to go in search of a post office). And by lunchtime, our part of the building was deserted, with only one security guard left, who said that if I went out he wouldn't be able to let me back in, so I had to arrange for someone to come up and meet me... I found out later that apparently the university had emailed everyone in that building to tell them to go home. They certainly didn't email me, nor anyone else in my office (at least I don't think so, because they stayed there all day too), but it's probably just as well because if I'd had to go home I would have lost half a day's pay!

And I didn't even see any of the student sit-in, despite having to go right past it - the many, many security guards kept people shielded. Oh well.

Anyway, choir this week was particularly good fun. The gig is on Thursday, so this was our last session before joining up with the youth choir (who will be singing the four solo lines - not as solos, just to give a different sound). We did sing every note of the Mass, for the first time (although not in order). I think it will be fabulous. And what made it even better was that we spent the majority of the rehearsal sitting muddled up (i.e. no-one was next to someone singing the same part). I *love* it when we do this, and wish we did it more often! I think it's really good for showing people which bits they need to work on individually. (In every choir I suspect there are a lot of "followers" who don't realise how much they are following - hopefully sitting jumbled up alerts them to this!)

I ended up sitting between Peter and Cliff, both 2nd basses, and it was WONDERFUL. I had never noticed how many glorious low notes they have in this piece - it was spinetingling. Actually, I thought the men in general sounded much better when they were jumbled up - I have a theory as to why this might be, but I will leave you to come up with your own!

On Wednesday we'll be rehearsing in the hall with the youth choir, which I'm very much looking forward to. Then on Thursday it's the concert, which I think will be our best one in a while (and ALL our concerts are great, so that should give you some idea how good this one will be!) I'm very pleased that they've changed their minds about having us sitting in the choir seats during the main concert - so we're back to being a proper post-concert event as originally planned. (I'd hoped we'd be performing on the stage rather than from the choir seats, but it turns out this isn't an option because there is no way we can *rehearse* on the stage, so I agree we should perform as we've rehearsed. It'll still be great!)

I'm particularly excited because not only is my mum coming on Thursday, my best friend and his wife will be there too. He hasn't seen the choir in *years* - and his wife never has - so I can't wait to hear what they think!

Anyway, hopefully there'll be a lot to say about the concert, but in the meantime I have, as usual, a few links.

On an Overgrown Path talks about unusual performance spaces (including Belle Vue) prompted by a concert he went to in Great Yarmouth.

The BBC Music Magazine tells us about opera singers in the crowd at rugby games.

There's a nice audio slideshow about the Soweto Gospel Choir on the BBC website today.

The Soweto thing is uplifting, but this is quite the opposite: Time magazine tells us about the increasing use of Auto-Tune software to improve vocal performances. The very thought of it makes me shudder.

Oh, and I applied for a music-related job this week. I've actually applied for this particular job three times in the past 18 months - I got an interview the first time, but not the second. So I don't hold out much hope, but I think I would be great at it, so I wasn't about to give up! I'll let you know if I get anywhere...

If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy

I've had a bit of a mixed week in which some good things have happened, but far more things have not gone according to plan. I spent far too much time chasing a certain organisation to get them to pay me for some freelance work I did for them. I was desperate to get this money by Friday so I could pay this month's mortgage, but it was not to be. They do say they're GOING to pay me, but don't seem in any hurry to actually do so! Argh!

Choir was fun though - not just the fact that we finally did the last few bits of the VW that we hadn't previously looked at, but also because during the warmup there was a great impromptu variation on the regular off-the-voice quiet staccato "hoh-hoh-hoh" thing (choir members will know the one I mean, I hope). This time we were instructed to do a long note every so often and then go back to the staccato. The sound of the whole choir doing this together was amazing!

The VW gig is a week on Thursday and I'm really looking forward to it. It was originally billed as a post-concert event, but now it seems we are part of the main concert after all. I hope they still change the lighting like they did last time, I thought that made all the difference.

I had a rehearsal with my band on Thursday. There was a last-minute rethink about what we were going to be able to rehearse due to a couple of people not being able to make it, but I was delighted that we were still able to try "This Little Babe" (from Britten's Ceremony of Carols) (yes, I know January is not the most obvious time to be singing this, but I only thought of it a couple of weeks ago and couldn't bear to wait 11 months to try it!) It occurred to me that there's no reason why it wouldn't work with guitar accompaniment instead of harp, and in fact it worked really well. Better than you might expect, actually, given that the three of us who were singing it all knew it very well, but we'd all previously sung the alto part. Since the other two are both 1st altos, though, I decided it made more sense for them to sing the soprano parts and me to stick with the alto part. To be fair, it only goes high right at the end... Anyway, I thought we sounded fabulous! The most amusing part was that I'd sent my guitarist an mp3 because he's never heard the song before, and he said he'd found it difficult to practise to due to the "weird echo effects on the recording". It took me a moment to realise that he meant the canon! I had to show him the vocal score to explain that what was going on in verse 3 was entirely down to Britten :-)

(The other amusing part was that we instructed him to pay no attention to us as we would put him off, which was fine until it got to the last line and his chords were supposed to alternate with ours... Despite that, he did very well for a first attempt, given that he doesn't really read music (he was playing from a chord sheet I'd created, as usual). Next time we'll be trying "Balulalow" as well - that needs 4 singers and we only had 3 on Thursday.)

In non-musical news, the Vendee Globe has been won, although only one competitor is home so far - the rest are a long way behind him. The winner is Michel Desjoyeaux, who also won it the year Ellen MacArthur came second (which is what originally made her famous). It's not been in the news at all, but maybe that's because there have been no British sailors with any chance of winning after Mike Golding and Alex Thomson had to pull out. Oh well. Maybe in 4 years' time!

A few links to finish. The Guardian tells us of how Argentina and Uruguay have been arguing about the history of the tango.

Someone at Manchester Confidential went to her first classical concert.

Boston.com has a theory about a sensitive female chord progression. I'd be more convinced if they'd quoted more songs I actually know (and I do know LOTS of songs!)

Boston.com is also responsible for the Big Picture, which I've mentioned before, but recently they had a great series of photos of London from above, at night.