Singing under the mushrooms

Well, our choral season is over (we start the new one in a month or so) and our choral director is now our ex-choral director. The sheet of notes he gave us after Tuesday's rehearsal is very characteristic of him, and I heard a few people rightly bemoaning the fact that we'll probably never have notes quite like that again. I'll certainly be keeping my sheet.

The concert went very well indeed, and we got a great reception, although I personally made more mistakes that I have in all the other concerts this year combined. I was trying to hardly look at the score at all, and as a result I got a few words wrong and (much worse) came in a bar early at one point. But that was in a bit where the 2nd altos were singing the tenor part, so hopefully if anyone noticed they'll think it was a tenor :p

I'll post reviews as they appear, but to be going on with, here's a few reviews from the BBC website.

A few other links:

On the way back from Tuesday's orchestral rehearsal (which was surprisingly short and included a very moving speech about Sir Edward Downes) Alison and I listened to a bit of that night's Prom. Just before the interval, Stephen Hough played, as an encore, a piece that not only did we not recognise, the Radio 3 announcer didn't know either! A few minutes later, he'd been told the answer, but although we caught the title, we couldn't make out the composer's name. I looked it up when I got home, and here is Stephen playing it (at a different concert): Young Girls in the Garden by Federico Mompou.

The FT has some theories about why Glyndebourne is so successful.

The Spectator has some responses to earlier articles, including another Wagner opinion, and news of a piece which uses the acoustics of St Paul's to advantage.

BBC Music Magazine has a poll to find out which is the most popular of Holst's Planets. I'm quite surprised that Mars is (at the time of writing) only 3rd, and Venus and Mercury joint last! I'd have Saturn last, but any of the rest could be first, although I actually voted for Uranus.

Do you know what a vuvuzela is? You will next summer. There have been a few articles about this recently: four different ones from the Guardian/Observer (one, two, three, four) and one from a brass band website called 4 bars rest. The latter amused me the most :-)

Via ChoralBlog, a collection of choral humour. I've seen lots of it before, but some of it is new to me so maybe it will be to you too.

I've mentioned how much I've enjoyed recent articles by Alex James (the Blur bass player). Here's another one: this time he takes his kids to Oxford.

The Big Picture's latest wonderfulness is a collection of lightning photos. Plus, the Beetham Tower was struck by lightning this very morning!