Vamp Till Ready

I've had all sorts of links I've been holding back until I'd finished my musical terminology series (I didn't want to clutter those posts with anything unrelated) so I thought I'd get them out now. We were supposed to be rehearsing Mahler 2 tonight, but we didn't, because the rehearsal was cancelled due to the weather - the first time I can EVER remember that happening. (Even my cats are avoiding the snow - they insist that I open the door, and when I eventually give in, they stand there for a minute before retreating to the top of the settee, having presumably realised that the snow in the back garden is actually taller than they are!) Hopefully choir members will have spent the time memorising their parts - if you haven't started yet, remember that I've put up lots of resources to help you.

The title of this post is also the title of my new website, through which I am selling musical arrangements and other services. I added it to the sidebar a few days ago, but I haven't drawn your attention to it till now. I'd be really grateful if you could all have a look to see whether there's anything on there that might be useful to you, and also forward it to anyone you know who might be interested. If I managed to get ten commissions a month, that would pay my bills - anything more than that would mean I could start clearing my mortgage arrears. I've already got one (from a reader of this blog), so I'm hoping things will stay on track! Thank you in advance.

(For those who have asked about my repossession situation, here's where things are up to: the bank agreed to put it on hold for thirty days while I submitted a revised repayment proposal. The thirty days are up tomorrow, but they haven't responded to the proposal yet. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, all I can do is keep trying to earn money.)

Anyway, some links. The Guardian's guide to What to See in 2010 has our Mahler series as its top classical pick, and rightly so!

BBC Music Magazine interviewed John Rutter about Christmas.

Apparently O Fortuna is the most-played classical track of the past 75 years. The full list is here. I was quite excited when I thought it was our recording of The Planets that's in the top ten, but it's the Loughran one (I have that on vinyl - one of the first records I ever owned!)

BBC News had an intriguing story about how German researchers have managed to help some tinnitus sufferers by altering music to remove notes at certain frequencies. More on the same story at BoingBoing.

The current issue of BBC Music Magazine has Ed Gardner on the cover.

A thought-provoking article from the Times about why there is still a demand for audio cassettes.

Via ChoralNet, a collection of silly classical music stories of 2009 from the Seattle Times. Headline story: The baritone who forgot his pants.

A lovely post from Tom Service about connections between music and landscape, including some intriguing comments from our own music director about Elgar.

I like this idea: a nursing college is employing a composer in residence. (The RNCM, by the way, is heavily involved in Music for Health - I was fascinated to learn about this when I was preparing for one of my interviews there (for all the good it did me!))

There was a Radio 4 programme the other day called Jane Austen's iPod. I haven't listened to it yet, but it looks fascinating, and it's on iPlayer until Saturday morning.

I had high hopes of another R4 programme, The Vox Project, but I listened to the first part (of three) and wasn't particularly excited. YMMV.

The Telegraph has a list of the top ten guitar solos. Can't say I agree with all of them, but several are truly great.

Classical Iconoclast reports that Daniel Barenboim will be conducting the Elgar Cello Concerto this year. Big news!

There's a fascinating post about Purcell on the Radio 3 blog. (By "fascinating" I mean "I bet you will enjoy reading it even if you think you don't like Purcell.")

From the BBC Music blog, a very long list of the top albums of 2009, from many different genres.

Yet another in a series of wonderful posts on the BBC SSO blog: this one is about performing with and without amplification.

I've often linked to posts on Chris Rowbury's blog, From the Front of the Choir. The other day I was looking through the rest of his website, and thought some of you might be interested in the singing workshops that he runs. They look great fun, and are all over the country. All the music is taught by ear, and no previous experience is necessary.

It's a bit late now, but I was interested to see that the BBC published a guide to going to church (for people who haven't been before but wanted to go at Christmas).

I know lots of you will be aware of the NORAD Santa Tracker - CNN tells us how it came about. A really delightful story!

The ever-reliable Big Picture had some great Christmas photos and even better New Year ones.

Oh, and the Trafalgar Square fountains have frozen! I don't suppose that's all that rare, but I've never seen a picture of it before. (I was amused, by the way, by the alert categories on The Little Page of Transport Chaos, although of course it's entirely London-centric. When I first saw it, this afternoon, the level was "pandemonium" - it seems to have calmed down since!)

The MEN has a great selection of snowman pictures. (Barbara sent me one earlier, built by her friend's son, but it's a bit rude!)

Typically, though, it was in the Halifax Courier that I read about the new Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester. (That's the one for which they were auditioning Lego builders.)

Manchester Confidential has a feature about the best and worst Manchester food and drink phenomena of the past decade.

Also via Manchester Confidential, a comparison of the new tallest building in the world (Burj Dubai) with the Beetham Tower. It is NEARLY FIVE TIMES AS TALL. I can't even contemplate that!

The Manchester City Council website finally has some definite official info about what will happen to the libraries while the Central Library is being refurbished.

And finally, for those of you who haven't embraced Twitter yet - or, possibly more importantly, those who have but often have to defend themselves to people! - there's a very good article in the New York Times explaining why Twitter is here to stay.