NFI

The title of this post has no relevance to anything else in the post - it's just a music industry term which I learned recently from a good friend of mine. I told her I'd listened to her group performing in the Proms but was surprised not to hear her voice, which I can normally distinguish quite easily. She told me she wasn't there that day. "Why?" I asked, surprised. "NFI," she replied.

(If you can't guess what it stands for, I'll tell you at the end of the post!)

It's been a while since I last posted. I've been a bit sidetracked by money-related issues (I was in court for a repossession hearing a couple of weeks ago; currently I'm still in the house, but not for much longer). There's been lots of singing to distract me, though. We had a great time a few weeks ago singing Carmina Burana from scratch with a choir of a thousand - although most of them kept panicking about the huge number of words (however many times Greg told them not to worry about that), and the ones who sat near me said that they didn't sing very much in the performance (when the regular choir members went and sat on the stage). But they had fun anyway, I think. And Greg was an absolute superstar - not only did he lead the whole day, he also conducted the orchestra in Carmina, which must be one of the most difficult pieces there is to conduct, I should imagine, with all its time signature changes.

(We also sang Blest Pair of Sirens that day, but it wasn't the most exciting piece ever, although it was very pleasant. And there was quite a bit of confusion caused by the fact that the extra singers had different copies to the regular singers, and in some places the parts had totally different notes.)

A few days later we did The Planets (with the visiting Houston Symphony Orchestra), and it was possibly the weirdest performance of it I've ever been involved in (and there have been many weird ones before!) We arrived to find loads of headphones on stands in the choir assembly area.




We assumed they must be for us, and were VERY excited. There was a brief letdown when someone official told us they WEREN'T for us, but the someone official turned out to be wrong. However, there weren't quite enough for one pair each, and in any case we soon realised that if we covered both ears, we couldn't hear each other, so it was decided that we'd all just use one ear, which also meant that people could share.



However, all this technology didn't mean that things went flawlessly. The headphones were all connected to an electronic keyboard which was positioned just inside the door to the platform, on which Lovely Jonathan played the choir parts in order to keep us in tune. The plan, we assume, was that the sound of the keyboard would ONLY be audible in the headphones... but Caroline, who ended up with no headphones at all in the performance (some of Choir 1 took the wrong ones, so they had some spare that we couldn't reach, and we didn't have enough), said that she could hear the keyboard quite clearly. Hopefully the sounds didn't carry through the open platform door which was right next to it. Oh, and then we also had the usual TV monitor set up, so that the offstage conductor could see the ONstage conductor. But usually these monitors have the sound turned down (we can hear the sound from the stage just fine when the door is open) - not this one.

Oh well - the audience seemed to love it anyway! BBC Music Magazine described how the concert worked (that piece was written before the Manchester leg of the tour), and there are reviews from the Guardian, Manchester Evening News and MusicWebInternational.

Our next concert is the Cherubini Requiem this Thursday. It's not a piece I knew previously, and it's not particularly exciting, but we DO get to do it with Lovely Markus Stenz, so I'm definitely looking forward to it. He was a BIG hit with the alto section when we last worked with him.

Looking further ahead, I'm sure most choir members are aware by now that Die Walküre is part of next summer's Manchester International Festival... but can anyone confirm or deny whether there's a chorus in it? Dr Liz asked me, and a brief flick through the score suggests there isn't a chorus, but I may well have missed it. (It's a pity if there isn't, especially as our Götterdämmerung won a Gramophone award - one of TWO for our orchestra this year.)

Interesting review at Intermezzo, by the way, of Andris Nelsons' LSO debut. It's interesting mainly because it's the only review of him I'm seen that describes how hard it can be to follow his beat!

Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir always has good posts, but two of my favourites recently have been How to deal with unwanted talking during choir rehearsals without killing anybody, and Song meanings lost in translation.

Here's an interesting precedent to set: when Riccardo Muti was ill and couldn't make it to a gig to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, they did the gig with no conductor. (Via Intermezzo.)

An intriguing Spectator review of a recent performance of Tristan and Isolde.

Via A Cappella News, a story about a Swiss choir that tried to set a world record last month by singing a cow-calling song. My favourite bit of the story is this: "It is said that it was forbidden to sing the song in the presence of Swiss mercenary soldiers as it made them homesick and unable to fight. The composer Rossini used the melody in his famous William Tell overture." I must investigate and find out which bit of William Tell you can't sing in front of Swiss soldiers! I presume it's the cor anglais tune, but who knows?

Tom Service tells us about a newly-discovered Elgar work - I particularly like his description of our own music director's reaction to it. The story relates to a programme that's on BBC4 this Friday night (and repeated a couple of times over the weekend).

From The Chorister, some very sensible points about How to be a great choir director.

From the Boston Globe via A Cappella News, a great review of a Stile Antico concert. This review makes me REALLY want to hear this choir.

Russell Watson talks about how and why his voice has changed.

Stephen Hough has another practice tip: drum your fingers on the tabletop. (Out of interest, work out whether you start with your thumb or little finger - or some other option! - when you do this. Then ask your friends and family which way they do it. I always assumed everyone did it starting with the thumb, as I do, until my best friend told me about an argument he'd had with his wife about which was more common...)

In case you weren't aware, Maurice Murphy died last week. He's probably the most-heard trumpeter ever, and Tom Service explains why.

Via Intermezzo, an article in the Irish Times in which several professional singers talk about voice care.

Composer James MacMillan writes in the Telegraph about how he wrote a mass for the Pope's recent visit, and a Scottish committee tried to stop it being performed.

From BBC Music Magazine, news that a Preston choral society has a new conductor, and he's commuting every week from ITALY.

The Guardian had a 4-part series of articles covering a visit to Skywalker Ranch, where many things to do with the Star Wars films happened. Part 3 is about the recording studio - very interesting.

Here's a fascinating Guardian interview with Guy Chambers (who wrote many songs with Robbie Williams). Most interesting part (to me, at least): the revelation that Brian May will not allow Queen songs to be performed in any key other than the original, which is why Robbie never sang with Queen (he can't sing as high as Freddie Mercury could).

You remember the pop group Squeeze? (They're how Jools Holland first became famous.) They found a novel solution to the fact that they didn't own the rights to any of their own songs - they recorded them all again.

I'm not quite old enough to remember the famous 1929 recording of Nymphs and Shepherds by the Manchester Children's Choir, but I was told the story when I was at school, and I've seen the plaque in the Henry Watson. Well, Victoria Wood has written a play about the occasion for next year's Manchester International Festival. (More info from the Manchester Evening News.)

I'm sure you'll all be aware of Friday's FA Cup shock, in which FC United of Manchester knocked out Rochdale (several divisions above them). The Guardian has some great photos of the previous round, plus a good article explaining the club's history, and a report on Friday's match. (The draw for the 2nd round was made today, and FC were drawn away to either Brighton or Woking. If they win that match, they're in the 3rd round... which is when the Premier League teams join in! Whee!)

Dr Liz has been singing in Sydney, but didn't have as good an experience as she does at home :-(

Google Street View is now available in some surprising locations, and the Guardian has some great photos of these.

Facebook users may or may not be concerned about the latest breach of privacy.

A fascinating article about life aboard the International Space Station.

This really amused me - a grovelling apology from an Australian newspaper that made a factual error about Star Trek in a story.

Here's a free online game for you to play: Electric Box 2. I was addicted to the iPhone version of this for weeks.

The Big Picture continues to have great sets of photos of all sorts of things, usually consisting mainly of photos you haven't seen anywhere else. Here's their set of photos of the Chilean mine rescue.

And finally, via BBC Music Magazine, something that makes me giggle (and takes me back to my childhood, when I used to love this guy on TV) - scroll down to see Victor Borge playing a piano duet.


(NFI = Not Fucking Invited.)