2nd Altos Like The Bottom Parts

Fain would I be eaten

2012-01-20T03:58:00.003Z

I enjoyed last night's rehearsal far more than last week's, because it involved singing The Hymn of Jesus for a large part of it, a bit of Beethoven, and no Elgar (I've listened to The Apostles all the way through now, and I can't see myself becoming unbored with it any time soon!) I've done Beethoven 9 several times before from memory, so it's quite firmly ingrained, and I was a bit put off to discover that there's one bar in the edition that is being used this time (Bärenreiter) that's DIFFERENT to the edition I've got (Novello). It's not very different - just the underlay of the words - but I don't think I'll ever remember to do the new version!

I was telling Fanny about The Hymn of Jesus being my very favourite piece, and she told me that the recording she's been listening to has at least one glaring mistake on it. I realised that I've never actually heard a commercial recording of the piece, because I have a live recording of my last ever Chet's concert (in which The Hymn of Jesus was the finale), so I always just listen to that! If you want to hear it, there's a link on my mp3 page. This performance took place in the RNCM concert hall on 9th July 1982, and involves the Chetham's School of Music Symphony Orchestra and Senior Choir, with the Manchester Cathedral Choristers doing the boys' choir bits. I think the conductor must have been Mike Brewer, because he was certainly Director of Music throughout my time at Chet's, and usually conducted the choral parts of the end-of-year concerts.

Manchester Cathedral also played a major part in my memories of leaving Chet's, so I was sad to learn that not only did they have a valuable silver cross stolen the other day, but they have been burgled so many times that they can no longer claim on their insurance.

Here's a lovely Telegraph article about Kathleen Ferrier. (Although, it says that the contralto voice is 'out of fashion'. I think it's more accurate to say that fewer singers seem to be referring to themselves as that - they all seem to want to be mezzo-sopranos!)

The Guardian tells us what it's like to be in an opera chorus.

Have you recorded your Virtual Choir submission yet? I did mine tonight. I do hope that his next project involves a fast piece though - all the three Virtual Choir pieces so far have been very slow, and this is not good with my breathing!

Eric Whitacre mentioned online the other day how much he liked the music of John Williams, and - predictably - some people told him that John Williams is a hack. So Eric posted a defence of him, which I think is great. It really irritates me when people make sweepingly condescending statements like this, regarding popular composers such as John Williams or Andrew Lloyd Webber or John Rutter. There's a reason they're popular!

Did you know that there's going to be a thousand-boat flotilla on the Thames on 3rd June, for the Queen's diamond jubilee? And there's new music being composed specially for it, a la Water Music. Should be fun!

Via the Guardian: the fifty most quoted lines of poetry. I was trying to think what mine would be, and realised that I don't actually quote poetry regularly - must rectify that :-)

And finally... my favourite new word: skeuomorph.

Ye who dance not know not what we are knowing

2012-01-12T22:35:00.007Z

I haven't updated here for a while – I kept meaning to, but since I haven't had any comments since August, I didn't think anyone was reading anything I wrote, so I couldn't get motivated! But my blog was mentioned in last night's choir rehearsal, so I thought I'd better update on the offchance that anyone actually came to investigate :-)

We are learning three works over the rest of this season: two that I know very well indeed, and one that I've never done before. (The title of this post is taken from one of them - guess which one!) The two I know very well are Holst's The Hymn of Jesus (which was the finale of my last ever concert as a Chetham's pupil) and Beethoven 9. The one that's new to me is Elgar's The Apostles, which seems very boring so far, but maybe it will grow on me! Currently the main thing that's interesting me about it is that it features a shofar. When this was mentioned at last night's rehearsal, it seemed that most of the choir had never heard of a shofar. Wikipedia has a particularly interesting (and thorough) article which tells you everything you need to know.

I'd better do a recap, though, hadn't I? December was the usual musical madness. This year my tally was 15 performances in an 18-day period, which I think might be a personal best. Several of those were with my band (pictured below at the annual Shouting in the Library gig).

I enjoyed those more than any of the choir ones, but the choir gigs had their moments too. Messiah was the one that started the 18 days of madness, and I enjoyed it even more than last year's. We even had a female alto instead of a countertenor! I was beginning to think we never would again. And the conductor did not ruin the Hallelujah Chorus, as so many of them do (including last year's) by their attitudes to standing audiences. I've heard recently that our 2012 Messiah will be conducted by our 2010 conductor, so I will have to prepare myself for disappointment. Maybe this will be the year I can finally find some cast-iron reason not to sing.

The carol concerts – all five of them – were fun (nowhere as good as last year's, but a million times better than the previous year's), although it felt very odd having Sleigh Ride as a regular programme item rather than an encore. Still, at least they did play it. Remember the year the powers that be decided not to include it? I still haven't recovered from the trauma!

Picture below is courtesy of one of the orchestra's horns on Twitter. Oh, and you may have missed this MEN article about our compere, or this Oldham Chronicle review of the concerts.

The other big choir-related news story of December was undoubtedly the Military Wives and their quest for the Christmas number one single (in which they were successful). I enjoyed the Military Wives TV programme much more than I expected to (I cried my eyes out several times!), but even if I hadn't it would have been great to see a choir in the charts. There have been loads of great stories in the media, but here are some of my favourites: a Guardian editorial in praise of Gareth Malone; a Telegraph article about the series (I was very disappointed to find that Keep the Home Fires Burning, described in this article, never made it into the finished series, though. I love that song. Perhaps it was too emotional?); and another Telegraph article which features Gareth explaining to the writer how to sing better and talking about why carol-singing is so great; a Guardian article about the feelgood factor of the series in general; and, finally, yet another Telegraph article, this time listing a few other choirs that have been in the pop charts (I didn't know about lots of these!)

Actually, there was one little thing that fascinated me about the Military Wives song after I saw the sheet music. Here's the first page. Here's the recording. What the soloist sings in the third bar isn't quite what the music says, is it? The same thing happens on the last page, and she does it differently then too. This creates a dilemma for choirs who've bought the sheet music in order to perform the song: do they do what the composer actually wants, or do they copy the recording? If they do the former, everyone will think it's them that are wrong! And I felt particularly sorry for the deputy soloist that the Military Wives had when their usual one was on holiday, because she did it perfectly correctly (i.e. she sang what the music says) but I bet most people think she didn't!

I think it might have been on Strictly Come Dancing that I saw the Military Wives with their stand-in soloist. I mention this mainly so I can point out that my beloved McFly are finally starting to conquer the world: Harry won Strictly, and Dougie won I'm a Celebrity. And they're just the drummer and the bass player! Who knows what Tom and Danny have in store for us?

I have quite a few other links I've been saving - I think I'll use the remaining seasonal ones first. Here's one: hands up who knew that the original lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas were really morbid and depressing? It starts: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas - it may be your last" and gets worse from there! The whole story of the song's evolution surprised me greatly when I read about it a few weeks ago.

Here's a Telegraph article about John Rutter, in which we learn a bit more about him, including his favourite Christmas songs. (Coincidentally, one of them is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and it sounds as if he's well aware of the original version. Another is O Magnum Mysterium, which we sang in our carol concerts this year, but I don't share his enthusiasm for it - sorry, John!)

The Boston Globe had an article explaining why we're all confused about how to pronounce 2012.

The ever-wonderful Neil Gaiman always has wise words to bring in the new year, but I particularly liked his message this year.

Not seasonal as such, but timely: Eric Whitacre is running another Virtual Choir project (his third), and you have until the end of January to become part of it. The song this time is Water Night, and full details are on his website. I think I was the only member of my choir to be in the last video - I'm hoping there'll be a few more of us this time!

I hope lots of you saw a programme that was on last month, called Come Bell Ringing with Charles Hazlewood. It's no longer on iPlayer, but if they repeat it (which I'm sure they will), do watch it if you missed it. It's mainly the last ten minutes of the programme that I fell in love with: they had all the church towers around Cambridge, plus a load of handbell ringers in the market square, all performing together in an arrangement of Greensleeves for bells only. It was absolutely magical. I'm wondering whether or not there'll be a similarly magical effect on the morning the Olympics start (Friday 27th July)... in theory, all the bells in the country (yes, I said ALL THE BELLS IN THE COUNTRY) are going to ring nonstop for three minutes, starting at 8am. It might work... but already there have been arguments about it, and only yesterday another group of bell-ringers announced that it isn't very practical! I can see their point, but I do sort of hope it works anyway :-)

This is great: 11 sounds that your kids have probably never heard. There are one or two of them I haven't heard, which reassures me that I can't be quite as old as I thought I was!

A while back, I heard a very excited Radio 3 presenter talking about how fragments of a possible 8th symphony by Sibelius have been discovered and played. But I think I'm in agreement with the viewpoint of On An Overgrown Path - it seems very sad that we're doing exactly what Sibelius clearly didn't want us to.

I'm a big fan of TED talks, and this is a particularly interesting one: David Byrne talks about how music is shaped by architecture. Summary: "Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation."

This is a bit scary: would I survive a nuke?

In November, the London Philharmonic Orchestra did a concert featuring Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. The Guardian review mentioned that a member of the audience stormed out, yelling criticism as he did so. Norman Lebrecht received an eye-witness account of what happened, but the most unbelievable part is that the culprit then wrote to Norman Lebrecht to explain why he believed he was in the right... and then argued with everyone in the comments!

I can't decide whether this is more or less offensive: this week, the New York Phil had to stop a performance during the last few minutes of a Mahler symphony because someone's phone was ringing (in the FRONT ROW!) and they didn't do anything about it until the conductor stopped, turned and looked at them.

Speaking of conductors, this is interesting: a New York music critic decided to try to learn how to conduct.

I love this: these people went round the world and filmed buskers and other street performers everywhere they went. The results are fabulous.

Here's a great BBC news feature about illnesses that exist only in Italy.

Have you heard of the vocal fry register? I hadn't either. But apparently it's the latest American language fad.

Normally I think Tom Service is great, but I have to disagree with him here: in his post about the 21st anniversary of Symphony Hall, he says it's "the country's best, big acoustic for orchestral music" and that it "shames any other big hall in the country". Shame on you, Tom! I actually have proof (well, sort of!) that the Bridgewater Hall is better. One of my best friends used to play in the Royal Opera House orchestra, and years ago they went on a tour round the country, while the ROH was being refurbished or something. Anyway, they happened to play the same programme in Symphony Hall and the Bridgewater Hall on consecutive nights, and they all agreed (she said) that the Bridgewater Hall was superior. So there :-)

(Although, I will admit that Symphony Hall has better paintings!)

And finally: the unreasonably amusing Norwegian butter crisis! I first read about this in the Vancouver Sun, but there was an update in the Guardian a few days later, and - also in the Guardian - a Swedish writer explaining how delighted her country is about the whole thing!

The chance of the note being right is MASSIVELY high

2011-11-06T23:40:00.002Z

The Harmonium gig went pretty well last night. It wasn't perfect, but it was probably the best we'd done it. The sopranos' tuning was much better, no-one got lost at any point (at least, that I noticed) and the altos were unbelievably good at rowing! I think my most smug moment was when we finally changed to "rowing in Eden" after several pages, and he looked at us gratefully as if to say "oops, I meant to give you a cue then, but you did it with no help!"

It was all quite a relief, because it really didn't go brilliantly on Wednesday and Thursday. Nothing dire happened, but the tuning wasn't great, and people weren't watching so we weren't together, and things that have been worked on time and time again in previous rehearsals just seemed to have gone right out the window. But hopefully this inspired people to concentrate and/or practise.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing it on the radio on 20th November. Particularly the bit with the bells! That was really magical.

Next up: Messiah, and carols. Oh, and a visit this week from a guy who's going to "revoice" us. No idea how that will work or what it will involve, but I'm intrigued. In the meantime, a few links!

I'm very jealous of the Youth Choir people who got to sing in Manchester Cathedral with Elbow recently. The concert is no longer on iPlayer, but here's the MEN review, and the Manchester Confidential one has a set list, plus photos and video clips. And the BBC News site has an interesting article about pop music in sacred surroundings, prompted by the Elbow gig.

I'm sure most of you saw the first programme in the Symphony series on Thursday night, starring our own music director. It's on iPlayer if you missed it. There's a related recent Guardian article in which the man himself chooses five symphonies that changed music. What I found even more interesting, though, was that the BBC Music Magazine's current issue invites nine leading conductors to name the nine symphonies that inspire them most – one chooses his finest First, the next his finest Second and so on. In conjunction with this, some of the magazine's own staff have attempted to choose their nine favourites themselves: Jeremy Pound, Elizabeth Davis and Rebecca Franks. I tried to choose my own and found it very difficult – for some of the nine, I can think of several contenders that I can't choose between, whereas for others there isn't a single one that I'd claim is a particular favourite! So far I've got down to these:

1st: ?
2nd: Mahler (but I considered Mendelssohn and Elgar)
3rd: Mahler
4th: ?
5th: Beethoven (but Sibelius is a very close runner-up, and Tchaikovsky was also in the running)
6th: ?
7th: Beethoven (but I'm not entirely happy with this – it's mainly here because of the slow movement)
8th: Beethoven (only narrowly beating Mahler)
9th: Dvorak (but Beethoven came close)

Of course, it doesn't help that all the Mozart and Haydn ones I know and love have numbers far higher than 9! What would you choose?

There have been several reports recently in the Guardian about the possible closure of the UK's biggest music and drama lending library, which is in Wakefield. Here's the initial story, a further report highlighting the impact the closure would have on amateur music-makers, and a "cautiously optimistic" report on the outcome of the relevant meeting.

You've probably heard, in the past, that the Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive is the perfect speed for performing CPR, but this intriguing BBC report examines whether or not it's actually useful for first-aiders – and, if not, what other songs might fit the bill.

Stephen Hough has a new piano practice tip: this one stretches and contracts the fingers alternately.

A few weeks ago, I heard a cello and guitar duo playing live on Radio 3. Their sound was absolutely gorgeous, but I was fascinated to learn that the guitar in question was actually a Brahms guitar, and even more fascinated to learn that it was invented and popularised by my friend Paul Galbraith! (Well, I haven't actually been in touch with him in many years, so I suppose I can't really call him a friend... but he was in my class at school, and I think we were the only two people to take German O-level early – I certainly remember us wandering through Manchester together one day, on our way back to school after going somewhere or other to do our German oral exam. I'm pretty sure he'd remember me!) Anyway, there's a lot more info about the Brahms guitar on Paul's website, but annoyingly I can't remember who the duet was that I heard on the radio, or I'd recommend them to you!

Something that annoys me intensely is that when the word 'ironic' is mentioned, there's often someone around who chimes in "And of course the irony about the Alanis Morissette song is that it's not ironic at all!" ... which is mostly true, but the part that annoys me is that I'm pretty sure that if I were to ask these people to explain what the word 'ironic' actually does mean, they wouldn't be able to – they're only saying this because they've heard someone else say it. Anyway, if you are now realising that actually you can't explain the word, this page will help.

I haven't tried this yet, but I definitely plan to: how to make banana ice cream with NO INGREDIENTS OTHER THAN BANANAS.

And finally: I haven't seen the film of Sherlock Holmes (starring Robert Downey Jr), but it looks like the sort of thing I would enjoy. I have seen the recent BBC version (starring Benedict Cumberbatch). But I was very, very amused by this Guardian not-entirely-serious comparison of the two versions.

Too much cake!

2011-10-24T08:05:00.003+01:00

"Surely such a thing can't be possible!" I hear you cry. But it turns out it can. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, so I took lots of cakes (and wine) to the rehearsal, as is the tradition with many of the altos. That night, however, there were free cupcakes in the tea room to celebrate our latest award, so we all had several of those as well as the cakes I'd brought. Even so, there were quite a few cakes left, and it took almost a week for me to finish them off at home!

We've been working hard at Harmonium for the last couple of months, and it's definitely coming together (which is just as well, because the concert is a week on Saturday). The third movement still causes everyone (well, the altos and basses, at least) to groan when it's announced, because it's just painful, although it's not quite as bad since I stopped trying to do all the top B flats. I can do the Gs and A flats at the start, and even the occasional B flat if it's just a brief one, but there's one bar in which there's a gap and then a top B flat, and that's just a bridge too far for me. Every time I tried it, it just hurt from that point onwards. But now I've given up and am dropping down the octave at that point, and it's OK. (There are an awful lot of people not even trying any of the notes at the right octave, which is fair enough if they tried it and it hurt, but I do worry that the choir won't be loud enough as a result. It's the composer's fault, though. What on earth was he thinking?!?)

At least the painful bit is only the first minute or two of the third movement - the rest of it is fine. Even the bit with all the fast words, which Alison and I learned in the car on the way to choir a few weeks ago (it was quite easy once we worked out the pattern of the "with thee with thee with with" bit) and which has been stuck in my head since. The "rowing" bit is quite satisfying, because it takes a lot of concentration not to get lost, and we haven't got lost yet (unlike some of the other parts who are doing less repetitive things!) I'm still convinced that a large number of altos who are supposed to be singing the alto 3 part are actually singing alto 4 with me, mind you, but hopefully they'll realise eventually! (I can't actually hear anyone singing the alto 3 part from where I'm sitting, although I can hear altos 1 and 2, who are much further away.)

The second movement still gives me more of a sore throat than the third movement, surprisingly, given that I mainly have to sing "ooh" on a fairly low note, but it was much better after I asked Maggie for advice and she suggested putting the vowels further forward. (Ten years ago, I would have had no idea how to do that, so I must have made some progress!) And I really like the first movement, although I may have to individually shoot the 1st sops if they don't go home and practise until they can actually come in on a D rather than an E – you had an excuse the first week, ladies, but it's been pointed out every week since!

I've done quite a bit of singing outside choir lately. In September I sang at a party in Staffordshire for Amy's parents, in a group consisting of three members of our choir and three members of the CBSO Chorus. That was a fun (and interesting) experience, although it was a bit depressing hearing about all the foreign trips they do! I'm very jealous! And I had a rehearsal with my band last week at which – for only the second time this year – everyone was present, which meant we could sing all our 6-part a cappella stuff. Great fun, and I thought we sounded pretty good.

I'm also doing a bit of work at the moment at a local high school - running their choir, and doing the vocal coaching for their school musical, amongst other things. The musical is Guys and Dolls, and is on in early December, and I'm really looking forward to it – the kids who are in it are great. I'm really enjoying working with the choir, too, and a couple of weeks ago they performed in a "Last Night of the Proms" concert, supporting one of the school's brass bands. We sang the usual stuff (and I sang, too, because the organiser was more bothered about volume than appearances on this occasion!) but it was not in the usual keys, as is often the case with brass band music. Jerusalem and Rule Britannia weren't too bad, being in D flat and A flat respectively, but Land of Hope and Glory was in E flat (try it – it's a terrible key to sing it in!) although at least it was in B flat in the coda. The evening overran by about an hour due to encores etc., but since I was being paid by the hour that suited me just fine!

Anyway, let's see what links I've got for you. In no particular order:

Classical Iconoclast has a 2011 Proms post-mortem. And, talking of the Proms, Daniel Barenboim will conduct an entire Beethoven symphony cycle in next year's Proms – pity we will have beaten him to it!

BBC News tells us that people who play musical instruments throughout their life have better hearing in old age.

The Daily Mail had an article about Lincoln Cathedral appointing a female chorister. Some interesting points are made, but I can't quite agree that the situation is 'tragic'.

There have been loads of articles about the copyright term being extended from fifty to seventy years, so I'll just mention a couple: one of many articles in the Guardian explains quite clearly why this change is becoming known as 'Cliff's Law', and a record company executive gives his point of view.

I think I mentioned a while ago that the London Philharmonic Orchestra was due to record the national anthems for every country in next year's Olympics. Well, they've done it. The bit I find most surprising is that they had only twelve minutes per anthem allocated for sight-reading and recording! The sight-reading should be straightforward enough, but we know what recording engineers are like...

Elbow are doing a concert in Manchester Cathedral this Thursday, featuring our own Youth Choir. The tickets were snapped up ages ago, I think, but it's being broadcast live on Radio 2.

Here's an interesting post from the BBC News website, regarding Adele's vocal problems, which have caused her to cancel several concerts.

Tom Service went to the last of this year's Limelight nights in London (their tagline is 'classical music in a rock'n'roll setting) and loved it. It sounds fabulous - I'd really like to go to one of those events sometime.

I'm very amused by this: apparently someone booked some professional opera singers for their wedding reception, and they made the guests feel physically sick!

I'd never realised before that The Sound of Music has never been performed in Salzburg, and many Austrians can't sing a note of it. This BBC News article reports that this is about to be fixed, and includes several fascinating details that had previously passed me by.

Another piano practice tip from Stephen Hough: when playing a passage in which the hands are an octave apart, practise with them two octaves apart.

I haven't been to MediaCityUK yet, but I might have to fix that soon, because I want to see the giant singing sculpture, and it's only there till 14th November.

Did you know about the new Chopin statue on Deansgate? Manchester Confidential has all the info.

No doubt you've heard the recent news about our orchestra being forced to drop its claim to be the UK's longest-established permanent professional orchestra. Here's the story from the BBC, the MEN, the Guardian and the Telegraph.

NASA has released downloadable versions of lots of their iconic sound clips. So, if you want 'Houston, we have a problem' as your ringtone, now's your chance.

This intrigues me: apparently there are people who believe wireless communication is making them physically ill, and they are hiding in the mountains to avoid it.

I knew most of the things in this BBC article about natural direction-finding, but I hadn't realised that satellite dishes all point south-east.

Also, I didn't know that the national flag of the Philippines changes according to whether the country is at war or not.

And finally, the mathematicians among you will smile at this.

Hoo-wild-ah!

2011-09-10T05:05:00.005+01:00

We started a new season of rehearsals this week. Our first concert isn't until 5th November, and we'll be singing Harmonium by John Adams, which is a work that's totally unfamiliar to me, and probably to most of the choir. I wasn't expecting to like it very much, but I've listened to it a few times and I actually like it a lot! It reminds me quite a bit of the soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass, which I've always loved. (It looks as if Harmonium preceded Koyaanisqatsi by a year or two, but they were both written round about the same time - in the early 80s - so I don't know whether or not Philip Glass would have heard Harmonium before he started Koyaanisqatsi.) If you want mp3s of it, you can download them from my page here.

The notes aren't very difficult, but the rhythms will take a lot of work to get right, so it's probably just as well that we don't have anything else to work on for the next two months. And the various different ways in which the choir has to be divided only add to the fun! We all arrived to find a list of all the singers stuck to the door, with everyone allocated to a lettered group. Then, inside the hall, there was a very complicated (and colour-coded) seating plan, showing where each group was supposed to sit. There was lots of confusion. But the thing that amused me most all evening was connected to this.

I was in group K (as are many, but not all, of the 2nd altos), and was sitting right on the end of the back row. There were several empty seats immediately in front of me, so when Judy arrived slightly late, she rushed in, spotted that there were seats among the 2nd altos, and sat in one of them. I leaned forward and explained to her that she needed to check which group she was in etc., so she went back outside, found that she was indeed in group K, and came back to sit in the seat she'd originally taken. Shortly afterwards, Sue (who's a 1st alto) arrived, saw that the only currently accessible empty seats were among the 2nd altos (i.e. next to Judy), and sat there, presumably planning to move later. Judy smiled welcomingly at her and said "Are you a K?" to which Sue grinned back and said "Fine, thanks!" *giggle* I very much enjoyed explaining to Sue what Judy had actually said :-)

We had a very clear list of printed instructions telling us which group was singing which line at which point, so I did what I always do with a new score and went through it, to mark my line, while I was waiting for the rehearsal to start. So I felt quite smug when, partway through the rehearsal, we were given five minutes to do exactly that. I must admit that when I saw how many people hadn't already done it, I realised why so many of the choir have problems when we're sight-reading. Hint: it's a lot easier when you don't have to work out what line to look at as well as how to get your note!

I have a gig later today, actually - I'm going to the wilds of Staffordshire to sing at a party for Amy's parents. There will be six of us - three from our choir and three from the CBSO Chorus - and we have never sung together before. Everyone's had the music (and mp3s) in advance, though - we'll be singing four of my arrangements, all in six parts - and we'll be meeting a couple of hours before the party to rehearse. I'm looking forward to it - I love one-to-a-part stuff, and it's always fun to sing with competent people (well, I've never met the CBSO ones, but I'm assured they're good).

I'm sure you've all been watching and/or listening to the Proms, as I have, although I haven't caught as many this year as I did last year. There hasn't really been one so far that bowled me over. I think the one I enjoyed the most was yet again the John Wilson one - such fun! But I'm a little disappointed that there hasn't been one that had the same impact on me as the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra the first time I saw them, a few years ago. I watched their Mahler 2 this season with great anticipation, and I did enjoy it, but I thought we did it a lot better last year. There have been very mixed reviews of it: the Guardian gave it five stars, but The Arts Desk wasn't quite as impressed. On an Overgrown Path was slightly baffled by the Guardian review, and then wrote a controversial post about Dudamel in general. Do read the comments on that one - fascinating, and not just because of the name-calling!

An interesting related story: did you know that the Venezuelan music system has also produced a prison orchestra?

The Last Night of the Proms is tonight, of course. I'll watch it later, because I'll be singing in Staffordshire at the time. But I'm disappointed that the Sea Songs aren't in it - I know they're not always, but it never feels like the Last Night without them. Incidentally, when I was a teenager I used to adore our own Last Night of the Proms at the Free Trade Hall, which always featured a Fantasia on North Country Tunes (specially commissioned for the occasion from Ernest Tomlinson) - I would love to hear that again! At one point they had half the audience singing "She's a Lassie from Lancashire" while the other half sang "My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl". The tunes clashed horribly but it was great fun. And I vividly remember galloping down the aisle to "Blaydon Races" with my friend. (They had proper promenaders' tickets - i.e. standing - but we stood at the back of the stalls rather than the front. However, as the night wore on there were more and more moments in which we promenaders danced round the hall - I loved it!)

But my reason for mentioning the Last Night is that there's a world premiere in the first half, and it features a part for the promenaders... and if you want to join in from home, here's a page that tells you how.

And another participation opportunity: they are looking for a thousand volunteer drummers to take part in the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics next year. No experience required. How much fun would that be?!?

Other links I have saved, in no particular order.... On an Overgrown Path has a list of actual fees charged by a few top musicians.

Classical Iconoclast has an intriguing article about BBC's safety advice to its orchestras, but the BBC (unsurprisingly) has a much more detailed (and informative) report on the Radio 3 blog.

An even more intriguing article from the same source: Mongolian Throat Singing Wars. I think that's the best title I've heard in ages :-)

I have Nigel Kennedy's Bach prom recorded but I haven't watched it yet. But he's been quite outspoken about the fact that (according to him) lots of musicians can't play Bach properly.

This will be a big story, but the New York Times explains it better than I ever could: US copyright law is in upheaval, because songwriters who had hits in 1978 can now reclaim their rights to their own songs from the record companies.

A related story: this Guardian article explains the bizarre world of topline melody writing, and the legal problems caused by this.

Here's a sad story about the impact that the recent London riots had on the Manchester independent music scene.

Speaking of the riots, it seems like they happened ages ago now (to me, at least), yet it was only a month (9th August). I was in the city centre that afternoon, but the first I heard of any trouble in Manchester was just as I was setting off home. I spent that evening following the Manchester Evening News's live blog, which was very informative and updated every couple of minutes - I recommend looking at their website next time there's any ongoing local incident (although let's hope it's a more pleasant one next time!) The Greater Manchester Police Twitter feed was also very reassuring. But, if you were away from Manchester that night, this Manchester Confidential post (which includes lots of pictures, as well as real-time reports) gives a feeling of what it was like.

On a more positive note (admittedly, this was written just before the riots), here's a great Guardian article about why Manchester is amazing :-)

I did lots of volunteer work for Manchester Pride this summer, and really enjoyed it. Here's an informative Manchester Evening News article about Manchester's tradition of tolerance. And if you missed the fabulous parade, put next year's date in your diary (Saturday 25th August, 1pm) and console yourself by looking at the photos and videos from this year's parade.

On a totally different note, I know that several members of the choir are keen hillwalkers. Did you know that there aren't as many Munros as there used to be? One of the mountains is shorter than they thought!

David Mitchell's Soapbox (on the Guardian website) always amuses me, but this one - about the habit TV companies have of squashing credits into a corner of the screen so they can put a trailer in the rest of it - is particularly good. Possibly because I hate that more than you can possibly imagine.

And finally... this sounds like fun! In a couple of weeks' time, you can go to Leeds and take part in a live action game in which you will be chased through the city streets by zombies. I'm quite tempted, I must say!

Hakuna matata

2011-08-06T06:28:00.003+01:00

Oops, it seems to be over four months since I last posted here! Sorry about that! It feels a little as if my life started all over again in March, though, and it's taken a while to get used to things. It's all good, though - things are much better than they were before March!

Needless to say I have lots of links to share with you (and I'm hoping that after this batch I'll be able to update much more often, so there won't be so many - as it is, I've deleted over a hundred links that I saved but are now outdated!) but they can wait another few minutes. Let's have a quick state-of-the-nation bit first :-)

My house was due to be repossessed at the end of February, but I managed to sell it (albeit for a very low price) just before that; the sale didn't actually go through until almost a month later, but the mortgage lender agreed to put the repossession on hold because it was definitely happening. (This seems quite nice of them, but since they hadn't been nice at any other stage I'm pretty sure it was just because they knew they'd get more money out of me overall if I sold the house myself!) I'm now living in a rented 1-bedroom flat, not far from where I lived before, and I have now paid back everyone I owe, and currently have no debts. It's a very nice feeling! It's still weird not being in the house, though - I lived there for over fifteen years, which is longer than I've lived anywhere else in my life, including the house I grew up in.

I don't have a full-time job at the moment, but I do have quite a few things that I'm doing here and there, many of which I'm being paid for! So things are looking up, finally, and I'm very much enjoying the variety of things I'm doing, as well as the fact that I still have lots of free hours in the week. The main good thing that's happened is that Wardle High School (where, some of you will recall, I used to work - it was my first job - and I've done various other things there even when I was working at other schools) asked me to run their school choir from September. As it turned out, I actually started in June, because the guy who's leaving had to leave early. They're a great group of kids, and I've been having a great time working with them. And quite a few other things have also come up at Wardle recently (e.g. playing the piano for exams), and there's a good chance there'll be more.

I also currently have four private pupils: two singers (one of whom also wants to learn music theory properly), a pianist (who again wants to learn music theory as well), and a lady who wants to learn how to use the computer her sons bought her. This last one was indirectly as a result of the Silver Surfers classes I deliver at the local library (the 12th group starts this Monday), but they actually found me by Googling me (which is how they knew I did Silver Surfers!) and I'm still getting commissions (and passive sales) of musical arrangements via my website.

I did have a 'proper job' for a while, actually - in April and May I worked as a Census Collector, and had a great time! I was one of the people who went round knocking on doors to say "according to our records you haven't returned your census form, is there a reason for that?" It was incredibly exhausting - I've never had a job before that involves walking all day! - but very interesting. The vast majority of the people I met were lovely, and I discovered lots of unfamiliar bits of the area near me.

The other thing that's taking up a lot of my time at the moment, though, is unpaid: I've been doing lots of volunteer work for Manchester Pride; mainly faffing with spreadsheets, which I love! The festival is at the end of this month, so the volunteering will end then (until next year). Which reminds me: if you've never seen the Manchester Pride Parade, put it in your diary and come and watch - it's a real spectacle! It's on Saturday 27th August, starting at 1pm outside the Science Museum, then going along Deansgate and right through the city centre to the Gay Village.

It feels like ages since I've done any singing! Let's see... We did the Spring Symphony on 14th May, which I enjoyed much more than I'd expected to. And the reviews were good: the Guardian one didn't mention the choir at all, but a couple of commenters put that right. There was also the MEN and the Telegraph. Oh, and this isn't a review, but it's very interesting: a Guardian article about Sumer is icumen in, which is always a highlight of the Spring Symphony.

The following week saw us doing Mahler 8 in York Minster. I've only seen one review of this, but the occasion was definitely fun, even if it was very different from our last Mahler 8! And then we ended our season in June with a Choral Classics concert, for which again I've only seen one review. I'm still not convinced that Henry V is a choral classic, but it was good to sing it again anyway, along with everything else!

And then there were vocal assessments, which I presume everyone's done by now - I did mine right at the start to get it out of the way (and before I forgot the things I had memorised!) Since then, I've hardly sung at all, other than recording myself for YouTube birthday presents (my most recent one was Circle of Life, which I've had on the brain since, hence my title! As usual I did it in a huge hurry and didn't have time to redo the bits where the mic was overloaded, but never mind... the person I did it for liked it.)

Talking of YouTube, did you all see the finished version of the Virtual Choir 2 video? You may recall that I recorded my bit in January, but it took them till April to mix all the contributions together. Needless to say I couldn't see myself in the finished video, but my name is on the credits, so I'm happy!

I haven't been listening to all the Proms on the radio this year - not enough time - but I've seen all the TV ones. I was a bit baffled by the Glagolitic Mass, because it was only seven years ago that we performed it - and we knew it REALLY well at the time - but I didn't remember any of it. I didn't even recognise most of it, with the exception of a couple of phrases in the middle. This is odd, because it was much longer ago that I last did the Spring Symphony, and I didn't even enjoy that last time, yet I remembered almost all of it. So why did the Glagolitic Mass leave my brain so quickly! I liked that!

Last night I watched Alexander Nevsky - which we did in 2008 - and was relieved to find it all came straight back into my head. And I loved the CBSO performance - I'd forgotten what an exciting piece it is! I'd love to do that again. And as I'm writing this I'm watching the Human Planet prom. I like some bits better than others, but I'm particularly taken with the Mongolian band. Some amazing sounds.

I really enjoyed Prom 9, featuring our favourite orchestra, so I was delighted to see that the BBC Music Magazine was bowled over by it too. And I watched the "historically-informed performance" of Mahler 9 with interest. I knew nothing about HIP until I did an OU course that examined it thoroughly, and I'm fascinated by the arguments for and against it. On the whole I think I'm more against it than for it, but I do think it's a subject worthy of consideration. Classical Iconoclast seems similarly torn, but I was intrigued by the David Hurwitz article from Classics Today, which I discovered via the Classical Iconoclast post. But I have to say that when I watched the performance (having just read that article) it didn't seem that bad. Mind you, I don't know Mahler 9, so it may well be that I would have been more horrified if I remembered ever hearing it before!

Not a Prom, but really good anyway: you'll recall Whit Friday, the brass band contest that I go on about every year? (Next year it's on 1st June, if you want to mark it in your diary now!) Well, this year was as much fun as ever, but there was one really moving thing. Last year, a spectator was killed by one of the band coaches, so this year the Brighouse & Rastrick Band played a hymn as a tribute to him. Really lovely.

Here's a few things I liked from Tom Service at the Guardian: an orchestra that doesn't use a conductor (and, also, look what he says is on his iPod); the classical work he finds the most boring (it's Pictures at an Exhibition, if you can't be bothered reading it!); and he wonders whether there's a British equivalent of Ma Vlast.

More from the Guardian: Gerard McBurney loves Wagner despite everyone telling him not to; Orlando Gough considers what problems opera singers might encounter if they try to sing pop; and lots of pop stars describe their worst ever gigs.

A few things from Stephen Hough's Telegraph blog: a tip for pianists who play chamber music; a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of playing from memory; some tricks to help pianists play trills; some interesting thoughts about the way the arts are funded in different countries, and why some models are better than others; and a brief thing about The Girl from Ipanema.

(I always think of the same thing when I think of The Girl from Ipanema, and it always makes me grin. Years ago, I saw a stand-up comedian who talked about the song. "It says 'When she moves, it's like a samba'. Have you ever seen a samba? If she walked like that, I'm not surprised each person she passes goes 'Ahhhh!'" It was much funnier the way he told it, mind you...)

I've read a few things now about classical music clubbing, but I haven't tried it, and I doubt I ever will... although that's only because I'm not the clubbing type! But it sounds like a great idea. Londonist talks about a few places in London that do it, and the BBC Music Magazine sent someone to try one of them. And Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of the famous Prokofiev) is heavily involved in all this - here's a Guardian interview with him (and one of his compositions is being played in tonight's Prom).

This intrigued me (which won't surprise anyone who knows me well!) - a discussion of the first chord of A Hard Day's Night. (If you can't remember exactly what it sounds like, let me refresh your memory.) (The Beatles Bible page seems a bit broken at the moment - none of the images work at the time of writing - but just scroll down to the text.)

Peter Phillips writes in the Spectator about the differences between live and recorded concerts.

I was interested to see this list of the top 30 American music colleges, mainly because there are so many there that I'd never even heard of!

From Classical Music magazine, news that Boosey & Hawkes have launched a scheme in which anyone can look at lots of their newly-published scores online. I presumed, when I heard about this, that it would be stuff no-one's ever heard of, but it's not - have a look at the list!

From Bachtrack, a blog post by one of their staff, who's recently started taking singing lessons and has been surprised by several aspects of the process.

If you get on buses or trains as often as I do, you'll probably be just as irritated as me by kids who play tinny 'music' on their phones. (Apparently this is called 'sodcasting'.) But after reading this BBC News article, I started to consider it in a different light. (It still drives me up the wall though!)

On an Overgrown Path has discovered a miracle cure for coughs in concerts. I haven't got a cough at the moment, though, so I can't test it!

I didn't see anything in the Manchester Festival, which I'm a bit ashamed about, but if I had seen anything, it would probably have been the Damon Albarn opera, Dr Dee. So I was fascinated to learn, from that BBC News article, that he lived at Chet's, and that the burn mark on the table in the Audit Room there was supposedly made by Satan when Dee summoned him. I was told when I started school there, at the age of 10, that the mark was made by the Devil, but I never knew the rest of the story till now!

Something else I never knew: Norman Lebrecht writes in the Telegraph about Mahler's connection with Manchester. (He also suggests that Manchester has been 'overtaken by Birmingham in size and by Liverpool in wit, but it ... has the chance to reassert its intellectual swagger, and rebuild a city of the mind.' I think I quite like that idea.)

On a related note, a Guardian article about how Manchester has turned itself into a brand. (It says that our three main attributes are: "Openness. Inclusivity. And a certain amount of swagger.")

This sort of thing doesn't help, although I'm sure it's not just Manchester: apparently the behaviour of drunk women at the recent Take That concerts was much worse than the behaviour of men at football matches... and most of the ones who were taken to hospital were in their 30s and 40s!

Londonist has a list of interesting but untrue facts about London.

Here's a great article that explains why anyone who accepted the statement that 'two billion people watched the royal wedding' needs to think about this a bit more.

This is very reassuring: you've probably heard of CDC (the Centres for Disease Control in the USA, based in Atlanta)? Well, they have very helpfully given some official advice on how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse.

Also related to CDC is this excellent Wired article which describes the discovery and subsequent history of AIDS. Well worth a read.

Singing uselessly all the night

2011-03-20T15:19:00.005Z

I really enjoyed the Sea Drift concert, and it went pretty well (there was one point at which it wobbled slightly, I thought, but there was a quick recovery and hopefully not many people noticed). It's on the radio on Tuesday, of course, so see what you think! (I forget exactly where it was I thought it wobbled, but I think it was round about the "lapping everyone close" bit in S/A octaves.)

(Oh, and when you do listen on the radio, note that Lovely Markus Stenz is on In Tune immediately beforehand. What a brilliant bit of programming!)

The only review I've seen for the concert was the Manchester Evening News one, which doesn't go into much detail, but he did seem to like it. As did the audience member who started clapping while the conductor was still lowering his arms. (Tom Service was correct - there should be fines for that sort of thing. There was a very brief grimace on the conductor's face when it happened, but he covered it well.)

EDIT: There's now a Guardian review too.

FURTHER EDIT: Two more, one from Music Web and one from the mighty Manchester Confidential (I don't think they've ever reviewed one of our concerts before - hope they continue!)

Needless to say, I've had bits of Sea Drift on the brain since Thursday, but the rest of the time I can't stop thinking about that poor he-bird! So sad. I looked up the original Walt Whitman poem - it's a part of his Leaves of Grass collection, and the specific part is called by different names in different editions as far as I can see, but it's the section that starts "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking". It has ten sections, and Delius uses sections 2 to 7 inclusive. I actually wanted to know what happened after the end of "Sea Drift", but after reading the poem I'm not entirely sure! I can see why Delius stopped where he did.

Anyway, next up is the Spring Symphony and a Mahler 8 repeat, in quick succession. Also, I'm moving house on Thursday, and everything is going well other than the fact that the automatic packing spell they use in Harry Potter doesn't seem to be working for me! So I'm having to do it manually, and it's VERY tiring. But it'll soon be over. Worse than that is the fact that there isn't currently a phone line in the new flat, and the earliest BT can install one is 8th April. 8th April! Which means more than two weeks with no internet and no Sky. Eek. Luckily there are public internet places these days, and the pub next door does at least show live football, and it's not as if I'll have nothing else to do, so at least the time should pass quickly.

Other news... let's see. Still lots about Japan, obviously. The one I found most interesting was a post I saw just after I posted my last entry and added belatedly, so if you read as soon as I posted you may have missed it: about Japan's functioning in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. In the same vein, here's another article that advises people NOT to donate money to Japan, and the Disasters Emergency Committee says the same thing. Food for thought.

And more pictures, of course. The BBC News site has a good set of "before and after" pictures. There are also two new sets from The Big Picture: some from last Monday and some from Tuesday.

(On Wednesday, by the way, the Big Picture took a break from Japan and printed some fabulous photos commemorating Discovery's last flight.)

I missed most of Comic Relief on Friday due to being asleep, but I wasn't too upset. However, I would have liked to have seen the mass kazoo performance, so I must watch it online at some point. (It's on Listen Again for five more days.) I do know that they broke the world record, but only just!

You'll have seen the news about the Manchester International Festival lineup, no doubt. I'm a bit sad that there's no chorus in Die Walküre, so we won't be in it directly, but it's still exciting to be peripherally involved! The thing I'd most want to see, though, is the Damon Albarn thing. It looks intriguing, and the Monkey opera was one of the best live shows I've EVER seen. And the fact that Damon's actually in this one is a bonus!

And finally, I wanted to tell you about something I actually saw over a month ago, but forgot to mention here until I was reminded of it the other day while I was in the Molly House watching the BBC News channel with the sound off. It's a clip from See Hear, the BBC's programme for deaf (and Deaf) viewers. I've recorded this ever since I worked at RNID, and some weeks it's more interesting (to me, anyway) than others. But I thought this clip was absolutely fascinating. It's about how they do subtitling for live news reports etc. I think most choral singers will find it as fascinating as I did (may seem odd to say that, but you'll see what I mean!) I had no idea that this is how they do it, and I'm astounded at what's actually involved. Do watch it. The full programme is half an hour, but the bit I want to show you starts at 8:38 and lasts about 10 minutes.

Kimigayo

2011-03-13T17:44:00.004Z

We're almost at the end of our Sea Drift immersion - the concert is in a few days. I'm looking forward to it, and on the whole I think we know it very well. We ended this week's rehearsal like last week's, by mixing ourselves up so that no-one was next to someone else singing the same part. I suspect there are a few people who don't like it when that happens, but I love it, as do most of my choir friends. Last week I was surrounded by basses and sopranos but couldn't hear any tenors, so it was nice that this week I had tenors on both sides and behind me, with sopranos interspersed. It was lovely. (And I'm glad to report that none of the sopranos near me sang a C in that bar I whinged about last week, although there were still quite a few sops who did! Hopefully they'll fix it before the piano rehearsal. But they all sang beautifully in tune this week, which is more important.)

Most of the other news this week is Japan-related. I texted Sakura (our Japanese 2nd sop) and she says her family is safe, which is good news. (One of my friends has a brother who lives in Japan - but at the other end of the country, I think - and he didn't realise anything had happened until almost 24 hours later!)

You'll no doubt be aware that the BBC Philharmonic were on tour in Japan when the earthquake happened. (That links to the MEN article, which allows comments - I have to admit that the comments flabbergasted me in their ignorance!) They've cancelled the rest of the tour now and are coming home, but their website had already reassured everyone quite quickly that they were all safe, and before then they'd kept in touch via Twitter (which, as usual, was where I'd actually found out about the earthquake in the first place). It was also via the BBC Phil Twitter feed that I learned that Daniel Harding was there too, and he went ahead with his concert on Friday, albeit with a vastly reduced audience, but one of them had walked 4 hours across Tokyo to get there!

As usual, the Big Picture has the best photos: some from Friday itself and some from the aftermath in the next day or two. BoingBoing also has some good photos, although some of them are duplicates of the Big Picture ones. And this Time Out Tokyo blog post, written by staff who were in their office during the earthquake, is fascinating. Be sure to watch the included video of Japanese earthquake-proof skyscrapers behaving as they were designed to - i.e. swaying quite a lot!

EDIT: Just saw this: a great blog post about Japan's functioning in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Do read this, it's fascinating. And would never have happened in the UK, I suspect!

A few non-Japan-related links: an interesting Observer article about female composers, which mentions our new composer in residence.

An Observer interview with Antonio Pappano, mainly about Italian music in general, but I was most interested in the stuff about Va pensiero - I could probably sing the whole of that from memory, but I didn't know most of its history.

From BoingBoing, news of two scientists who claim to have found a man who's 'beat-deaf' - i.e. he is is unable to move in time to music.

A great Guardian article in which Graham Johnson (the accompanist) describes his love of Schubert's lieder and how he got to know them.

And finally, this is both very relaxing and very difficult to do: Do nothing for 2 minutes.

Blow to me

2011-03-05T21:18:00.004Z

A day or two before last week's rehearsal, I finally got round to practising the bit of Sea Drift that I knew I'd never once got right (i.e. the bottom of page 16). So I was quite frustrated when that section was the only bit we didn't do last week. And as a result, I was really hoping we'd start with it this week, as I'd had to practise it again just to ensure it had stuck. But then it occurred to me that there was one downside to rehearsing page 16... which was that we were quite likely to go on to page seventeen, and that page had filled me with increasing rage every time we'd done it. The last entry on that page involves the sopranos coming in on a B flat, and EVERY SINGLE WEEK, for over two months, most of them have come in on a C. I have no idea why this has gone on for so long without them sorting themselves out. I commented to Alison in the car that I felt as if I was this close to just standing up and shouting at them if they did it again. But then we started to wonder what would actually happen if someone actually did that in a rehearsal. We decided that most likely there'd be a brief shocked silence, and then possibly some scattered applause from others who'd been dying to do the same thing. But we weren't sure what would happen next, other than extreme embarrassment :-)

Anyway, of course we did start with page 16. There were widely varying renditions of the alto notes on the bottom line, but after a bit of work the first bar was sorted. I'd found, when I practised it, that the second bar is actually much harder than the first, but it's much harder to hear if that one goes wrong, so maybe everyone was getting it right and it was just me that found it hard. (It's the F sharp. A very unreasonable note to have to sing at that point.) But before we got to the notebashing, we'd read on through page 17, and - sure enough - most of the sops sang a C. Alison turned and grinned at me, but I was very restrained and didn't shout out! (I'd been sitting at the front for the last few rehearsals, having been one of the first to arrive and therefore needing to stake the claim of the 2nds to a few seats on the front row, but when I arrived this week, the 2nd alto seats were occupied by a soprano, a tenor and a bass, sitting there chatting for no apparent reason... so I sat at the back.)

Other than that note, though, the singing was much better this week. We did the a cappella bit, and the 1st sopranos actually managed to stay in tune throughout it for the first time, which made everyone feel extremely optimistic. And even better, we finished the rehearsal with a runthrough of the whole thing, with all the voice parts jumbled up, and they stayed in tune again. (They are all fabulous singers, but they do seem to go flat on every single phrase unless they're reminded not to.) It was a really satisfying end to the rehearsal, and I'm looking forward to the concert (which is next week).

My house sale still isn't sorted, but it's progressing (as is my packing, but that's a bit slower), and the bank seem to have halted the repossession process - although they never actually replied to my letter formally asking them to, which I sent as soon as I had written proof of the sale agreement! Very rude of them, don't you think? I still don't have a moving date, but I expect it to be in the next week or two.

A few links for you. If you use the IMSLP as often as I do, you'll be interested in this New York Times article about it. (I couldn't have done my Secret Spem thing without IMSLP - all the scores came from IMSLP, legally and free of charge.)

Tom Service is unimpressed (as most of us are) at audience members who shout out immediately the piece has ended. And in an unrelated (hopefully!) post, he wonders about the music for the Royal Wedding.

Charlotte Higgins, also in the Guardian, wondered what it would take to create a British orchestra of the stature of the Berlin Philharmonic. She got quite a few replies.

Stephen Hough has another practice tip: this time, how to improve your rhythms.

I last saw my friend Anna Crookes (née Markland) in September, when we were both at a book launch. She'd come straight from a recording session, which she'd thoroughly enjoyed, but she said she'd had to sign a confidentiality agreement and couldn't tell me what she'd been recording, until it was released in March. Well, from what she did say, I think it was this: Striggio's 40-part Mass. (She mentioned that she'd been standing next to the sackbuts, which narrowed it down a bit!) There are reviews in both the Observer and the Guardian.

Here's an exciting idea: three of Manchester's greatest arts institutions are joining forces to put on a musical!

This seems not to have caught the headlines, but Phil Collins has just retired. Turns out his hands are no longer strong enough to play the drums, and that even before that, he had to tape the sticks to his hands! The article doesn't mention why he can no longer sing, though (which I thought he'd done far more than play the drums, in the second half of his career at least). Maybe he just doesn't want to.

I've never heard of this band, but it's always fascinating to hear someone else's reaction to a place you know very well - in this case, BBC Studio 7.

And finally, I already have 7th July in my diary (world premiere of the final Harry Potter film - it's in cinemas on 15th July) but I was thrilled to see we're getting a studio tour opening next year! One day I'll make it to Florida to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (which I'm told is AMAZING), but I'll have to be a lot richer than I am now before trips abroad are an option :-)

Like a motorway of happiness

2011-02-19T16:42:00.002Z

Look at me, doing a post only a week after my last one! It's mainly a procrastination tactic, I suspect - I should be packing :-)

Not much to say, mind you. House sale still not completed, but the surveyor is coming on Monday morning, and that's the main remaining potential stumbling block. Fingers crossed. Repossession date is a week on Monday, and I haven't had official word that the other side will agree to put it on hold while the sale gets sorted, but I'm told they're likely to (it's certainly in their best interests). Either way, I REALLY need to get on with my packing! Maybe this evening.

Only one bit of singing this week, but it was good because our esteemed boss came to visit us, which always perks everyone up. We sang a bit of Sea Drift and a bit of the Spring Symphony. Both are going well. Although I was distraught that Fanny asked me for songs that include descending perfect fifths, and I couldn't remember a single one! Must memorise my own list (link to side)... Anyway, here's a selection (the fifth in each case is where the hyphen is):

Feel-ings, nothing more than feelings
Wise men - say only fools rush in (“Can’t help falling in love”, Elvis Presley)
Do you love - me (Brian Poole & the Tremoloes)
I love you ba-by (“Can’t take my eyes off you”, Andy Williams)
And - he shall purify (“Messiah”, Handel)
For - unto us a child is born (“Messiah”, Handel)
He - trusted in God (“Messiah”, Handel)

I think "Do you love me" is the one that's most familiar, but if you don't know the song you may disagree!

Just a few links for you. Tom Service, in the Guardian, writes intriguingly about the difference between British and European orchestras. On a related note, Charlotte Higgins, also in the Guardian, writes about what makes the Berlin Phil so special. And Stephen Hough explains very convincingly why Radio 3's recent decision to recommit to live concert broadcasts is such good news.

Winds blow south and winds blow north

2011-02-12T17:13:00.005Z

Been meaning to do a post for ages, but I seem to be still spending most of my time falling asleep, either on buses or at home! But never mind. House update, for those who have asked: I have accepted an offer on the house, although it's an extremely low one (£17000 below the valuation). But it's the only offer on the table, and since time is running out I didn't have much choice. It will still leave me considerably better off than if the repossession goes ahead. So the only things to worry about now are the survey (it shouldn't be any problem in theory, but you never know), the court costs of the repossession process (which I've been told could be up to £40000, but hopefully most of that will be removed if they don't actually have to repossess), and where to move to. There have been a few places that would have been ideal, but they've all been snapped up quickly, so there's no point in looking seriously until I know when I'll be definitely moving. But rental properties are coming and going all the time, so hopefully there'll be somewhere decent when I can actually do something about it.

Oh, and packing, but I'm having great trouble with that - there's so much of it! Several people have offered to come and help, but the problem is that I need to actually get RID of about half the contents of the house, and there's only me that can decide what to keep and what to throw out. Until I've done that, there's no point anyone else coming round to help. Maybe this weekend I'll make some progress, though - I'm feeling a BIT more motivated and less exhausted.

(As for work, I'm still doing the part-time 3.5-hours-travel-per-day temp job for the NHS in Oldham - the job that was supposed to be for 3 months starting last May - but it will definitely be ending at the start of March. Recently I did apply again for a job at the RNCM - the fourth time I've applied for this particular job in the past couple of years, and the seventh time I've applied to the college overall - but they obviously don't want me!)

Anyway, onto singing. After the usual madness of December, it feels as if there's been hardly any singing this year so far. I've been trying to get my band together for a rehearsal, but have totally failed so far - there isn't/hasn't been a single day in January or February on which everyone was available. So much for trying to record a couple of our newer Christmas songs while they were still ingrained! Not to worry - I'll try again in March.

As for choir, we've been mainly concentrating on Sea Drift by Delius (for which the concert is on 17th March), although this week we also started working on bits of Britten's Spring Symphony (14th May). I've done the Spring Symphony once before, although it was a very long time ago (it was in the Free Trade Hall, so it must have been about 1994/1995) and I don't remember much about it, other than that I obviously didn't like it enough to buy a recording of it. But I think it will be fun to do it again, and I can't wait to hear the children's choir doing their bits.

I've never done Sea Drift before, and when I first tried it I thought it was one of the weirdest pieces I'd ever sung. I actually did a bit of quick research to find out whether Delius was a bit insane. (Answer: not particularly, although he did suffer from syphilis for many years.) But it's definitely grown on me, and there are bits of it that have been stuck in my head for weeks. I'm looking forward to the performance.

Dr Liz came back from Australia last week! Great to see her again. And it feels like much longer ago than last June that we did the Spem in Alium surprise for her. (Those videos are doing quite well on YouTube - if you search for "spem in alium manchester" they're the top results (unsurprisingly!), and even if you just search for "spem in alium" they come up as featured videos (at least they do for me). If you haven't watched them yet, go and look!)

Talking of YouTube, two other videos I want to show you: a promotional video for the wonderful Bournemouth Male Voice Choir (which includes two of my arrangements!) and (thanks to Barbara) an amazing set of improvised piano variations on the Harry Potter theme. I wish I could do stuff like that. I defy you not to watch it with your mouth hanging open in awe.

One bit of singing I did do in early January was Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir, which I mentioned here a while back (and, more recently, I think an email went round to choir members telling them about it). Originally the deadline was the end of December, but he extended it due to people having snow-related problems. That was good, because I still had too much of a cough at the end of December to sing anything (and the earlier part of December was much too busy). So I actually recorded my bit the night before the deadline - not great (I still had a bit of a tickle in my throat and my breathing was even worse than usual) but at least I sang the correct notes, and I think I was in tune. I hope lots of you did it as well. Anyway, in the end he got 2051 videos from 58 different countries - not bad considering he was aiming for 900. (There are some interesting stats here. A few people sang all 8 parts!) Currently his team is busy mixing everything together, and the finished version will be released in April.

Eric Whitacre also caused a bit of controversy when it was thought that he'd said that British choirs are the best... but, as he explains, that's not actually quite what he said!

For the Wagner fans amongst you: tickets are on sale for the Manchester International Festival performance of Die Walküre (which sadly doesn't involve a chorus, I'm reliably informed), and there's a video on that page of Uncle Mark talking about Wagner.

A bit late for this to be topical, but it's still interesting: the Radio 3 blog describes the issues involved in recording the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's. But I still don't understand why the TV version is different to the radio version - can anyone explain? I can understand why they film the TV one separately, but not why they have different carols!

In the Guardian, Cecilia Bartoli explains the problems faced by mezzo-sopranos. (Try being an alto - there are even more!) Also in the Guardian, Tom Service tells us about a postcard that Elgar sent to Hans Richter in Manchester, and the recent Henley report on music education. He also provides a useful commentary on the Bachtrack performance league tables.

I bet this was a weird experience: via Intermezzo, news of a performance at Covent Garden in which they couldn't move the safety curtain, so the whole cast had to do their stuff on the narrow bit of stage in front of it, and the chorus sang from the stalls!

On an Overgrown Path points us towards a BBC story about a record club in which they have very strict (but reasonable) rules: no talking, no texting, and you have to listen to the whole album in one go.

Also from the BBC: help them with their research by taking the Musicality Test.

Leanne at The Chorister blog hates Bach, particularly the B minor mass! It's one of my favourite pieces, and I think Bach was a genius, but then I've never sung any of his stuff as a soprano...

Stephen Hough has a series of blog posts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) discussing different types of recording sessions, in which he describes short patching sessions after live recordings as the most stressful thing he's ever done in his professional life. I must admit that when we've had to do these, I've been desperate to get home so I can rest, rather than particularly stressed, but I can imagine that it's probably a different matter for the soloists, conductor and producer. (The producer he mentions is the fabulous Andrew Keener, who's our regular producer too.)

Here's an interesting piece from the Guardian about the British habit of not caring about getting people's names wrong. It had never occurred to me before reading this that it was a mainly British thing, but I can certainly believe it. I've got used to having my name mispronounced or misspelt, but that doesn't mean it doesn't annoy me EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Also from the Guardian, a great story about a community that decided to protest about their local library being threatened with closure by taking all the books out. Brilliant!

Rands in Repose always does great articles, but I particularly like this one, which describes why it's important to get away from The Noise every so often.

I find that whenever I explain to a new group of my Silver Surfers (my current 12-week course is my tenth!) how internet traffic is conveyed between continents by cables under the sea, they're really surprised, as they'd always assumed (if they'd ever thought about it, which mostly they hadn't) that it went via satellite. So I was delighted that just after I told this to the current group, there was a news story about a cable finally making it to Cuba, which has the western hemisphere's lowest ratio of internet users.

As a temp, the vast majority of my working life over the past few years has been spent typing, and I certainly do lots of typing at home too... so I was a bit put out when a colleague informed me, a few months ago, that I was doing it wrong. If she'd been saying that my wrongness was because I type with only one hand, I would have probably agreed with her (even though I can type faster with one hand than many people can with two! I know it's wrong, but I've never learned properly - I just ended up doing it this way!) But her criticism was that I only use one space after a full stop and I should be using two. I tried to explain to her that the two-spaces rule was very, very outdated and didn't apply to wordprocessing, but she had been taught at secretarial college that two spaces were vital, and she would not be swayed. I wish this Slate article had been published before that argument - it might have convinced her! But I've definitely bookmarked it in case anyone tries to argue with me again about this :-)

Another thing that's worth bookmarking, for any of you who uses Twitter (or just reads it) and is a bit confused about hash tags. I was quite confident about what they were, until I tried to explain it to someone else! But this New Yorker article explains it quite well.

Also useful: Wikipedia's List of Common Misconceptions, and the National History Museum's Postcode Plants Database.

And finally, there was a total lunar eclipse just after I last posted here, but needless to say I didn't see any of it due to an overcast sky. But the Big Picture has some great photos of it.

Six geeeeeeese a-laying

2010-12-20T23:15:00.006Z

Not for the first time, I find myself trying to type on my laptop while my cat insists on sleeping in my lap. I could move him, yes... but he generally crawls straight back there. And he's so cute!

Last week didn't entirely go according to plan, but it was very great fun. We started at FC United, where we discovered that the other band had cancelled, so we offered to sing some extra songs to help out :-) Oddly enough, although these went down very well, there was a totally different atmosphere to the one in previous years. Usually their request is for two specific football chants ("Pride of All Europe" and "The Twelve Days of Cantona" (both of which we have a cappella arrangements of) plus "Fairytale of New York" (which they love us to sing because it amuses them when posh people sing rude words - no, I have no idea why they think we're posh!) plus a couple of general Christmas songs. So it's usually a set of five songs, of which at least three are quite rowdy, and by the end, we generally end up singing along to the crowd rather than the other way round! But this time, we did a load of extra Christmas (non-football) songs, and they asked for the football ones to be at the end. The unexpected result was that they didn't join in at all, until the very last verse of "The Twelve Days of Cantona". I think the earlier songs put them in a listening mood. I still can't decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing!

One thing that was definitely good was that as a result of singing for longer in the bar, we weren't carolling outside for as long, so we didn't get as cold as usual (plus it wasn't a very cold day anyway - unlike today! Brrrrr!) I'd managed to almost lose my voice by then, though, as a result of being too enthusiastic with my Slade shouting (i.e. the "IT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!" bit at the end of Merry Xmas Everybody). And Claire was just recovering from a sore throat, so the fact that we sang the chorus of the Champions' League Anthem three times didn't help her at all, as the soprano part is quite high and very exposed. (You can hear the whole anthem on the official UEFA site.)

We left Gigg Lane just as the match started, by which time we'd sung "The Twelve Days of Cantona" THREE TIMES - it was the best song for getting fans to put money in the collecting tins. (The money wasn't going to us, I hasten to add - it was all in aid of the club's Development Fund, with which they plan to buy their own ground.) Traffic into the city centre was predictably horrendous, but we still got to the City Library (the new one, on Deansgate) in plenty of time for our 4pm performance. The librarians were actually waiting for us at the door, which was very nice, and there was a bigger audience than we've ever had there. It was a really nice gig - we ended up adding an unplanned a cappella carol to the set when our guitarist broke a string and needed a few minutes to fix it, and then (even though we'd gone well over our time as a result of this) they insisted on an encore. Claire wanted to repeat 'O Holy Night' because her husband had arrived late and missed it, and it's his favourite, but I could hardly sing at all by that point, having just done the Slade shouting AGAIN. (I did consider asking someone else to do it, but I do look forward to shouting in a library, and usually no-one else WANTS to do it!) So we went with 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', because our kazoo player could cover me in that :-) (I think my favourite thing in the whole performance was the kazoo solo in Merry Christmas Everyone (that's the Shakin' Stevens one). We really need to record that with her there!)

(Which reminds me: Radio 3 are hosting a concert for Red Nose Day next year, and every member of the audience will be given a kazoo. Excellent.)

I had a carol service on the Sunday at which I'd agreed to sing, and by Saturday night I was thinking I wouldn't be able to. It wouldn't have been the end of the world, though, because there were several other altos (it was only Saturday when it would have been a real problem if I couldn't sing). But by Sunday afternoon I felt quite a bit better (it helps that I live alone, so I didn't have to talk to anyone other than the cat) and it turned out I could sing OK. But maybe I was incubating something anyway, because on Monday and Tuesday I felt like death warmed up (well, not even warmed up all that much!) I went to work, because I don't get paid if I don't, but on both days I went to bed as soon as I got home and slept for 12 hours (well, interrupted by regular instances of sitting up to blow my nose). By Wednesday I felt a bit better, but that's the day the cough began. I went to choir anyway (although I didn't attempt to actually sing), partly because I wouldn't have been able to sing in the carol concerts if I hadn't, but mainly because I didn't want to miss the return of Jamie!

I felt much better by Saturday, but hadn't actually tried singing until that afternoon. It turned out to be mostly OK, although the annoying tickly cough kept coming back from time to time, most often when I was humming. Once I realised this, I just had a rest in the humming bits, and it was much better. The other strategy was to keep a cough sweet in my mouth throughout the whole of each concert (not the same sweet, obviously!) because if the tickle came, I found that putting a cough sweet in at that point didn't work fast enough to suppress it. The only downside of this is that it's quite hard to sing with a cough sweet in your mouth - if you've never tried it, you may be surprised to hear that the main problem is excess saliva! Particularly in songs with lots of words (The Twelve Days of Christmas caused a bit of dribbling, between you and me...)

The carol concerts have been great fun so far, though (and quite eventful, what with projectile vomiting in the children's choir and someone passing out in the main choir - paramedics had to be called, but thankfully she is fine now). I imagine everyone's highlight is the children's choir singing Santa in Waikiki - with actions and acting and accessories! It is the best thing EVER, and I wish I could have a video of it. (I can't find anything out about the song - which apparently is by Stewart and Albrecht, arranged by Alwyn Green - or any recordings of it -does anyone know anything?) I love our world premiere of On Christmas Night as well, though, and I also really like The Crown of Roses. And of course Sleigh Ride is as fabulous as ever - this year the trombones have bought themselves special red instruments just for the occasion!

Oh, and everyone was in awe of Libby's hat:

(There wasn't a LOT of silliness in the orchestra - the red trombones is about as silly as they got - but I have faith that they'll redress the balance at the last concert tonight!)

And if you haven't seen the FABULOUS sparkly stags in my photo at the top of this post, do go and examine them next time you're in town. They're in front of the new council offices at First Street, and I think they're great. It's POSSIBLE that they're supposed to be reindeer, I suppose, but they are so very like Harry Potter's Patronus charm that I can't believe it's just a coincidence. Here's what they look like in daylight and then from the same angle at night. (They twinkle perfectly, because most of the lights stay on all the time while a few of them go on and off randomly. That's how twinkling should be done. Look, someone even took a video of it!)

The Big Picture doesn't have our stags, but it does have lots of other great Christmas photos.

Carol Ann Duffy introduces a whole load of new poems which may well become the carols of the future. Some of them are very lovely.

Bob Stanley, in the Guardian, has a guide to writing the perfect Christmas pop song. Step 3 is the most important ("Use sleigh bells!")

Hurry down the chimney tonight

2010-12-10T23:41:00.005Z

Not sure where the last month has gone, but I'm here now! *waves* Actually, I do know where it went. A much-higher-than-usual proportion of it was spent singing, and it feels as if all the rest of the time was spent either on buses, typing letters for psychiatrists, or going to bed early with a hot water bottle in order to warm my feet. Oh, and trying to sell my house. The repossession order has now been given, but because the house was already up for sale (on the advice of the CAB) before the final court date, the judge allowed me three months before the repossession comes into force. So if I can sell the house before 28th February all is (relatively) well - if not, that's when I get evicted. Fingers crossed.

As for singing, it hasn't all been choral, but most of it has. We did the Cherubini Requiem on 11th November, and it went very well - not that that was ever in any doubt, when Lovely Markus was conducting. He gave us an inspiring speech during the warmup before the concert, which I wish I'd recorded, because I can't remember a thing he said now - just that it was inspirational! Also, I will long remember the bit at the start of whichever movement it was (probably the Dies Irae) that had the surprising gong. The image of Lovely Markus standing with one arm pointing upwards until the sound died away will stay with me for quite a while.

(There were a couple of reviews: Manchester Evening News and Music Web. And the Times, but I can't link to that.)

A couple of weeks later, I went to Poole for the weekend, at the invitation of the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir. I've done a few arrangements for them this year, and they were performing a couple of them at a concert at the Lighthouse in Poole, so they asked me to go along and listen. After I agreed to this, they also asked whether I could be persuaded to sing a couple of songs, and I was absolutely thrilled. No-one EVER asks me to sing on my own (well, I can think of one time a few years ago, but on that occasion I was asked to stand in for someone else - I wasn't the first choice) - it's always "Jocelyn, could you sort out a group of singers?" So, with (as always) lots of help from Maggie, I spent weeks preparing. I don't think I've ever practised so much as I have in the past month.

I wasn't nervous until I got there. But when I saw the size of the venue - and heard that 750 tickets had been sold - I was a little freaked out! But then I had a bit of an epiphany. My panicked mind had been screaming "I'VE NEVER SUNG IN SUCH A BIG HALL! OR IN FRONT OF SO MANY PEOPLE!!!" But then it occurred to me that of course I *have* sung in a much bigger hall (many, many times) and in front of considerably more people (many, many times). And the technical skills I use when I'm being a choral singer are more or less the same skills required to sing a solo. So all I had to do was to just sing as I usually do, and ignore the fact that there was no-one standing next to me. (The thing that our ex-choral director used to do, in which he made us spread out until we all had space around us in the performance, REALLY helped with this - I wish we still did that.) This train of thought made all the difference, and my nerves vanished. (I won't say that my performance was spectacularly good, because I'm not - yet! - a spectacularly good singer. But I enjoyed it, and I think it was OK.)

I really enjoyed listening to the rest of the concert, too. It was billed as "A Festival of Male Voices" (I did NOT know that when I agreed to sing, and I felt quite uncomfortable when I found out! But I apologised to the audience for being female, and I think they forgave me.) and consisted of four male voice choirs, who performed separately and together. I was pleased to find that the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir (my hosts) were by far the best (in my opinion), and I loved hearing them sing my arrangements. Here's an interesting thing, too: all the other choirs were a bit out of tune, and I had in fact never in my life heard a male voice choir that didn't sing a bit flat. (Well, apart from occasionally Only Men Aloud.) But Bournemouth were in tune just about all the way through, and I believe that a large part of this was due to the fact that they sang "jumbled up", i.e. people on the same voice part were not all physically grouped together.

(Also, not only were they the only choir that didn't have entirely white hair, one of their tenors - a 16-year-old boy - had BRIGHT BLUE hair, and it looked great!)

The singing didn't stop there. Last weekend was Messiah with Stephen Layton, and I think most of us agreed that it was the best one in years. There were quite a few new ideas, but the main thing that made it so good was that he insisted that people WATCH him, and refused to go on until they did. This broke people out of the autopilot mindset that so often pervades Messiah, and by the time even the SOPRANOS had realised that they couldn't look down at their scores as often as they usually do, it was starting to sound amazing!

It went very well on the night. The only thing that made it not perfect was that the Hallelujah Chorus was spoiled (for me) by the fact that (like so many conductors) he gave the audience a signal to stand, rather than letting them do it if and when they felt like it. I can understand the reason why conductors do this, but the fact remains that it ruins my most favourite moment: when the audience stands up without any prompting, in small non-simultaneous groups all over the hall, it always moves me to tears, and I'm usually still wiping my eyes by the end of the whole work. But when the audience are INSTRUCTED to stand, I remain completely unmoved. Yes, it makes that much difference.

However, he almost made up for spoiling my favourite bit by what he did at the end - a BRILLIANT idea that I can't believe no-one's thought of before. For Messiah, you see, we don't sit in the choir seats - we sit on the actual platform with all the musicians, because it's only a small orchestra. The organist usually sits on the platform too, rather than up on high at the organ console - they have a chamber organ that they wheel in specially. Well, when we started on Sunday there were TWO organs on the platform: the chamber organ, at which the organist was sitting, and another much larger portable organ console, which appeared to be connected somehow to the big full Hall organ. The organist remained at the chamber organ for almost the entire concert, and the audience (if they were paying attention) must have wondered why on earth the large extra console was on stage at all. Their curiosity was only satisfied at the very end. On the LAST PAGE of the Amen Chorus, the organist stopped playing the chamber organ, went over to the full organ console, and played just the very last few bars of the piece with full organ. The effect was AMAZING - I loved it. (Needless to say, those people who believe Messiah should only ever be done with one to a part thought it was awful, but what do they know? Stephen Layton said that he does it with both small forces and large, and since we had a large choir on this occasion, it made sense to him to go for a large sound. I think it was an inspired decision.)

Even more singing this week. On Tuesday I was in Macclesfield with Pleiades for an open mic night at Ronnie's Bar. Unfortunately they'd decided to start an hour later than usual, and we couldn't wait that long, but we asked whether we could sing a couple of songs unplugged to the people in the bar before the event started - since we'd gone all that way specially! - and they agreed. So we did get to sing a bit, at least. Such a pity, though - that's the first time we'd managed to get everyone there at the same time (we'd been before with fewer of us), and I doubt we'll manage it again - people won't want to go all that way for something that might be cancelled or postponed. Oh well.

Tomorrow's a huge day. At lunchtime we (Pleiades again) are singing for FC United, who have been much in the news lately. Sadly they went out of the FA Cup this week, but they did so with their heads held high, in front of a home crowd of 7000 - not bad for a non-league club! (There's another good article about their history here.)

We won't be able to watch the FC United match tomorrow, because just before it starts we will have to stop singing and dash to town for the annual Henry Watson Christmas Music Day. This year it's actually in the new temporary City Library on Deansgate, of course. The musical bits of the day are happening on the first floor (the music library is on the second floor, but there's not much room there) and we're the finale, starting at 4pm. Do come along and listen if you're in town - it's very informal, so you can pop in and out as you choose. I'm very much looking forward to it - particularly the bit where I get to shout!

The following weekend has the choir's series of carol concerts, but I'll try and post again before then. We're VERY pleased that our ex-choral director is coming back to conduct them, though!

Right, I'd better give you some of the links I've got saved, so I can delete some bookmarks.

Alison turned up on Messiah day wearing an all-purple outfit, so I mocked her for obviously being old. This led to the realisation that apparently not everyone knows the poem about old ladies wearing purple, so here it is: Warning, by Jenny Joseph.

I'm sure you've all seen this by now, but in case you haven't: Food Court Choral Flash Mob.

Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) hates choirs that dress identically. It's a thought-provoking post, and I can't say I really agree with it, but I haven't had time yet to articulate my objections in a comment. I will one day, though, Chris! I'm much more in agreement with another post of his, though: this one is about why people think they can't sing.

Two more practice tips from Stephen Hough: even if you only have a few minutes, you can still do some useful work, and scales and other exercises really can help.

Have you joined Eric Whitacre's virtual choir yet? I keep meaning to but haven't had time yet. A month ago he pointed out that he'd only received 160 videos despite 11000 people downloading the sheet music. Last week he was up to 300 videos, but reminded us that there's only a month left.

As usual, several interesting articles from Tom Service in the Guardian: carrying a cello could keep you out of the UK; several lost Vivaldi manuscripts have been found recently; there's now a prize for orchestral players who contribute most to the team; Alex Ross wrote an article about why modern classical music is unpopular, and Tom responds; he talks to countertenors Andreas Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky (and there's another interview with Jaroussky in the New York Times); Radio 3 is to play nothing but Mozart during the first twelve days of January, and Tom comments on this; and, finally, he brings us good news: twenty new works, lasting twelve minutes each, which have been commissioned for the 2012 Olympics (you see what they did there?)

Also from the Guardian: Leon McCawley writes about Samuel Barber; Stephen Sondheim gives his opinion of other songwriters (I found this INCREDIBLY fascinating, mainly because he has such a low opinion of so many of them!); an intriguing article by Robert Darnton about singing in the streets of 18th-century Paris; and Esther Addley writes about the history of Christmas carols. (A Cappella News, in fact, says that Christmas carolling was started by drunks.)

Cecilia Bartoli performed at the Bridgewater Hall last week - I'm told it was an amazing concert - and Manchester Confidential talked to her beforehand, about castrati and other things. (They also have an article about the difficult times ahead for our orchestra.)

Did you know there was a choir for homeless people in London? Me neither. They're called The Choir With No Name, and you can see them sing here.

Barbara told me about this: The Virtual Piano. It refused to load for me the first few times I tried, but you might be in luck - and it's very clever. There's a piano keyboard on the screen, and you can play it by clicking with the mouse if you like, but you can also use the keyboard. If you start with the number keys at the top of your keyboard (1 to 0) and then move through each row of letters in turn (from Q to M) you will play every note. If you hold the shift key down as well, you sharpen the note. Clever!

Rachel told me about a fabulous busker that she saw recently on Brazenose Street. She didn't recognise the instrument he was playing, but when she investigated she realised it was a Hang Drum. I may have to go and look.

You'll have seen these before, but they're funny, so I'll mention them again: The Twelve Days of Christmas by John Julius Norwich, and The Twelve Days of Christmas by Brian Sibley. They are very similar, and I have no idea which came first.

Here's a clever thing: the Avian Vocalisations Centre at Michigan State University. It is an online resource containing lots of recordings of birdsong.

Animal Aid are begging people not to give goats (or anything similar) for Christmas: here's why.

The Guardian points out that it makes no sense to grit the roads but not the pavements. I couldn't agree more - I haven't fallen over yet this year, but that's mainly because I've given up trying to walk on pavements and am walking in the road instead - it feels safer. The Royal Oldham Hospital deserves many Brownie points for being the only place I've been this month where the pavements have been kept free of ice. Everywhere else is lethal!

They also have a great article about jokes from other countries, and this appeared on the same day as Boing Boing's article on glorious, elaborate, profane insults of the world.

If you, like me, have always wanted to travel to get a really good view of the Northern Lights, here's a guide that explains your options.

The Big Picture has another set of great snow photos, and also an ongoing Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Pretty!

NFI

2010-11-08T01:52:00.008Z

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.)

Oh, oh, oh, totus floreo, iam amore virginali totus ardeo

2010-09-27T01:27:00.008+01:00

So sorry about the long hiatus. All sorts of bad things have happened this summer - the burglary was just the beginning, but I will try not to whinge about what's happened since, as I'm sure no-one wants to know - and I haven't been in the mood to write anything. I'm still not, really, but I decided I'd better make an effort to try and catch up with stuff.

We had a whirlwind start to our choral season, with two performances of Mahler 8 in Symphony Hall in our second week back. We still remembered it very well from May, of course, but this was with a different orchestra (the CBSO) and a different conductor (Andris Nelsons), so it did need a lot more rehearsal than it might have if it had been a direct repeat. And because of the concerts being on a Thursday and a Saturday, the schedule (including rehearsals) meant us all being in Birmingham on three consecutive weekday nights and then back again on Saturday. This caused huge logistical problems for most of the choir, so it was impressive how many of us were there. I know a few people took the whole week off work specially, but not everyone could do that, so there were lots of exhausted singers! On top of that, I managed to develop a streaming cold at the start of the week, so I had one of those fun concert experiences in which I kept having to wait for loud bits so I could blow my nose. Very annoying. (I blame the air-conditioning on Tuesday's coach - my nose felt far worse after that.)

I enjoyed both concerts, but I didn't think either of them was as good as the Manchester one. I won't go into the reasons here, but I *will* say what I thought was BETTER in Birmingham, and that was the Mater Gloriosa and the offstage brass. Not their actual performances - they were both great in both locations - but their positioning. I think I've mentioned before that my most abiding memory of the FIRST time I did Mahler 8 in the Bridgewater Hall was of the Mater Gloriosa singing her bit from the very highest possible point in the hall. When we did it in May, she was on the same level as the choir, and it just wasn't the same. But in Birmingham both the Mater Gloriosa and the offstage brass were right up near the roof, and I much preferred it. (I felt sorry for the offstage brass, though. The conductor totally forgot to give them a bow on Thursday night, and they stood there waiting for quite a while before obviously deciding to leave when the bows continued and they still didn't get one - they had vanished before we left the stage. So I didn't really blame them for not waiting at ALL on Saturday!)

The reviews surprised me quite a bit, because all the reviewers seem to have viewed the concerts differently than I did. They're all really good, though. Thanks to Martin for sending me a PDF of the Times review - the Times and Sunday Times both now charge for access to their website, so I can't check it any more. (In fact, there was - in theory - a feature about me in today's Sunday Times, but I haven't seen it yet for exactly this reason! I'm hoping someone will have bought it and will show me sometime. I did tell all my friends it was due to be in, but I haven't heard back from any of them, so maybe they haven't read it either.)

(Oh, and before I forget, I'm live on the radio in a few hours' time - in fact, I'll probably have been on by the time you read this, but you can listen on iPlayer if you're interested. I'm a guest on Woman's Hour (which, being a bit of a tomboy, I've never listened to in my life!), although I can't promise I'll have anything interesting to say!)

Other reviews: Guardian, Financial Times, Birmingham Post, MusicWeb, and (with photos and comments) Intermezzo. Oh, and the finale is (very illegally and nothing to do with me!) on YouTube.

(A couple of recent links about Mahler: a fascinating review of a Norman Lebrecht book about Mahler (from which I learned that Mahler is Beyonce's eighth cousin four times removed), and a great Guardian article about Mahler that stems from one chord.)

We're doing Mahler 8 again next summer, but for now our next two concerts are in a couple of weeks' time: a Carmina Burana scratch day on 9th October, and The Planets (which I think might be sold out) on 12th. I haven't done Carmina for YEARS, so that's great fun, particularly as all of a sudden we're joining in with loads of soprano parts and choir 1 bits that I haven't sung before. Very much looking forward to doing it with the orchestra and a thousand extra singers.

I have many links to share with you, but my favourite is this one from almost two months ago, in which lots of musicians (including our own music director) describe their greatest onstage moments.

Those who sang Eric Whitacre's Sleep earlier this year may be interested to know that he's using that song for his next Virtual Choir project. If you want to join him, the instructions are on his website. Also, here's a review of a concert of his - sounds fabulous, wish I'd been there! And also from his website, but other than that not actually anything to do with him at all, an absolutely fascinating short documentary about the making of 10CC's I'm Not In Love in the days before computers.

Those who took spart in my Surprise Spem project will be fascinated by the idea of a whole CONCERT of 40-part vocal music. I'd had this review for a while, but coincidentally the concert itself was on Radio 3 at the weekend, and you can listen to it until Saturday.

The Proms seem ages ago now, even though I know they only ended a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that there wasn't one this year that really blew me away, although three that I did really enjoy were the Rodgers and Hammerstein night, the Jamie Cullum night and the Monteverdi Vespers. The last night just seemed wrong without the Sea Songs, although I know they did it in the 1910 reenactment. (The Radio 3 blog posted a Last Night post-mortem, and Classical Iconoclast had a post-mortem of the Proms as a whole.) (Classical Iconoclast also has a fascinating article about Parry and Stanford - did you know Parry hated Stanford? I didn't.)

Stephen Hough has another practice tip: make sure you look at the original score. He also has a great post about historically-informed performance. And he asks that age-old question: If I had ten minutes with the Pope, what piano duets would we play?

On an Overgrown Path has an intriguing post about a piece of Elgar history. And here's a different piece of Elgar history: he wrote one of the first football anthems (for Wolves), and someone's recorded it.

Here's a great Telegraph article about Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

From A Cappella News: the King's Singers have a new member. (I thought this was interesting not for who he was - I've never heard of him - but for what sort of person they needed.)

A very sad article about the downfall of Scottish Opera, and more on this from Tom Service.

Slightly alarming thing from Ben Goldacre talking about the fact that how female musicians dress affects how their playing is perceived.

There's a composer who thinks that classical music should be amplified, so that people can talk during the concert, and walk in and out as they choose. Tom Service follows this up with Berlioz's instant feedback method.

Classical Iconoclast brings us news that the Elgar Birthplace Museum in Worcester is having a Gerontius exhibition from now until December, and also a great post about the emotional impact of the piece.

Classical scholars may be able to guess what a lithophone is: it's like a xylophone, but made of stone instead of wood. They've made one out of Lake District rocks and got Evelyn Glennie to play it. More details from the University of Leeds, who made it, and the University of Hull, who composed some music for it.

Chris Rowbury's posts (From the Front of the Choir) are always interesting, but I particularly liked this one about conducting gestures. (I wonder whether Andris Nelsons has read it? Doubt it.)

I don't really care whether or not there's a Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, but it turns out that there was and now there isn't, and I was so taken with the photo of it that I had to show you!

Here's a Guardian article about supposedly offensive lines being cut out of songs. I hate this. Although what I hate even more is when they use sonsg for adverts and cut SINGLE BEATS OUT OF BARS just to get the song to fit into the time limit. ARGH.

Talking of irritating, the only thing I really hate about buses is the fact that invariably there is someone who wants to play everyone their favourite music on their phone. The Guardian has a thought-provoking article about this. (I still hate it, though.)

In a similar vein, the BBC has an article about the proliferation of Autotune.

There was a very odd rumour I heard recently (although apparently it's a very old urban legend) that the original Batman theme (you know, the ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner one) has its vocal lines actually produced by brass instruments, even though they clearly sing the word "Batman!" The ever-reliable Snopes not only tells us that the rumour is untrue, but digs up some interesting information about how they DID do it.

This is kind of fun, and therapeutic: a musical thingy involving circles crashing into each other. Try it and see!

I doubt this will interest any of you, but just in case: McFly are my very favourite band, and the Guardian recently had an article about them. (Their musical skills are considerable, I promise you.)

A few people have asked me about Dr Liz. I mentioned her blog last time, but if you haven't read it, here are a few notable posts: a description of what she's actually doing, some Australian oddities, and news that she's found a choir and will be singing the Berlioz Te Deum in Sydney Opera House, lucky thing. (That's one of my favourite pieces ever, and the venue's not bad either!)

A bit of Manchester news now: we have a house in the city centre built especially for ducks!

The last of the books have finally left the Central Library - the photo is a bit eerie if you know that room well - but there's news about what it'll be like after the renovations.

Biggest current news in Manchester is the filming of a Hollywood blockbuster (Captain America) that's going in in the Northern Quarter. I went to have a look the other day - it's mainly on Dale Street, near the Piccadilly Station end. There are security staff all over the place, but you can get quite a good view of the set. The actors weren't there when I looked, but they are now. Someone's started a dedicated blog that has loads of photos, if you haven't got time to go and have a look yourself.

Yesterday a load of people went swimming in the Manchester Ship Canal! Sounds slightly insane to me.

Other bits of random stuff: I really like this article by Gia Milinovich, explaining how she started to feel invisible after her husband became extremely famous. (Her husband is Professor Brian Cox.)

If you've never used eBay, or you have but you suspect you're not getting the most out of it, this article will help.

If you use the same password for everything, this article might make you reconsider.

I watched this in fascination for several hours last Sunday: two young men attempted to set a new world record for the longest continuous kiss. They broke the record - they did 32.5 hours, with not a single break. They stood up the whole time - in fact, they danced for lots of it - and their lips were attached continuously, so they had nothing to eat or drink. It was very impressive.

Which links me nicely into my Big Picture selections, because the first one is of a selection of same-sex weddings, and I think these pictures are SO lovely. There's also some spectacular new solar system photos, and some great images from Oktoberfest.

And finally, via Londonist, an Ikea advert which involved a hundred cats being released into the store at night and filmed for a while.

Spem videos!

2010-08-05T20:21:00.004+01:00

Lots of people have asked about these, and they're finally online so I can share them with you.

The two main videos are both slightly over ten minutes long, but they needed to be under ten minutes to go on YouTube, so I was planning to split off the intros (because the singing itself is JUST under ten minutes), but for various reasons that hasn't been done yet. But in the meantime, YouTube unexpectedly solved the problem themselves, by increasing their video time limit to fifteen minutes, only a few days ago!

These videos are therefore totally unedited. As is always the case, they don't sound QUITE as amazing as I remember it in my head, but they do sound pretty good! A friend to whom I sent the links commented that it almost fell apart in the middle of each attempt, but we expected that - the amazing thing was that we recovered well enough to get to the end convincingly \o/

The first attempt was filmed from behind choirs 4 and 5, whereas the second attempt was filmed from behind choirs 1 and 8, so you can see all the singers in one or the other (most are visible in both).

(I've edited my blog post from the day to include the video links, in case you want to remind yourself of the background.)

Video of Dr Liz arriving

Video of first attempt (preceded by my intro)

Video of second attempt

This is an emergency alarm. Please leave the hall immediately by the nearest exit.

2010-08-02T02:13:00.004+01:00

Well, we've done our last concert of the season - the opera gala - and it was great fun. It went very well and I really enjoyed it. There was all sorts of excitement though. The first was that we were told at the piano rehearsal, a few days earlier, that both the soloists had cancelled. We do have a bit of a curse on soloists, as most of you know, but 100% cancellation is still quite rare! I think one of them was ill, but the reason for the cancellation of the other one was a bit of a surprise - I'd better not say it here though. But the soloists we DID get were great. The tenor was John Hudson, who we've sung with before, but new to us was a great Italian soprano called Maria Luigia Borsi. We liked her a lot - the best part was that it was obvious she was really enjoying herself. I hope we meet her again. (It turns out she only made her UK debut earlier this year. Here's a Classical Source interview with her, and another from the Arts Desk.)

Another bit of excitement was that the fire alarm went off just before the second half started! I've never known that happen before. The orchestra and choir were already on stage, but the conductor hadn't come on yet. So the whole crowd of performers and audience had to go outside (luckily it wasn't raining) and hang around for twenty minutes till we got the all-clear. It turned out to have been a false alarm - the manager came out to make an announcement, and mentioned that it had gone off during a rehearsal the previous day as well. Luckily none of the audience left, as far as I could see, and nothing was cut from the programme, although it did finish pretty late. A lot of people had to dash out as soon as the concert ended, and so missed the encore (which was Brindisi), but the ones who stayed gave us a standing ovation. Very satisfying!

I must say I really enjoyed working with our guest choral director for the last few weeks - I'd love it if he became the permanent one, although I know he has lots of other commitments and may not have time to take us on as well. But my fingers are crossed.

I haven't seen any reviews of the opera gala (or any of the other Manchester proms), which is disappointing - have I missed any?

Other news directly relevant to us: the Independent admits that the Bridgewater Hall is still the best concert hall in the country.

And 4 Bars Rest (a brass band website) has an audio interview with our principal trumpeter. (The site was down when I just checked it, but it should be back up soon. And you have to register to hear the interview, but it's quick - and free.)

A friend asked me the other day whether it's true that we're doing The Planets next season. I told her it is (it's on my birthday, so I could even tell her the date without checking), but it was only when I looked on the hall's website to see whether the tickets are on sale yet that I discovered that it's not just a normal Planets performance - the music will be accompanied by NASA images! That's a first for us. And my friend called the box office and was told that it was already nearly sold out, so if you want to get tickets I'd do so now.

A few people have asked me whether I've heard from Dr Liz in Australia, and I have... but you can read her reports yourself, at her blog. So far she hasn't met any ninjas, though, despite living near the scene of this fantastic story!

I'm not having the best of weeks myself - I was burgled the other day, while I was in the house. It was my own fault - I fell asleep with the back door slightly open. I don't think they can have been in the house more than a few seconds, because everything that was taken was within sight of the door... but one of those things was my oboe, which I've had for more than thirty years. I am distraught about this. And needless to say nothing was insured, because I haven't been able to afford insurance premiums for the last year or so. Typical - I paid insurance for years and never got burgled, and as soon as it lapsed they took my oboe!

Anyway, I have a million links to share with you, so let's got on with them.

From the Guardian (mostly from Tom Service): someone performed all nine Beethoven symphonies in one day in London a couple of weeks ago; the Go Compare tenor got himself in trouble on Twitter; there is new advice from the C of E about whether or not it's OK to sing Jerusalem at weddings (more details here); there's a Charles Mackerras obituary (and here's another, from BBC Music Magazine, and one from On an Overgrown Path); there's a pianist who showed off at the Cheltenham Festival by reading the score from his iPad, but Tom Service is very doubtful about this, and (having read the report) so am I; Simon Callow reviews the latest book by Charles Rosen, which sounds amazing (I haven't read that one, obviously, but I've read several of his others, and they're great); there is some uncertainty over the origin of the song Cockles and Mussels; applause between movements is becoming more popular; apparently the Wagner sisters have ended their feud (I didn't know there was one!); here's a nice article about silence (and the lack of it) in today's world; there's a useful list of the best live arts websites; an article about barbershop singing in the UK; I haven't seen any films this year, let alone Inception, but if you have seen it (certainly everyone I know is talking about it) you may be interested to know that the entire soundtrack is very cleverly based on one Edith Piaf song (Je Ne Regrette Rien); they examine why Bach's music is so suitable for being adapted; and why Andris Nelsons is so great with the CBSO (I'm very much looking forward to being conducted by him next month).

Vuvuzelas are still in the news: both the Guardian and the BBC report about various Premier League clubs banning them. What annoys me about this is that no-one is talking about banning air horns, which are much louder and (to me, at least) more annoying. They're certainly on sale at all the stalls outside Old Trafford, and I assume the same is true at other clubs - and more than once I've been temporarily deafened by a kid blowing one near me. (It's worst when they do it on the tram - took my ears quite a while to recover last time that happened.) I asked RNID, on Twitter, why they are making a fuss about vuvuzelas but not air horns, and they said they'd ask their campaigns team and get back to me, but they haven't yet. (I know the answer - it's obviously because there's a publicity bandwagon for vuvuzelas that there isn't for air horns, and their resources are limited - but in terms of damage to hearing, air horns are worse.)

Also from the BBC: they now have a player commentary facility for the Proms; Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band have their first female player; music can help athletic performance; there's an obituary for David Fanshawe (I've only ever heard his African Sanctus, but I love that - it's one of those pieces that absolutely intrigued me when I heard it on the radio, years ago, and I had to go out and buy it); there's also an obituary for Anthony Rolfe Johnson; and I quite like this article about the First Night of the Proms, in which someone asks the organist how much they'd have to pay him to play an E major chord at the start of Mahler 8 (instead of E flat). That would be the funniest thing ever! Pity no-one paid him enough :-) (Which reminds me... if you're on Twitter and you're not following the Royal Albert Hall Organ, you should. He's hilarious. Sample tweet: "First notes of #bbcproms 2010 played by ME! Wasn't I great?")

Classical Iconoclast has a nice post about the silliness of the Proms, and another one about three of the lesser-known soloists in the Die Meistersinger prom. Intermezzo has a review of the same prom, and they both mention the role of the Nightwatchman, which had already been highlighted by On an Overgrown Path. I was fascinated by this - I'd never heard about this role before. Sadly I was only half-watching the prom when it was on, and I missed that bit! But no doubt I'll see it one day.

Peter Phillips wonders, in the Spectator, why there is such disparity between choirs and orchestras.

Stephen Hough has some more practice tips: use a blue pencil and don't always warm up.

The Kings of Leon had to abandon a gig recently due to being bombarded by pigeon poo.

Some Manchester news: I visited the new temporary City Library last week, and was quite impressed. It's bigger than I was expecting (particularly the music room on the top floor) and is very pleasant. It has a LOT of computers for public use, and even a big screen TV (with the sound off, of course) which was showing football when I went in, although I soon realised that it was actually on the BBC News channel, but there was a football story on the news. Most importantly, the music library has a decent bit of floor space, so I'm hopeful that they'll be able to have their Christmas Music Day despite having moved home. The only slightly sad thing was that the librarians no longer stamp the books! There are electronic scanners for you to use to take books out, and you get a printed receipt telling you when they're due back. I think I'd be quite upset if I was a librarian!

But what reminded me to mention that was that Manchester Confidential has details of the refurbishments to the OLD Central Library, and very interesting they are too. Most importantly, it sounds as if my favourite bit of the building will remain intact, which I'm relieved about.

Also, next weekend Piccadilly Gardens will become a giant picnic area.

A few random things to finish off. Firstly, recent events have reminded me that there are still people who never back up any of their computer stuff. If you're one of them, and you've been lucky so far, here are some suggestions from TV writer James Moran - one of them might persuade you.

If you have lots of time to waste at work, you might like this: the Guardian's list of the greatest Internet-based sports games.

Football fans among you will have heard about the new rules regarding how many non-English players teams can have, but if (like me) the exact details of this had bypassed you, you might find the BBC's explanation helpful.

Next week is Perseid Meteor Maximum. I'll probably post again before then to tell you more about that, but in case I don't, here's some info from Universe Today.

Talking of astronomy, I'm sure you're aware of the fabulous Astronomy Picture of the Day website, which I've mentioned many times before, but my favourite recent picture of theirs is actually earth-based: lightning storm in Athens. Amazing!

And I can't talk about great photos without the latest highlights from The Big Picture: the close of the World Cup; a collection of recent stormy skies; and two sets from the Tour de France (part 1 and part 2).

Don't die of shock if there's a new post in the next day or two - I'm currently uploading something that I wanted to mention, but it's not finished uploading yet. As soon as it is, I'll post to tell you about it!

Les voici! voici la quadrille

2010-07-11T18:43:00.014+01:00

Well, I did mean to post again a couple of days after my last post, but I didn't have a chance till this weekend, sorry. After the Spem event (which was only two weeks ago, but feels MUCH longer ago) I had another (non-musical) event last weekend in Edinburgh which involved a fair amount of preparation... and I'm still doing the part-time job which involves spending at least three hours a day on various buses. I'm hoping that ends soon, because the travelling makes it feel like a full-time job (so there's very little time or energy for anything else), but my finances are getting rapidly worse as a result of working there. I need to find extra sources of income ASAP.

Anyway, I've done a bit of singing in the past couple of weeks, although not as much as I would have liked. We recorded "Valiant for Truth" by Vaughan Williams a few days before the Spem thing, and I think the result will be great - I can't wait to hear it. (We were supposed to record two Elgar songs too, but (to no-one's surprise) there wasn't enough time in the session. I was pleased the Vaughan Williams was the one we did, because it was the only one of the three I liked!)

Currently we're rehearsing opera choruses for our next concert, which is a week on Saturday. I'm very much looking forward to this - I like all the pieces we're doing (well, the thing from Macbeth is less good than the rest, but that's mainly because the alto part is VERY boring) and I think they'll all sound pretty good. Also, I just LOVE the Aida trumpets! (One of my Great Choral Moments involves the Aida intro. I still think of it every time I hear that piece. Actually, I should resurrect my Great Choral Moments series - it's been a while since I mentioned one.)

(Just to remind you there are mp3s here if you want to practise. I can't promise they're all La Scala, though. (In fact, the Aida recording is US, last time we did it.))

The only thing we haven't rehearsed at ALL so far is Nessun Dorma (although we've only sung once through Brindisi so far), but that won't be a problem as it only involves two lines for the choir (just the ladies, in fact) and we've sung it many times before, although not for quite a few years. Most of the previous occasions were in the Classical Spectacular gigs at the MEN Arena (I'm still distraught that they do those gigs without us these days), in which invariably we had to sing Nessun Dorma in the dark because the spotlight was on the tenor, so we had to memorise our two lines. This wasn't exactly difficult - I can still remember the words even now, and it's years since I last performed them - so I was always a bit baffled at the fuss some people used to make over having to do the memorising. A couple of people just refused, and either didn't sing that piece or sang it to "la"; significantly more people went to a considerable amount of trouble to make sure they COULD see their words even though it was dark. (At least one person wrote the words on a bit of paper using a special pen that showed up under fluorescent light (or whatever sort of dim light it was we had on stage.) I could never understand this, because it seemed to me that they could probably have learned the two lines in the time it took them to sort out their alternative plans! But the choir these days is a lot more professional, so I imagine everyone will just get on with it and spend the two minutes it will take them to learn "il nome suo nessun saprà... e noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir!"

A few days ago I went to sing at an open mic night at Ronnie's Bar in Macclesfield. My friend Nigel (the guitarist in my band) lives nearby, and he was accosted recently on his way home from a rehearsal by the organiser, who had noticed his guitar and was keen to get new performers at the event, which they run every week. We want to take the whole band sometime, but we thought it would be worth going with just the two of us at first, so we could see how things worked. When we arrived, the place was deserted, but they had several screens showing the football, so we thought the open mic night might have been cancelled for that week due to the World Cup... but although they started a bit late in order to wait for the end of the match, the event did go ahead, and it was very well attended - lots of people turned up at about 9pm, when the event usually starts. They let us go on first because I was restricted by having to get home by train, and we had a great time. We hadn't expected to do more than three songs (and possibly fewer), but we ended up doing five, at the request of the organisers. They have a great sound system, and they did all the mic adjustments etc., so all we had to do was sing and play. I recommend it to any of you who ever perform pop (or know people who do).

I've also done a fair bit of singing at home, mainly recording multi-track a cappella vocal arrangements. I keep doing this thing where I record myself singing (usually for someone's birthday) and really enjoy myself doing so, but then I listen to it and think "hmm, I thought I sounded better than that. Ouch." ... but, having done it, I send it to the person concerned anyway in the hope that they'll think it's OK. I did three birthday presents this week, but I'm particularly dissatisfied with my singing on all three of them, so although they are all online, and you could find them if you searched hard enough, I'm not going to link them here, sorry!

Anyway, you won't be surprised to hear that I have many, many, many links to share with you. (I actually had a lot more than this, but quite a few are no longer relevant, so I've deleted them.) Firstly, I said I'd put any Spem photos I received online. Here's a link to a zip file which contains all of Caroline's and Martin's. They aren't full-size - I reduced them to keep the file size down - so if you want higher-quality versions of any of them, you should ask Caroline or Martin directly. As for the video, I haven't seen it yet, but Dr Liz has and says it's great. As soon as we get it online (which is still definitely the plan), I'll let you know. There's also a video of Dr Liz arriving (we had to do that separately, because her husband filmed the rest of it, but he couldn't start filming until the secret was out!) which I also haven't seen, but again I'll let you know when it's online.

Most of the links I deleted were about vuvuzelas. I was right, wasn't I? I told you almost a year ago that vuvuzelas would be big news - I hope I can truthfully say "you heard it here first!" Anyway, there are a few I still want to share. Fox News and the Daily Mail both have the story of the woman who burst her windpipe by blowing too hard. Via Intermezzo, the Daily Mail also has Alison Balsom trying to get a tune out of one. And the Guardian tells us that someone wrote a concerto for vuvuzela. This did amuse me, but of course there's a huge mistake in the score - the pitch of the vuvuzela is an octave lower than the one printed. I suppose the composer could claim it's a transposing part, but why bother?

Actually, it's occurred to me several times that the vuvuzela might be very useful for helping singers to develop their pitch memory. Anyone who's watched even ONE match during the World Cup will have that note in their head (the B flat below middle C). Just try it - if you've watched any football, I bet you can hum the vuvuzela pitch right now. (Well, you certainly can at this very moment, because the World Cup Final is on TV as I'm writing this, but you know what I mean!) And if you can remember that pitch, you can use that in the future as a way of working out other notes. (You may have to actually make an effort to do this at first, though - hum the B flat to yourself once a day, and check to see if you're right. After a while it will be ingrained, and you won't need to make the effort any more.) This is more or less how I developed my good memory for pitch (which is what makes people think I have perfect pitch, which I don't) - originally it came from the oboe's tuning A, which stuck in my mind (because I'm an oboist), and I started working out other notes from that.

A few more footy/music links: The band We Are Scientists wrote a great Guardian article about how to write a World Cup song. Tom Service has an intriguing article about composers who were inspired by football (intriguing because I knew NONE of this - e.g. Elgar being a Wolves fan!) (Tom was a bit less impressed at the BBC's Wimbledon coverage, which included a sin against J.S. Bach.) And the BBC Music Magazine has some suggestions for music to inspire some of the teams in the World Cup. (I know it's too late to share this now, but I like it!)

Glastonbury has also happened since the last time I made a full post. I wasn't that impressed with most of it this year, although that may be because I was distracted by non-TV things. But Stevie Wonder was fabulous, and I did like the Kylie guest spot with the Scissor Sisters. Anyway, here's an article by the BBC producer in charge of it all, in which he explains some of their limitations. Both the Guardian and the BBC have some tips for headliners. The Big Picture, as usual, has some great photos. And the Guardian compares Damon Albarn to David Bowie, which hadn't occurred to me before, but I can see their point.

Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) had a fascinating series of posts recently, in which he describes the sort of music he likes, with many examples. Since I am very unfamiliar with most of the music he mentions, I found this a great way to get to know some new stuff. Start with I may not know much about music but I know what I like, and follow that up with Now THAT's what I call singing! Volume 1 and Volume 2. Also, if you're wondering how he manages to teach these songs without using any written music, he explains that too.

I was very amused by this: grading every country's national anthem, part 1. No further parts have appeared yet, but I'll post links here when they do!

You'll find this interesting if you're a Glee fan: from BoingBoing, an article about copyright law as it applies to a TV programme full of cover versions.

Tom Service wonders whether Dido's Lament is really twice as good as Mozart. He also has an interesting article about El Sistema (in which he disagrees with certain people); some thoughts about minor thirds; an article about composers using codes; a post about the BBC Proms Archive (the Guardian also has an editorial about that); more about the Leonard Slatkin/La Traviata saga; and some great quotes from an interview he did with Anna Netrebko.

You've probably heard that the BBC Phil have a new chief conductor from next year (more on that from the BBC Music Magazine), but did you know that Kent Nagano has been pushed out of his job in Munich? (That news is from Intermezzo, who has more to say about it here.)

Also via Intermezzo, a treat for those of you who can read German: a blog by a journalist who was given unrestricted access to behind-the-scenes Bayreuth. And Intermezzo also examines how much opera directors and composers get paid, and disapproves of a recent situation at ENO. (Which reminds me: yesterday I finally caught up with Gareth Goes to Glyndebourne, which I really enjoyed. Well done Gareth. Only the last of the three programmes is still on iPlayer, but if they repeat it and you missed it, do watch.)

From On an Overgrown Path, an intriguing short post about Stravinsky and technology, although the bit I really liked was actually the news that Beethoven once wrote a Duet requiring Two Pairs of Spectacles. Hee!

Elgar has now vanished from our £20 notes - I'm still angry about this.

The Guardian has a long and thought-provoking article about music being composed by computers.

Gillian alerted me to this: an article in Science News about why some people find sight-reading easier than others.

Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is one hundred years old, and Rob Young takes an in-depth look at it in the Guardian.

This year's Three Choirs Festival is in Gloucester from 7th to 15th August, and Classical Iconoclast has a helpful guide to what's on.

BBC Music Magazine has a short article about the lack of female composers. They've also just launched a podcast, and the first episode features our Götterdämmerung CD.

Paul Woodiel, a violinist who plays in a Broadway theatre, tells the New York Times of his outrage at the decision to cut five string players from West Side Story (which, it turns out, has ELEVEN SEPARATE STRING PARTS) and replace them with a synthesiser.

Latest practice tip from Stephen Hough: start by writing the fingerings in.

The BBC tells us that TV themes have been the most lucrative UK musical exports over the past decade. Sad, but not really very surprising, I suppose. They also have a related article about jingles (we have Wagner to blame for them, essentially, but we knew that).

And there's a new choral work in which the singers sing parts of their own genetic code. *boggle*

I think that's all my musical links, but I have a few more football ones. Don't go away! These are good, you'll like them!

The Big Picture has had several sets of their trademark amazing photos: Preparing for the World Cup, Opening Weekend, and Halfway in. No doubt there will be more after the final.

A British chemistry professor says that FIFA are lying when they claim that the actual World Cup trophy is solid gold.

Football can help people with dementia, a Scottish project has found.

I really like this BBC article about why David Beckham is a really great guy. (I already knew he was, but it's nice when people give me evidence I can use!)

And here's something I never thought I'd see: a football match on the M60.

Let's make the transition to Manchester-related to links via another footy-related link: the site of Maine Road is to be marked with a blue moon. I think that sounds lovely.

Manchester Day has come and gone now, but in the buildup to it the MEN site featured this Manchester quiz. It's harder than you might think! I scored 76784, but I think I could have done better if I'd been thinking clearly. It gives you a map of Manchester and names an event, and you have to click on where it happened. Give it a go.

Also in aid of Manchester Day, Manchester Confidential printed a great list of reasons why Manchester is historically significant. They include a great quote: "Manchester is the place where people do things. Don't talk about what you are going to do, do it. That is the Manchester habit."

I missed the parade (I was singing in Macclesfield at the time) but it sounds as if it was a real spectacle. (That's from the MEN; Manchester Confidential reviewed it here.)

The MEN also tells that we are the third most popular UK tourist city (after London and Edinburgh).

The temporary Central Library is now open - have any of you been in it yet?

And on 22nd August you can take part in a backwards running race in Heaton Park.

A bit more randomness...

If you have an iPhone, and have been alarmed at recent reports warning that the current unlimited-data situation will end soon, this MacFormat article explains how to find to how much data you CURRENTLY use.

I love this story about a vicar who discovered that there was a law giving her the right to call her parishioners together for archery practice.

Language teachers will particularly like this: a Guardian article which discusses the theory that Brits are bad at languages. And here's an article that discusses the changing use of the word "so" in the English language.

Here's a nice story from BoingBoing about how Martha's Vineyard became the birthplace of American deaf (and Deaf) culture.

Most of you will have heard of the TED talks - I'm sure I've mentioned them before - but now the Guardian explains the whole thing in detail, and tells us that TED is coming to Oxford.

And finally (finally!) some Harry Potter news. The Guardian reviews the recently-opened theme park in Florida, and the official website now has the full cinema trailer for the Deathly Hallows film.

Spem in Alium

2010-06-27T21:01:00.005+01:00

Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been organising a big project that I couldn't talk about here, because it was a secret. But it happened today, and it was BRILLIANT. So I can tell you about it now! (I have a million links saved to share with you, and no doubt other stuff to tell you, but I'll do that in the next day or two.)

Dr Liz - a fellow 2nd alto in the choir - is, as many of you are aware, moving to Australia in a few weeks' time, as she has a job there. She has been extremely helpful to me while I've been broke (which I still am, by the way - more so than ever!) - in particular, she has paid my ISP bills for the past three years. So I wanted to do something for her as a farewell present.

Here's the thing: Dr Liz has been saying for years that one of her all-time ambitions is to perform the Tallis 40-part motet (Spem in Alium) with one to a part. She and I both sang it in June 2006 as part of the BBC People's Chorus event with a thousand singers, and she's wanted to try the one-to-a-part idea ever since, so I thought it would be fun to organise it as a surprise for her. And I did!

Her husband came up with a timeslot in which she was available and (more importantly) he could guarantee she would STAY available. I found forty really good singers, who have all been practising industriously for the last few weeks. (I had to actually ask 112 people before I had forty who said they could do it! There are still about twenty people who never replied to any of my emails - their loss.) (Dr Liz herself was one of the singers, of course, and she obviously couldn't have practised before the day, but I arranged the schedule so that there was an hour between her finding out what was going on and the first part of the rehearsal that involved her singing, and I arranged for a practice room (with a piano) to be available, and created an mp3 of the piece which had her part played over it clearly, and sent it to her husband so that he'd have it available on his iPhone. Also, I remembered which part she sang four years ago, and I made sure she was on that part, which hopefully helped a little.)

The venue might have been a problem, because not only did it need to be a decent-sized room with a piano in Manchester city centre, it also had to be one that I wouldn't have to pay for, since (as previously mentioned) I have no money! But, much to my surprise, Plan A actually worked: when I dreamed up this idea, I imagined it happening in the Baronial Hall at Chet's, which is not only one of my favourite rooms in the WORLD (I'm an ex-pupil of the school, so I'd loved that room since I was ten years old), it's perfect for the sort of music we were singing (particularly as it's one of the few rooms in existence that's older than Tallis!) So, on the basis that "if you don't ask you don't get", I wrote to the headteacher of Chet's and explained what I wanted to do... and it turns out that the hall was available, and she let me use it free of charge! (I did agree to have a collection among the participants, with the proceeds going to the Chet's building appeal, and people seemed happy to contribute to that.)

So, it finally happened this afternoon (Sunday 27th June). Needless to say, the way the football fixtures turned out was VERY annoying, but it couldn't be helped - and it sounds as if we didn't miss much anyway! My sister texted me updates, which I passed on to the singers (although we had to warn Fanny not to listen each time, as she was convinced she could get home without hearing the score...) And poor Catharina couldn't decide who to support, but was leaning towards England. She kept quite quiet as the German goal count increased!

I was convinced someone would cancel at the last minute, or just not turn up. But no-one did, so everything worked perfectly. Dr Liz's husband hatched a plot that ensured that she didn't work out what was going on until she actually entered the Baronial Hall with him and saw thirty-nine singers... because everyone was in their seat, with just one left for Dr Liz. We were suspicious that she'd somehow found out the secret, because she didn't show much surprise or shock... but she says she really didn't have a clue, and her not-showing-shock face is probably one that she's acquired as a result of working as a doctor for quite some time!

I'd arranged the chairs so that all the singers were round the outside of the hall in a square with ten on each side, and we had seats in the middle for spectators (there were a few friends and family who wanted to watch). I was very keen to have the circular arrangement after experiencing the amazing swirling effect when we sang the piece with a thousand people in the Bridgewater Hall, and our spectators said it was just as effective today. (Lots of people took photos, but I didn't have time to take any myself - Caroline took loads, so I'm hoping she'll send me copies of hers, and I'll put them online if she does.) (EDIT: she has, and so has Martin, and sometime I will put them all up together, but for now here's a sample...)

We were only in the hall for three hours, but the time flew by. We started with a 5-minute condensed Maggie-type warmup (well, it wasn't just "Maggie-type"... I asked Maggie what she recommended for an ideal 5-minute warmup for people who were already familiar with the usual warmups, and I followed her instructions!) Then we rehearsed ten people at a time (for those of you who don't know, the piece is written for eight groups of five singers each, and each group has soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass - so you will understand why I ended up asking ALL the men in the choir (and several from the youth choir) before I had enough of them who were available, whereas there are lots of ladies in the choir who know nothing about it). We were all immediately impressed at how great it sounded, whichever group was singing. Not every note was perfect (this piece is DIFFICULT!) but enough of them were that it sounded mostly correct, and we all got to the end together. But the overall vocal sound was spectacular, I thought, and of course it helped that the acoustic was perfect. And we stayed bang in tune every time!

I'd been a little worried that people might get bored sitting around while their group wasn't involved, but it was a lovely day, and a beautiful location, and people just sat out in the courtyard and chatted. And Mr Dr Liz went out and bought a whole tableful of refreshments for us all, which was very much appreciated. (I didn't get any of it till after the event was finished - because I was conducting as well as singing, I didn't get a gap when I could eat, but it was fine. Plus, I ended up taking all the remnants home with me as a result, which solved some of my current food problems!)

After we'd rehearsed each pair of mini-choirs together, we rehearsed with choirs 1-4 (i.e. twenty singers) and then with choirs 5-8. (All the rehearsals were only twenty minutes long, so there wasn't time for note-bashing - but everyone had worked really hard at learning their parts, so it wasn't necessary.) Then, finally, the audience arrived, and after a brief bit of explanation (mainly to convey the fact that there was a good chance we wouldn't get to the end at the first attempt) we tried it with all forty singers. Much to everyone's surprise (and delight!) it worked first time - we DID all get to the end at the same time, with everyone ending on the right note, and it sounded amazing. The audience loved it. They asked for a repeat performance, and I'd always planned to do it twice, but that was mainly because I didn't expect it to be that good the first time! So we did it again, and it was amazing again. And yes, we still stayed perfectly in tune \o/

Anyway, Dr Liz's husband filmed the performance, so at some point we will put it online and you can see it for yourself. (I noticed that YouTube has a surprising lack of videos of this piece actually being performed - there are many versions of it there, but they all have the music with just a still image. Apart from the King's Singers one, which doesn't count because there are only six of them and they used multitracking. Or the Dresden chapel choir one, which doesn't count because there are more than forty of them, and they don't do the whole piece anyway. So maybe we will end up as a YouTube sensation!)

EDIT: Zip file of photos from the day
Video of Dr Liz arriving
Video of the first attempt (preceded by my introduction)
Video of the second attempt

VUVUZELA!

2010-06-09T00:10:00.004+01:00

Not much singing since my last post, and not much to tell you about what I've been up to. Which is not to say that I haven't been busy, because I have! But most of the things I've been spending time sorting out are things I don't want to talk about until they actually happen, for various reasons.

One of the things I have been doing, though, is setting up my regular biennial Fantasy League. (The World Cup starts on Friday, in case you hadn't realised!) If you want to enter a team, that'd be great - the more the merrier. Deadline is kickoff in the first match (i.e. Friday afternoon, UK time). It's free and you don't need to know anything about football, but it makes the World Cup MUCH more fun! The rules are on the form. If you know very little about football, or are in a hurry, you'll find the short player list most useful - it just contains a selection of the most famous players. The other two player lists both have ALL the players on. If you want to enter, just email the form to me (jocelyn@wardle.demon.co.uk).

(This is a RIDICULOUSLY simplified fantasy league, compared to most of the ones you'll see elsewhere - that's because it was originally designed so that kids with learning difficulties could enter. And it works, so I've kept it like this. I always have people who tell me that it's SO easy that there's no way they can lose... but they never all pick the exact same team...)

We have a rehearsal tomorrow (well, later today), which will be fun. (Oh, and for those of you who don't know all the opera gala and recording stuff, you can download most of it from my mp3 page.) (I can't find a recording of Love's Tempest anywhere, though - at least, not without spending more money than I've currently got - so if any of you has one they're willing to share, I'd love a copy.)

Other news for members of my choir: tickets have just gone on sale (this week) for the Birmingham gigs, and I believe the Mahler 8 ones are selling very fast. More news about the Birmingham season at Intermezzo, and there's also a fascinating Guardian interview with Andris Nelsons.

The Mahler in Manchester series is now over, both live and on R3. Here's a Telegraph review of Mahler 9, which hadn't appeared when I last posted; also an MEN review, a Telegraph review and a 5-star Guardian review of Mahler 10. Also a belated Telegraph review of the Wagner CD, and an Observer review of Billy Budd. And, since one of the reviews mentions it, I may as well include here the fact that Gianandrea is leaving the BBC Phil after next season.

Talking of the BBC Phil, they are having a come-and-sing day this Sunday, featuring Mozart's Requiem. They were pleading on Twitter for tenors and basses to join them, in case you're interested. Oh, and here are some great photos of the Bridgewater Hall.

I enjoyed this Observer feature discussing other people's taste in music.

On Sunday, Radio 3 are having ten straight hours of live music.

Tom Service reports on the backlash against Dudamel, and there's a nice Guardian editorial in praise of operatic arias. And I'm sure lots of you have been watching all the recent opera stuff on the BBC. I've enjoyed it more than I expected to - I like opera, but wouldn't describe myself as a huge fan. You can still catch What Makes A Great Tenor and the three Opera Italia episodes on iPlayer, and I recommend them. (There's also several full live operas, including Aida and the Marriage of Figaro.)

Sydney Opera House, by way of contrast, recently held a concert for dogs.

You remember the Leonard Slatkin drama recently re La Traviata? Well, now he's come out and explained that Angela Gheorghiu was the cause. Fascinating, but I'm torn - on the one hand, if she's behaving badly, people should know, but on the other hand it's a bit unprofessional of him to say so, maybe.

I think I mentioned that the South African opera singer who was due to sing at the opening ceremony had died - well, they're going to use his voice anyway.

Stephen Hough has another practice tip: practise with your eyes shut.

Classical Iconoclast reminds us that Bachtrack has recently been updated - go and have a look. It's a very useful site, and now it has all sorts of new features.

The latest wacky classical music story is that they're using Mozart operas to treat sewage. Whatever next?!?

4 Bars Rest has a proper Whit Friday retrospective, which laments the tragedy that marked this year's contest and bemoans the increasing number of thuggish "spectators", but also informs us that the St Etienne Band, who I mentioned last time, are from Huddersfield University.

I like this Guardian story about what music makes you feel old. (If you've never heard Pendulum, Watercolour is their current single.)

You may not be aware that there isn't, for once, an official England World Cup song. However, the Guardian rates a few unofficial ones, and Manchester Confidential brings news of a Manchester-created effort called God Save Colleen. I haven't heard it, but I want to!

Also, it seems that ten staff in a Manchester pub have all changed their name by deed poll to Wayne Rooney. This amuses me far more than it should.

And I haven't mentioned the vuvuzela yet, so here's yet another story about it. (If you haven't heard the sound of these things yet, I guarantee you will in the next week!)

Some of the non-football fans among you (and some of the fans, too) will enjoy this collection of all the best-looking players from all the teams. Although for some reason he/she has a dislike of Cristiano Ronaldo and refused to include him. Bizarre.

Manchester Day is a week on Sunday, and they need strong volunteers to carry the giant bees in the parade.

The train users among you will no doubt be as unimpressed as me to hear that the new government has apparently decided that there is no need for extra train carriages after all. *headdesk*

Very pretty: live webcams from Iceland.

And finally, for my fellow Harry Potter fans: Boris Johnson makes a very reasonable demand, and here's the recently-released latest trailer for the Deathly Hallows films Exciting!

Somewhere, there's music - how faint the tune

2010-05-29T22:23:00.005+01:00

Well, unlike the LAST time I had a big gap between posts, when I had no idea where the time had gone, this time I do have an excuse! After over a year with no work other than a few hours here and there, I finally got a new temp job a couple of weeks ago. It's only part-time (four hours a day) but it's at two different sites in Oldham, which each involve two buses and up to an hour and a half's travelling each way. So I feel as if I've spent most of my life on buses recently! And, to make things worse, I'm worse off financially than when I was signing on. But this job does at least leave me time to continue my freelance work when opportunities arise, so all I need is a bit of luck and I'll be fine :-)

I did have a very interesting freelance commission which I completed last week. One of my fellow altos in the choir wanted me to arrange Brandenburg 4 for a different group of instruments. The original group involves (in case you don't know - I didn't, until I looked it up) two flutes, a solo violin, a full string section (two violin parts, viola, cello and double bass) and continuo (i.e. harpsichord). The required group was: two flutes, two cellos and one harpsichord. Well, I did it, but to say that it took an awful lot longer than I'd anticipated is putting it mildly! And it wasn't the arranging itself that was time-consuming; it was inputting the notes of the original score in order to be able to rearrange them. It's all Bach's fault - there are so MANY notes! I'll be very interested to hear how they get on with the result. I did warn them that the harpsichordist would need to be super-human!

We had a really nice choir gig in Ashton a couple of weeks ago, too - it went really well, and the audience loved it. I was particularly delighted that "We'll Gather Lilacs" and "The Bare Necessities" had been restored to the programme. I know a few choir members disagreed, but I suspect they weren't at the Harpurhey concert at which we first performed these songs, and therefore didn't see how much the audience liked them. At Ashton, there was an old man sitting near the front - right behind the mayor - and he seemed to be enjoying the whole concert, but when it got to "We'll Gather Lilacs" he was mouthing the words, and he had a... well, I was about to say that he had a smile on his face, but he did throughout... but it was a different TYPE of smile in "We'll Gather Lilacs". I can't find the words to describe it, but I do know that I sang that whole song with tears in my eyes due to seeing that smile. (And I do hope that next time we do an a cappella concert, whoever plans the programme remembers what sort of audience we tend to get, and includes something similar again.)

While we were in Ashton, by the way, Alison and I were fascinated by the small bronze (I think) sculptures that were dotted around the pedestrianised area of the town centre. We were frustrated that there was no visible information about them (such as the title or the name of the sculptor), though. Most of the statues (of which there were five or six) were of Victorian-type children, but my favourite was this miner:

Oh, and last Saturday I went to the other side of Bury (ANOTHER day involving six buses!) to sing in a Brahms Requiem workshop with Bury Choral Society. Maggie was a guest vocal coach for the day, and did her usual stuff (which went down very well), and then we sang about half the Requiem. I was a little disappointed not to be able to do all of it (it's been a few years!), especially as we're no longer performing it later this year as planned. But I really enjoyed the bits we DID do, and oddly enough it's the 4th movement I've had on the brain since - normally I dislike that movement compared to the others, finding it a bit boring, but I enjoyed it this time.

Currently in our Wednesday rehearsals we're doing some a cappella things which we're recording soon but which I didn't previously know at all: Elgar's The Shower and Love's Tempest, and Vaughan Williams' Valiant for Truth. I must say I much prefer the Vaughan Williams to the two Elgar things, which are not the most exciting songs ever - it starts with an alto tune, and has a few more further in, and there's a fabulous trumpety bit at the end. But also (and I suspect I'm in a minority here!) there are quite a few aspects of the words which make me think of the last Harry Potter book. Needless to say it was the line "my marks and scars I carry with me" that started me off on this train of thought, but then it wouldn't go away.

We're also doing the usual opera choruses in preparation for our last concert of the season. Well, I say "the usual", but it's actually a few years since we've done any of this stuff. I found that I still remember Brindisi (well, the alto part, at least) from memory, but that's probably because most of it is on the same note. And Fuoco di Gioia is just as entertaining as ever!

Another thing that's taken up a lot of my time recently (albeit very enjoyably) is birthday presents. Due to extreme being-broke-ness, I haven't been able to buy anything for anyone for the past three years... but it occurred to me, late last year, that there IS something I can make for people - at no cost to me other than time - which most of them seem to quite like. I do an a cappella vocal arrangement of (ideally) a song I know they like, or (if I don't know such a song) a song that is relevant to them in some way, and use the very wonderful FourTrack app on my iPhone to record myself singing all the parts. (I can have more than four parts - and I usually do - because it even has a bounce function.) I love doing this, but several friends have had birthdays in the past week, so I've spent more time at it than usual. And tonight I need to do "How High the Moon" (hence the title of this post). Can't wait!

(If you're wondering how I can afford an iPhone, the answer is that I couldn't if I'd had to actually buy it, but I got it free with my contract. Which is just as well, because I'm not sure how I managed to live without it.)

I hope some of you made it to a Whit Friday event. (If not, next year's date is 17th June 2011 - put it in your diary now!) I went to Delph with my family - not been there for quite some time (well, I have, but not on Whit Friday), but we fancied a change from Friezland. I bumped into the wonderful Richard Charles, who's a percussionist I've worked with in the past several times, but other than him, I didn't see anyone else I knew (at least, not to talk to). Friezland tends to be where the Wardle people congregate, and most of my Whit Friday acquaintances are Wardle people. We saw some great bands, though - not all the top bands were out this year, but we did see Brighouse & Rastrick in their distinctive purple tunics, and Boobs and Brass (the all-female brass band in their pink uniforms, who march to Here Come The Girls). The crowd's favourite, though, was the St Etienne Band, who dressed as England football fans (there's a photo of them here if you scroll down a bit) and marched to Three Lions. We have been unable to find out where they're from - we ASSUME France, from the name, but we have no evidence for this (although my mum insist that they LOOKED French!) - and in any case, why would a French band dress as they did?

(Whit Friday results, for those who are interested, are mostly now online - Saddleworth results and Tameside results.)

You've probably all heard the Radio 3 broadcast of our Mahler 8 gig by now. It's only available on iPlayer until Monday night, but you can download it (helpfully split into separate tracks) from my mp3 page for the foreseeable future, and I'm delighted to see that several of you already have. (Also, does anyone have any thoughts about why we sound very quiet compared to choir 1? I can't believe the balance was like that in the hall, because I think it would have been noted and fixed in rehearsal if so. Maybe they had a faulty mic on our side? Although I did notice at the time that there was no mic at all anywhere near the altos (on either side) - there was one in front of the men, and one near the sops, and several near the kids, but nothing near the altos.)

The Mahler in Manchester cycle is almost over, and Mahler 9 was this week. Here's a Guardian review and one from the MEN. And, talking of reviews, I'd love to see the current Glyndebourne production of Billy Budd, conducted by our own musical director. Here's a five-star review from the Independent, and another from Classical Iconoclast. Oh, and also a brief Guardian review of the Götterdämmerung CD.

Now for a million more links!

If you're one of those who didn't listen to me when I recommended that you sign up to Spotify when they were allowing unlimited free access and has regretted it since, you will be pleased to hear that they've recently launched a new free version for which you don't need an invite code. It's not quite as good as the unlimited version, but the only difference is that you're restricted to 20 hours' use a month. So if you just want to try it to see whether you think it's worth paying for, now's your chance.

Another thing I told you about ages ago is the vuvuzela - a word which I would imagine you will hear a lot of in the next month, because the World Cup finally starts a week on Friday. Bryan Robson is the latest one to tell us that these instruments will cause problems.

Various interesting posts from the ever-reliable Tom Service in the Guardian: about the singing in the Free Church of Scotland; the fact that the "Mozart effect" is a load of rubbish; an obituary for Yvonne Loriod (Messiaen's widow); a defence of opera (in response to Robert Thicknesse's attack on it); Simon Rattle rehabilitating Sibelius in Germany (I hadn't realised he wasn't popular there!); and some news about Claudio Abbado (and the fact that Rattle's recent Matthew Passion is now online).

Also from the Guardian: Grayson Perry talks about arts funding under the new government; David Arnold writes about the value of the Ivor Novello Awards; Caroline Sullivan discusses how wrong it is that some people are upset that Lily Allen won several of these awards; Helienne Lindvall writes more on a similar theme; and Keith Stuart has a very interesting article about the music in Red Dead Redemption ( a recently-released - and very successful - video game).

From Classical Iconoclast: news of a downloadable, intriguing-sounding Mahler 8 performance, and the Berlin Phil's forthcoming Mahler cycle.

From Intermezzo: some photos (and intriguing reports) from the recent Classical Brit awards ceremony, and some news about outdoor opera which may be useful to those who are fans of that sort of thing.

From the LA Times, news of what the stage crew has to do to enable the climax of Götterdämmerung.

From Neil Gaiman va BoingBoing, a great story: Stravinsky was once arrested because of his arrangement of the American national anthem. (According to Wikipedia, his main crime was including a MAJOR SEVENTH CHORD. This delights me a great deal.)

From BBC News: very sadly, a young opera singer who was due to sing at the World Cup opening ceremony died this week from meningitis.

From the Independent, news that, in Greece, trombonists can retire at 50 because their job is "arduous and unhealthy".

Another practice tip from Stephen Hough: take your foot off the pedal.

Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) would like to know more about the pleasures of being in a choir.

Manchester-related news now: firstly, I knew it was too good to be true... the planned revamp of Victoria Station has been cancelled.

The city council has bitten the bullet and agreed to have big screens in the city centre showing World Cup matches - something they've avoided since Rangers Day. (Which reminds me - Manchester Confidential again had an anniversary post about this, and I was particularly amused by them asking Pat Karney whether we could declare 14th May an official holiday in Manchester in remembrance. His reaction is priceless!)

There are currently spring markets in the city centre until next Sunday - go and have a look, they sound nice.

Oh, and Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd) is bringing The Wall to Manchester.

And if you, like me, are heartily sick of non-Mancunians going on about our supposedly perennial rain, show them the map in this article. (And try not to think about the fact that it says we'll have a drought up here within weeks.)

Finally, some random stuff: via BoingBoing, news that the original Foucault's Pendulum broke recently! I've never seen this, although I've wanted to for a long time. In fact, on the one occasion on which I had a whole day to spend in Paris, over twenty years ago, I dragged a group of year 11 schoolkids right across Paris to see it, only to find that the museum was closed on Mondays, and that was the only day we were there. Typical.

If you're not watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand on Bravo, you should.... if, that is, you like the sound of something that's "possibly the lustiest, goriest, most wilfully red-blooded drama series the law and human decency will allow". More details from Charlie Brooker in the Guardian. (Warning: although the photo on the linked page is fine, the text is probably NSFW.) It's on at 10pm on Tuesdays, and it started this week, but if you missed the first episode it's repeated tomorrow (Sunday) night at 11pm.

Martin Gardner was a hero of mine when I was younger - I had all his books, and probably still do somewhere - so I was quite saddened to learn that he died last weekend.

The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is to have a giant ship in a bottle - the Victory, in fact. I'd love to see that!

Did you watch the Lost finale? If you did, but aren't entirely sure what happened despite this, here's a simple explanation that even I can understand, along with an argument to put to all those people who think they all died in the first episode, and answers to a few other questions.

I'm sure you'll be hearing lots more from me about the World Cup in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, have a look at this Spanish World Cup calendar. I haven't entirely worked out how it works, but I think it looks fabulous!

I love these photos (from the ever-wonderful Big Picture) of Argentina's bicentennial. Particularly the crowd in front of the opera house, and the harp orchestra.

But my current favourite picture is this one from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, showing a starry night sky over Iguaçu Falls. These falls are second only to Cape Horn on my list of "places I'd most like to visit". But I don't think I've seen a photo of them at night before. Beautiful.

It's Whit Friday today!

2010-05-28T10:31:00.004+01:00

V concise because I'm writing this on my phone from the bus:

Today is Whit Friday. If you're in the north west and have never been to this event, please consider it! Explanation is here and details of this year's event are here. Proper post tomorrow, I promise!

Mahler 8 online!

2010-05-26T23:18:00.002+01:00

Proper blog post coming very soon (sorry for the delay, I've been busy!) but in case I don't finish it tonight, I just wanted to alert you to the fact that downloadable mp3s of the Mahler 8 broadcast (split into helpful parts rather than one file that's two and a quarter hours long) are now on my mp3 page. Thanks again to Mr Dr Liz for supplying the file to be split!

What's happened to the passion in my top part?

2010-05-10T03:35:00.003+01:00

I'm not sure where the time's gone in the past couple of weeks - I haven't done anything other than sing, but there hasn't been THAT much singing. What there was was great, though! Most recently, I had a rehearsal with my band at which there was NO-ONE MISSING, which is extremely rare (usually something always happens at the last minute that means someone has to cancel). I was absolutely delighted about this, because it meant that we could finally rehearse a couple of six-part arrangements which I wrote almost three years ago. (Before this week, we'd tried them ONCE, and that was over a year ago, and on that occasion we didn't have time to do more than read through them. That's how rare it is for everyone to attend!) I've been grinning about this ever since - it's the best thing that's happened in my life this year so far.

And yes, that's a year that's included Mahler 8! The concert was last Sunday, and it was very wonderful - as was the open rehearsal the previous day (for which the hall was almost sold out!), although I was disappointed that the Saturday audience didn't get to hear the end. I was hoping they might, because it seemed likely that the bits with offstage brass (i.e. the end of each half) would be rehearsed together, so that they wouldn't have to pay the brass for two sessions. But I was wrong about that.

I could rave about all the many wonderful things in the performance, but it's easier just to say "all of it" and show you some reviews. (I'm quite surprised that all the reviews aren't five stars, but there you go.)

Times
Independent
Telegraph
MEN
Guardian
Chris Swithinbank
AudioWorks (scroll down the page)

EDIT: Three more reviews in the Sunday papers, which I saw just after I finished this post:

Observer
Sunday Times
Independent on Sunday

Also, James Ridgway (a singer from the CBSO Chorus) has put some fabulous photos online. (Do click to get the full-size versions - it's well worth it.)

(By the way, I thought our orchestra's website was broken all weekend, till I realised they'd redone the page hierarchy and therefore broken all the links. If you have any pages from the site bookmarked, you will need to renavigate via the front page.)

Talking of reviews, the Berlin Philharmonic did a morning concert in Oxford last weekend, and the reviews are amazing. Tom Service explains the circumstances (I knew nothing about this - sounds like a lovely tradition); Classical Iconoclast has a detailed review, and the Guardian has a slightly less detailed one (but still gives it five stars). Tom Service has a review of his own: An earthquake in C major. (Isn't that a GREAT headline?) And you can see the concert at the Berlin Phil's website here, although it's not free.

Via Classical Iconoclast, a fascinating Times article about the role of agents in classical music, which includes a list of which stars are with which agents.

Intermezzo has been keeping up with Proms news, and reported on Tuesday (when booking opened, in case you didn't know) which Proms sold out on the first day.

Also from Intermezzo: dates for the BBC's forthcoming opera season.

And you remember I told you about Scottish Opera's operas for babies? Well, the Times has a report - their baby loved it.

Stephen Hough has two more practice tips: make full use of your metronome and don't feel as if you have to include emotion while practising.

Londonist reports that Eurostar has appointed Jarvis Cocker as their cultural ambassador. The really interesting part is news of the partnerships between Eurostar and various artistic institutions.

Blake Morrison writes about the amazing cost of quoting song lyrics when writing books.

The Guardian has a fascinating article about the actual songs that songbirds sing, and the changing nature of the dawn chorus.

From the Globe and Mail, yet another article about the relationship between singing and health, but this is a good one.

An intriguing article from the BBC News website about commissioning music for election night TV coverage.

I've seen quite a few reviews for a recent concert by Rolando Villazon - they're variable, but they all seem to agree that his voice has problems. The Times is probably the most scathing.

You know how Google likes to brighten our days with occasional special logos? Tom Service noticed that early on Friday they had a 10 Downing Street logo, but they replaced it with this lovely one for Tchaikovsky's birthday.

Hebden Bridge is celebrating the 500th birthday of its packhorse bridge. (They've even got a special font, which you can download from the site.) As part of this, they're trying to get 500 singers on the bridge on Sunday 4th July. Contact them if you want to be involved.

The Manchester Day celebrations (on 20th June) look as if they're going to be spectacular. Which is great, but I've yet to find anyone who previously knew that there was any such thing as Manchester Day... do you think they just INVENTED it?

Via Free Range Kids, it seems that a nursery in Wigan confiscated a cheese sandwich from a two-year-old on the grounds that it had neither lettuce nor tomato in it and therefore breached council guidelines. And the council BACKED THEM UP. *boggle* Even though my reaction to cheese sandwiches (with or without extras) will always be "eww, cheese!" this seems a bit excessive!

I know I probably bore people with why I avoid Facebook, but I want to be sure that you know about the implications of their most recent changes. Here's an article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about the Connections feature.

I'm intrigued by this: in Japan, blood type is an everyday topic of conversation and is believed to influence personality traits.

I'm sure you're all well aware of Snopes as a reference site for checking the validity of urban legends and forwarded email horror stories, but this is something it never occurred to me to check: the derivation of the word "posh". I was told when very young that it was from "port out, starboard home", and it's never occurred to me to question this... yet when I read the points made by Snopes, I realise that I actually knew most of them but hadn't connected them to the derivation of the word.

And finally... never mind "Komm!", my current favourite German word is Triple-Trottel-Fluch. It means something like "triple idiot curse", but in current German football terminology it refers to Bayern Munich, and means something along the lines of "they're up for a treble, but there's a good chance they won't actually win anything at all". But I don't really care what it means - I just love the words :-)

We have TWO orchestras, you know

2010-04-27T20:06:00.004+01:00

i really enjoyed Saturday - a lovely day out and a great rehearsal. There was almost a bit of trauma at the start, because as we boarded the train at Piccadilly, the conductor announced that Birmingham New Street was currently closed due to a power failure, and the train would be unable to call there. We were considering all sorts of alternative plans, but luckily they managed to get some emergency power from somewhere, and the station reopened just in time. It was very eerie, though - only the emergency lighting was on, so it was very dark (most of the station is below street level), and there was no other power AT ALL, other than to the train tracks etc. So none of the departure boards were on, and all the shops were shut, and there was general chaos. I'm a bit baffled about why the staff didn't at least put up a flipchart or something that had the platform number for each train, because unsurprisingly that's what the majority of queries seemed to be about! The chaos was still going on when we went back to the station after the rehearsal, but we avoided the enquiry queue by looking up the platform number on my phone :-)

Birmingham city centre is very lovely, and I'm always surprised to realise how well I know it (well, bits of it, at least). I was disappointed, though, to find that my favourite feature - the Floozie in the Jacuzzi - was switched off. [EDIT: Purely by chance, a much better photo of her - with water flowing - just appeared on the front page of the BBC News website!] Apparently it's only switched on for special occasions these days - very sad! It's always been flowing when I've seen it before. And then I found that another favourite, the Statue of Industry, was covered up by building works. (I hope it's still there underneath!) But we popped into Symphony Hall and were relieved to see that Norman Perryman's wonderful Mahler Experience painting was still where I remembered it. (If you go in through the front door, from Centenary Square, turn immediately left and double back on yourself - the painting is just round the corner from the front door.)

The rehearsal was great fun, and our boss was on fine form, making several passing comments that showed his support for Manchester. It was all in fun, though, and the "Brummie choir" (as he delighted us by referring to them) are very good. I'm delighted it's them that's boosting the numbers for Mahler 8 - they're by far the best of all the other choirs we've sung with.

Talking of boosting the numbers... In case you missed it, have a listen to today's edition of Front Row from Radio 4. It features our boss, plus a player from each of the orchestras, talking about the Mahler 8 collaboration. (The relevant bit starts at 06:12 and goes on till 15:31.) At one point, they're asked whether there WILL actually be 1000 performers, and the answer is "no": 120 in the orchestra and 350 singers. I feel a bit cheated!

I want to give you a list of orchestral "WOW!" moments to watch out for in Mahler 8, in case you've never performed it before - I'd hate for you to miss my favourite things. But let's get the latest batch of links out of the way first.

Mahler 7 was on Saturday, and (like the rest of the Mahler in Manchester series) the reviews are great: Guardian, Times, Telegraph, MEN, Classical Source.

There's a rather less good review of Rufus Wainwright in the Telegraph. I'm not a fan of his - at all - but I do agree with Tom Service when he says that we shouldn't knock him for having a go.

I've never heard of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble before, but after reading this review of their Band on the Wall gig, I really wish I'd been there. Doesn't it sound fun?

I mentioned this a while ago, but I saw it again on Saturday, and now Manchester Confidential has a feature on it: the exhibition of Manchester music venues on platform 12 of Piccadilly Station. If you have a few minutes while waiting for a train, go and have a look.

Alan McGee wonders, in the Guardian, why the Osmonds are never remembered as vocal harmony experts. It's a fair question - I saw them being interviewed on a programme a while back, and they demonstrated some close-harmony vocal exercises that they used to use as a warmup. I was VERY impressed - the tuning and blend was perfect, and it was not easy stuff.

Stephen Hough has some good advice about how to practise hard stuff: don't start at the beginning; don't feel that you have to practise the whole piece on any given day; and don't stop immediately if you make a mistake.

This isn't funny, really, but I have to admit it made me laugh quite a lot: foreign accent syndrome. "She just got fed up of people explaining to her how the buses worked" is my favourite bit :-)

I often get people sending me Facebook invites, but I still don't plan to accept any of them (nothing personal, I just don't like the way Facebook operates - I mean Facebook the company, not its users). However, if you DO use Facebook, you may find these articles useful - they suggest ways of reclaiming some of your privacy after the most recent changes (Facebook's attitude to privacy has always been my main objection to it). Tips are from Lifehacker and GigaOM.

The Big Picture has some breathtaking photos commemorating Earth Day.

Probably of no interest to anyone but football fans, but it amuses me: Liverpool's Dilemma. To explain for those who don't follow as avidly as me: Currently Chelsea are top of the Premier League, and Manchester United are second, one point behind them. There are only two games left, and no other team can catch up. If Chelsea win their last two games, nothing United can do will make any difference - Chelsea will win the league. However, on Sunday afternoon, Chelsea have to play Liverpool, in Liverpool. The dilemma? Liverpool do still have things to play for - they can't win the league, but they are in with a chance of finishing 4th, which is a big deal because it would mean they'd be in the Champions' League next season. But if they beat Chelsea, they've probably handed the league title to United (both of United's last two games are fairly easy, and they're expected to win both of them). This is something they REALLY don't want to do - not only are United their greatest rivals, so they'd hate it anyway, but this year it's an even bigger deal, because if United win the league, it will be the 19th time we've done so - and Liverpool have only ever won it 18 times. So it will mean that their right to brag that they're the most successful club ever (hah!) will be over.

Needless to say I've probably cursed everything by going on about it - I'm good at that! - and Chelsea will probably win 7-0 again, as they keep doing. But I heard on a podcast today that the Liverpool/Chelsea match is, unbelievably, not sold out, and the theory being put forward was that the Liverpool fans can't bear to watch :-)

Anyway, a few Mahler 8 non-choral highlights, to finish. I know some of you like to mark these in your scores. There are loads of highlights, of course, so these are just the ones I had the biggest rings round in my score after last time....

PART 1

One that happens quite a few times, but is always fabulous, is when the oboes, clarinets and horns (not always all at the same time) are instructed to hold the bells up their instruments high in the air (Schalltrichter auf!) The first time it happens is at figure 1, bar 3, just as choir 2 come in, but I'll point out a few others.

Figure 17: great horn & trombone chords

Figure 18: piccolo solo; 1st violins divided into four parts; bar 6 has horns Schalltrichter auf.

Figure 21: 1st violins play on the fingerboard (i.e. bow further away from bridge than usual) - makes the sound more ethereal

Figure 23: bar 2, horns are "stopped" - makes them more raucous

Figure 24: deep, loud bells

3 before figure 27: significant organ pedal note

4th of 27: low clarinets, trombones and cellos combine wonderfully

2 before figure 35: nothing particularly special, just a lovely couple of bars!

Figure 38: children's choir joins in for the first time (N.B. all the soloists sing this tune as well)

Figure 40: oboes and clarinets Schalltrichter auf

Figure 42: trombones going mad on the quavers! Bar 3: stopped ("gestopft") horns (and others) make an amazing sound accompanying "hostem".

Figure 43: all 8 horns (NOT stopped) play in unison, ff (they have this motif a few times in this section)

Figure 45: 8 horns again, but more noticeable as choir 2 aren't singing

Figure 51: a high trumpet plays in unison with the children's choir (and choir 1 sops), but the score sternly instructs that the trumpet must NOT obscure the boys

Figure 55: full organ, very prominent. Bars 4 and 5: trumpets "schmetternd" (blaring)

Figure 58: the longest dominant pedal in the world starts (we're in E flat major, so this means that the timps and basses play a very long B flat). It lasts for almost 40 bars. Interestingly, it does NOT resolve to the E flat at figure 64 as you might expect (because that's one of several recapitulations).

Figure 64: another recapitulation, as I just mentioned, and another Schalltrichter auf moment for the oboes and clarinets.

Figure 65, bar 3: good bit for horns

Figure 67, coinciding with choir 1: mega organ chord

Bar before 79: Schalltrichter auf for oboes/clarinets

Figure 84: ANOTHER recapitulation, and this time the orchestra stops playing for a short time (the organ is still there though)

Figure 91: offstage brass have their first big moment

PART 2

I love the bit from figure 3 to figure 5 - nothing fancy, just gorgeous music

Figure 12: horns "gestopft"

Figure 19: horns playing 8-part chords (previously they've always been doubled)

Bar before 20: yum.

Just after 20: 1st violins playing only on G string

3 before 21: horns gestopft AND Schalltrichter auf

29 to 30: all quiet and lovely.

Figure 89: tenor soloist is "suddenly prominent"; he's been singing for a while, but the score says "he should under no circumstances be conspicuous until now"

Figure 98: nice piccolo bit

Figure 106/107: this whole section is lovely. This is where the score says the Mater Gloriosa "appears in the sky" (which meant, last time we did it, the gallery, although she actually appeared a bit later) and the music is very ethereal to match this idea. It even includes a harmonium. (The Mater Gloriosa is the 3rd soprano soloist, and she's the only soloist who doesn't sing in part 1 - this is the first time she appears.)

2 before 112: harps ("as numerous as possible") instructed to play "thunderously"

3 before 122: good trombone chords below a low bit for the alto soloist

Figure 127: celesta, harps, woodwind, trills all over the place - nice effect

Figure 131: strings all playing "sul ponticello" (on the bridge)

Figure 148: mandolin solo!

Figure 159: children's choir goes into 2 parts

Figure 161: brass trills

Figure 171: gorgeous quiet section (celesta, percussion rolls etc.)

Figure 174: this is my favourite bar in the whole piece - pianissimo top B flat from the Mater Gloriosa.

Figure 186, bar 3: my score just says "trumpet WOW!" (there are trumpets in F as well as the usual B flat ones in Mahler 8 - trumpets in F are smaller and play much higher)

Figure 195 - 196: trumpet again

Figure 196: glockenspiel solo and timp roll

Figure 197: great harp/celesta bit

Figure 199: piccolo solo

Figure 210: trombones join tenors, and play the bits in between too

2 before 211: horns & trumpets join the trombones

Figure 218: as the singers sing their last note, the organ, gong and offstage brass come crashing in, marked fff. All the bass instruments start a long held E flat that continues until the end of the piece. Everything gets louder and louder.

Figure 220, bar 21: The end :-)

Like a big boy!

2010-04-23T17:35:00.003+01:00

(Instruction to the altos at figure 52 in part 1 of Mahler 8. I forgot to mention it last week but I was very amused to rediscover it this week!)

I had a really, really bad day yesterday. It was just one bad thing after another. I'd been looking forward to it for ages - we had a Pleiades rehearsal planned, arranged two months ago. One of the six singers cancelled a week ago, which was disappointing but not the end of the world, as we only have three songs that are in six parts - most of the rest are in five parts. But then another singer cancelled just as I was about to leave the house for the rehearsal, and that meant we had to cancel the rehearsal entirely (I find it's a huge waste of time to rehearse one-to-a-part things when one of the parts is missing).

After that, the day just got worse and worse. I had a cheque which needed to be paid into the bank yesterday, and I'd been planning to pop in on the way to the station, but by the time I'd contacted all the other singers to let them know the rehearsal was cancelled, the bank had shut. Since I was in a thoroughly bad mood by then anyway, I opened the post (it's NEVER anything good, so I only open it if I'm already fed up) to find: a bank statement, informing me that the next batch of bank charges (caused mainly by the DWP not paying me my benefit on time recently) will be £78. (Jobseeker's Allowance - my only current income - is £65.45 a week.) Also, a letter from Manchester City Council, informing me that they don't want me for a recent job I applied for - I was particularly hopeful about this job, because there were SEVEN POSITIONS available, and I thought I'd be perfect, but apparently not. Still, getting an actual rejection is a step up from no response at all - that's the first time in a year I've heard anything from an application.

I hoped I might be distracted by Twitter, but I had to turn it off because everyone was talking about the leaders' debate, and my interest in politics remains zero. Then I decided I'd better eat something, and realised, as I cooked fish fingers, that they were the last thing left in the house that had any protein in them (unless you count cat food...) and I don't know when I'll be able to get any more food. (I do still have a BIT of food in the house - a few days' worth - but nothing that would constitute a balanced diet.)

Never mind, I thought, I know what'll cheer me up - I'll watch High Noon! I'd recorded it a few days earlier and hadn't watched it yet. So I settled down to watch it... and discovered that it WASN'T THE 1952 VERSION. It was, in fact, a 2009 TV movie called High Noon. *boggle* (And no, it wasn't just me assuming it was the proper version - the Radio Times said it was (and even had it as a featured film of the day), and the Sky+ info button said it was the 1952 version. But it wasn't.)

The irony of it not being the proper version, after all the fuss I made about the SONG not being the proper version, is not lost on me. And today, when I'm in a slightly better mood, I'm actually quite amused by it. But last night I could have MURDERED ITV3. They didn't even apologise!

Anyway, today hasn't been too bad so far, and tomorrow will be exciting because we're all off to Birmingham to rehearse Mahler 8. Alison and I are going by train, because we like to have a chance to wander round places when we have a day out - and also it's much quicker, because the choir coaches never pick up anywhere near us. And we like travelling by train!

Actually, I have some info about our Mahler 8 gigs in Birmingham in September. I only found out a few weeks ago that the conductor will be Andris Nelsons, but I'd assumed that the rest of the personnel is the same. So I was very surprised to discover that the orchestra will be the CBSO rather than the combined might of Manchester's finest. Asking around, it seems that it wasn't just me who didn't know this! Anyway, the concerts are now on the Symphony Hall website, and tickets go on sale on either 3rd June or 7th June, depending on which page of their website is correct.

Talking of Mahler, you'll be aware by now that the rumours were correct and the 2010 Proms season does indeed start (on 16th July) with Mahler 8. The prom to watch out for, though, is on 6th August, a repeat of the programme they're playing in Manchester the day before. And there are of course comments all over the place about the Proms listings, notably from Intermezzo and Classical Iconoclast.

Oh, and this is interesting: Roger Wright's expenses as Proms boss. Includes £1,900 on hospitality "to thank members of the BBC Symphony Chorus for their dedication and hard work after a busy season". *boggle*

Two more cost-related things: Intermezzo brings us news that you now have to pay to audition for the LSO, and the Telegraph looks at the cost to orchestras of volcano-related travel disruption. (Although I must admit I'm getting very fed up of stories such as this one about Liverpool going to Madrid overland, which keep going on about what an uncomfortable journey it must be. As someone who went from Manchester to Valencia by train (which looks about the same distance to me), I want to shout at them "IT WASN'T UNCOMFORTABLE AT ALL!" And I wasn't even in first class. And they flew the last bit anyway! Wimps.)

More volcano photos from the Big Picture are up, by the way, and they're even better than last week's. And Manchester Confidential has some lovely photos of a clear blue vapour-trail-less Manchester sky, taken from the roof of the Shudehill Interchange car park, which it recommends as a great place for free views of the city.

The Guardian has a list of the top 50 arts-related Twitter feeds. Not sure I'd agree with all of these, but it's a good starting point if you're new to Twitter.

Have you seen this advert? Terry Venables singing If I Can Dream. Apparently he had singing lessons specially. What I want to know is whether the other various famous people in the choir were actually singing...

Oh, and while we're on the World Cup, the football fans among you may be interested in a free online World Cup Virtual Sticker Album. Let me know if you sign up - we could do swapsies :-)

Last mention of football for now.... in fact, you should watch this even if you're not a football fan. It's less than a minute long, and it's hilarious. This German goalie also happens to be his team's penalty taker, and in a match between Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke in 2004, he scored a penalty, and while he was celebrating.... well, watch.

This is quite the opposite - not funny at all, in fact one of the most awful stories I've ever heard. Local government officials in California separated an elderly gay couple and sold all their possessions.

The MEN has a feature about the lovely Professor Brian Cox.

It's St George's Day today, but the Guardian thinks we need a new national saint, and it has one in mind.

And, if you want to relax, here's a website that just plays the sound of rain.

Do not forsake me, oh my darling

2010-04-17T21:54:00.006+01:00

High Noon is on TV tomorrow (well, actually the early hours of Monday morning - 0045 on Monday 19th April, ITV3), and ever since I noticed this I've had the theme tune on the brain. It's always been one of my favourite songs, and I know it so well that I could write it out from memory - in fact, I just did (I was only going to write out the first line, in order to illustrate a point I'm about to make, but I got carried away!) I love the film as well, but not as much as I love the song.

However, it transpires that it's POSSIBLE I don't know the song as well as I thought I did, and this has been bugging me for days. I have the song in iTunes - I can't remember where I got it from - and when I listened to it, it was WRONG... i.e. not how I remember it. The version in my head starts like this:

but the recording I have starts like this:

If the print is too small, the main difference is that he puts gaps in the tune where I don't think there are any, and the intro has a different chord in it. There are other differences as well, later, but it's the fact that there are ANY differences that's a problem. Not to worry, I thought, I'm going to my mum's house tomorrow, and she has a Frankie Laine Greatest Hits CD. I'll just copy it from that.

But when we listened to mum's CD, we were both horrified to find that THAT was the wrong version too. (In fact, it seems likely that that's where I got it from in the first place, so I suppose it makes SOME sense.) My mum was able to sing the whole thing to me from memory, and her version matched the one in my head. And we wanted to hear Frankie Laine singing THAT version! Luckily at this point Mum remembered that she also had a Frankie Laine LP on vinyl. She found it, and after a bit of struggling, we got her record player working (it hadn't been used in years). Guess what - THAT was the wrong version as well! Argh!

I told mum at this point that I was sure I'd be able to find the PROPER version on YouTube. Well, I didn't - there were many versions, all of them wrong (they weren't even all wrong in the same way - some had EXTRA wrong bits!) - and at this point I found a new horrifying fact. It seems that, contrary to what I'd always thought, Frankie Laine didn't even sing the version that's actually in the film - it was Tex Ritter. Frankie Laine was just the one who had the most successful cover version!

Well, I didn't know WHAT to think. Maybe I am losing my mind. But I haven't given up yet. Here is where I'm up to in my quest to find a recording of the version in my head: I tried Spotify and iTunes when I got home, but all the versions on there are the wrong one. I searched through all my CDs and tapes to see if I had a recording (I knew I did, I just couldn't remember where). Finally I found it - on a 7" vinyl single. I am absolutely convinced that this is the correct version - as soon as I found it, I remembered playing it repeatedly - but I don't currently have any way to play vinyl! Argh!

Oh well. Eventually I will get a chance to play it (next time I go to my mum's house, if not before), and I'm hoping I will be vindicated. In the meantime, do watch the film. I'm hesitant to link you to one of the many wrong versions of the song, but if you want to hear one of them, here you are. And it goes without saying that if anyone has a recording which matches my first line (above), please send it!

Other than High Noon, this week I have been mostly singing Mahler 8. We had two rehearsals, and we got lots done - we've done every note of the piece at least twice this week, and many of them a lot more than that. Even better, we did a couple of nonstop runs of long sections, so that the people who didn't previously know the piece are hopefully starting to see how it all fits together. Actually my only complaint about either of the rehearsals is that at one point on Wednesday we rehearsed the bit on which the 2nd altos (well, all the ladies, but it's not quite as painful for the others) have a very long top G#. We can do this quite convincingly and confidently, but it HURTS. (It probably hurts the listeners even more, but I can't be the judge of that!) So it was NOT a good thing when we repeated those few bars SIX TIMES in fairly quick succession. I can't even remember what the issue was that necessitated the repetition, but I had a banging headache by the sixth time, and it lasted until early the next morning. Ouch. (I like to think that we did that note so confidently that no-one could tell it was hurting us - but it was, and it does, and it will!)

Next weekend we're off to Birmingham for the piano rehearsal, which will be fun - not just because it's a day out, but because it'll be the first chance to hear all the choirs together. Exciting! And the weekend after is the concert. I heard that the open rehearsal on 1st May, which has not (as far as I'm aware) been advertised publicly at all, is almost sold out, which is impressive... if you know anyone who's planning to turn up to that on the day, I'd recommend to them that they get a ticket!

Our Mahler 2 gig was of course on Radio 3 this week, and it's still on iPlayer until Monday night. But you can download it to keep as separate tracks from my mp3 page, and I'll leave it there for the foreseeable future. I'm glad to see that quite a few people have already downloaded it. I really enjoyed listening to it - I think I will delete my commercially-produced recording from iTunes, our live version is better! And I was surprised how much I enjoyed Crossing the Alps, too. It sounds really good. (Oh, and these commenters on the Radio 3 message board thought so too. Thanks to Graham and Martin for pointing that out to me.)

Classical Iconoclast has a nice post about the Mahler in Manchester series as a whole.

Talking of Radio 3, you'll remember that they recently announced that they'd be introducing a weekly chart; well, it's now up and running, and if you want to keep an eye on what's on it, here's a page for you to bookmark.

Hands up who else is amused that the last night of our proms isn't the last night, even though they're calling it that?

Tom Service talked to the "cultural gurus" of the three main UK political parties and got commitments from them regarding what music projects they will support if they win the election.

Also from the Guardian, news that ENO has invited some famous film directors to direct some of their operas next season. More details here - Terry Gilliam is doing Faust! Mindboggling.

Chris Rowbury wants to know whether you'd rather be over-rehearsed or under-prepared. I can't quite decide which way to lean, so I haven't commented on his post yet, but I think I'll probably end up agreeing with Chris that under-prepared is often better... but it depends so very much on the particular group of singers involved. Not every group is good enough to get away with being under-prepared, but if you have a group that IS good enough, it can be quite exciting, I think.

Via Intermezzo, here's a parrot singing the Queen of the Night aria. Well, bits of it. Who thinks this is real? I can't decide.

Manchester Central Library is in the process of moving all its books into underground salt mines. We knew this was going to happen, but it still seems very weird now that it actually is!

Manchester Cathedral is starting a new venture: gala dinners in the nave.

I was going to tell you about a free talk by Brian Cox at the university this Thursday, but the tickets were snapped up before I got the chance. However, he says there'll be another one in June - follow him on Twitter if you want to be sure to find out about it in time.

I'm fascinated by the whole volcanic ash thing. The Big Picture has some fabulous photos of the culprit, and it seems that people in Knutsford think the whole thing is great.

Currently, from sunset until about 9.30 pm every night, you can see Venus and Mercury low in the western sky, quite close together. Venus is on the left and much brighter than Mercury. If you're not sure what to look for, here's a photo of them taken from Paris a few days ago. Venus is very frequently visible, but it's rare to be able to see Mercury, so do try. (Venus actually doesn't set till about 10.30 pm, because it's a bit higher up than Mercury. You can also see both Mars and Saturn all night, but they're nowhere near as bright as Venus. And if you're up early, you may be able to see Jupiter very low (and VERY bright) in the east from about 5.15 am, but the sun rises not long after that so the sky may be too light.)

I can't quite believe this: a hotel in Bolton sent a fairly new employee out to prune a tree. He leaned the ladder against a branch, sawed that branch off the tree while on the ladder, fell and hurt himself, and SUED THE HOTEL. And, while I don't think he's actually won yet, the hotel has been fined! Unbelievable.

This really amused me: an alternative pain scale.

And finally - what a wonderful day for football today has been! United beat City. Rochdale got promoted. Leeds lost. Chelsea lost, AND John Terry got sent off. All wonderful things. But my favourite thing is this photo of Gary Neville kissing Paul Scholes. Aren't they lovely?

Mahler 2 broadcast mp3s

2010-04-15T06:50:00.002+01:00

Proper post to follow, but I just wanted to pop by and tell you that there are now helpful, downloadable mp3s of Monday's Radio 3 broadcast on my mp3 page. Thanks to Mr Dr Liz for supplying the mega-huge two-and-a-quarter-hour file from which I created the separate tracks.

I see you shiver with antici.............................pation

2010-04-10T22:42:00.003+01:00

I listened to Mahler 8 all the way through yesterday, while on a six-bus journey. I was pleased to find how much of it I know from memory - always useful. Needless to say I got annoyed all over again about choir 1 getting all the good bits, but mainly I was very excited about the whole thing - I'd totally forgotten some of the amazing orchestral bits (e.g. what the brass are doing in the "hostem repellas" section - that's all about driving away the enemy, but I can't decide whether the brass are the enemy and we're trying to drive them away, or the enemy is elsewhere and the brass are helping us! No doubt it will become clear...)

I had an idea last night involving Mahler 8 Bingo. This idea amused me a lot, and I may have to put it into action, if only because I love the thought of someone trying to concentrate in a rehearsal while itching to jump up and shout "HOUSE!" Leave it with me :-)

Other than this, I haven't done anything music-related since my last post. We didn't rehearse this week, although we have two rehearsals next week to make up for this. I've spent most of the time distracting myself from being broke - I'm very good at that! (Just as well - it's been worse than usual recently due to the DWP not paying me, because they're currently my only source of income. So food has been a major issue. They've paid me now, but it's not been the most pleasant of weeks.)

Anyway, I have a load of links, so I thought I'd post them even though there was nothing else to say.

Via Intermezzo, a fascinating interview with Sir Colin Davis.

You probably heard about last week's disruption of a string quartet concert at the Wigmore Hall. The Jerusalem Quartet (whose concert it was) have something to say on the matter, as does Norman Lebrecht, with a lovely Telegraph article about how the concert hall is a sanctuary.

Talking of concert halls, have you seen the one they're building in Hamburg? It has OCEAN WAVES on its roof!

Tom Service writes sympathetically about Leonard Slatkin's recent much-publicised withdrawal from La Traviata at the New York Met.

Again, you'll have seen this, but since it's not often that a choir-related story makes the front page of the BBC News website, I figured it was worth repeating: the guy who's sung with the same choir for SEVENTY YEARS.

Our own orchestra is giving free tickets to people in deprived areas of Manchester - although, as one of the commenters points out, not the MOST deprived areas... I wonder why?

I hadn't realised there was a danger of this year's Whit Friday brass band contests not going ahead until 4 Bars Rest told me that Oldham Council has saved the day. (The contests this year are on 28th May - put it in your diary and keep the evening free, if you've never been before!)

Also from 4 Bars Rest, news that the Fairey Brass Band (one of the best in the world) will be performing after the Mahler 7 concert on 24th April. So if you're going to that concert, don't leave without hearing them.

This is fun: a music video set in an empty school, in which the composer (a 17-year-old boy) plays everything himself, using various things as instruments (e.g. piano, marimba, locker door).

Chris Rowbury writes about the process of learning songs by ear. Of course we can't usually do this in our choir due to the short time we have in which to learn complex stuff, but most of the points he makes are still valid for a choir that DOES use sheet music. (I'd love to be able to tell him he's wrong when he says that singers who have the music in front of them never look at the conductor, but sadly he's not ENTIRELY wrong! I think our choir probably has more counter-examples than most, though.)

I mentioned recently that I wasn't particularly impressed with The Sixteen, so I was only SLIGHTLY surprised to find that the Guardian only awarded them one star for a recent concert of theirs. The Telegraph hated it too.

This is very clever: via Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog, Wii-controlled percussion.

This year's Proms lineup is announced on 22nd April. Tom Service describes what he hopes will be in it, while Intermezzo has a lot more info, including quite a few rumours. Looks as if the opening concert might be Mahler 8 - but sadly not our version!

On An Overgrown Path has an intriguing post about why Latvia produces more than its fair share of outstanding musicians.

If you know anyone who attended the Oscars for Orchestra concert in Manchester a couple of weeks ago, see if their photo is on the Red Carpet page.

Tom Service brings news that Radio 3 is introducing classical chart hits to its programming. Rupert Christiansen, in the Telegraph, writes about why this is a very bad idea.

Here's a nice story from A Cappella News: a choir that was formed to help unemployed people in Leipzig. It mentions one guy who was on his way to jump under a train (literally) and changed his mind as a result of seeing a choir recruitment poster. *boggle*

Seth Godin's blog often has potentially life-changing insights, but I particularly like this one: how to be one in a million.

I absolutely hate politics and ignore it wherever possible (it bores me rigid), so it's entirely possible that everyone apart from me already knew this, but just in case it's news to you too: from BBC News, who actually runs the country while all the MPs are off campaigning? I hadn't realised that they actually stopped being MPs shortly after an election is called - I assumed they continued until the day of the election, and then either continued or left afterwards. The actual process, now that I know what it is, makes a lot more sense when I think about it!

Anyone who uses Twitter, however much they hate politics, will probably have seen all the stuff about the Digital Economy Bill. Until this hit the news, I didn't know there was a Minister for Digital Britain. Now that I *do* know that, I'm unimpressed to find that he doesn't even know the meaning of basic terms such as "IP address". (Even my Silver Surfers, who have only been using computers for a few weeks, know that it stands for "Internet Protocol".)

Manchester Confidential raves about the new Legoland Discovery Centre at the Trafford Centre. Sounds like fun!

From the category of "random trivia that will blow your mind", here's a fascinating fact about pie :-)

They can only do it once a night

2010-04-01T21:04:00.002+01:00

There was a lot of giggling at last night's rehearsal, most of it during the attempt to get the men to sing "Komm" with a suitably seductive initial consonant. I have to admit that the idea of a long k is new to me, but that certainly seemed to be what our German coach was asking for a few weeks ago, so I will continue to try. I don't think I've managed it yet - I think the sound I'm coming out with is more of a gurgle - but there's still time to improve!

There's definitely room for improvement when it comes to the spatial awareness of the 1st altos. For Mahler 8 we're sitting in a formation which we've never used before (as far as I can recall) - the men are on the conductor's left (basses on the end and then tenors), followed by altos in the middle (2nds next to the tenors, then 1sts next to the sops) and sops on the right (2nds next to the altos and 1sts on the end). (The reason for this formation is that we're one of two choirs, and the other choir will mirror our formation so that all the men from both choirs will be together in the middle.) When I arrived last night, there were no 2nd altos there yet, but quite a few 1sts... and they were all sitting to the LEFT of the halfway point (as viewed from the conductor's position). They had obviously decided that the sopranos needed more chairs than all the rest of the choir combined. (There aren't THAT many sopranos - in fact, for quite some time now, 1st alto has been the most numerous section!) And as if that wasn't bad enough, they had only left ONE seat on the front row for the 2nd altos. (We've been insisting, this year, that we always have a wedge of 2nd altos, with several on the front row. Until we put our collective foot down, the 1st altos usually took up the whole front row of the alto section, leaving all the 2nds to sit at the back. And it's not that we object to sitting at the back in general - it's just that there are three times as many 1sts as 2nds (sometimes four times as many) and we just can't be heard unless there are at least some of us at the front.)

I'm amused, by the way, that two different conductors have recently realised - only after months of working with us - that there are far more 1st altos than 2nds, and when they've said "do we need to do something about this?" we all reacted with a resounding "NO!" I found it quite telling that they didn't notice from listening to us - it was only when they asked for a show of hands that the discrepancy in numbers was obvious :-)

I *am* jealous of the 1st altos for one thing, though, and I only noticed it last night. They have the best note in the whole of Mahler 8! Right at the end (figure 217) all the singers are on a fortissimo chord - with a crescendo - very high in the voice. In the third bar of figure 217, the chord continues, louder than ever... but one part MOVES. Admittedly the two alto soloists are singing in unison with the 1st altos, so they move too... but no-one else does. That's such a good - and IMPORTANT - note that if it were up to me, I would suggest that all the 2nd altos sing 1st, just for those three bars - the B flat in the 2nd alto part is well-covered by the basses and 2nd tenors, and the altos are likely to be drowned by everyone else (look at what STB and all the soloists are doing!) unless they use all the power they have available. (And yes, if you're being picky, the 1st basses and 2nd tenors do change notes when they go into the third bar of 217 - but they only change to a note which was already in the previous chord. It's the note that the 1st altos sing that makes it a whole different chord.)

I'd get the 2nd altos to switch back to their own part for the last two notes, though, because NO-ONE else has a B flat in the last chord. Although, once you realise what the orchestra - with full organ - is doing at that point, you'll see that it will make very little difference what note the 2nd altos are singing :-)

I had an interesting journey home after the rehearsal - it took almost three hours. (I live 17 miles from the rehearsal venue.) Usually I get a lift with Alison, who lives very near where I do, but she's on holiday this week, so I was on public transport. I really don't mind using public transport, because it gives me the chance to read and/or listen to podcasts etc. - it does take a bit longer at times, but I do have time to spare at the moment! Last night, the bus back into town was bang on time, so there was no problem there - as usual, a couple of choir members stopped to offer me a lift into town, but I always say no, because my train isn't till 2228, so if I got a lift I'd have to sit on a cold bench at Victoria Station for almost an hour, whereas if I get the bus I still get there with half an hour to spare, but I have a warm bus seat until then.

Last night, there was a platform change for the 2228, so I wandered across to platform 3. The train turned up at about quarter past, and I went to get on at the rearmost door as usual (because that's where the exit is when I get off). As I got on, the driver and guard got off (at the same door), deep in conversation. I sat down and got re-engrossed in my book. A while later, the train started to move... in the wrong direction. This was a little offputting, and it was only at this point that I realised that the carriage was totally empty apart from me, which is unheard of for any of the trains on my line. I realised that the train must have split, and the other carriages formed the 2228 to Leeds, whereas the carriage I was in was heading to the depot. Great. You'd think that the guard and driver (who saw me get on) might have mentioned that, wouldn't you? Or that the new driver would check there was no-one on his train before he drove it to the depot? *sigh*

Anyway, the depot turned out to be only a few minutes away, and the driver emerged from his carriage and looked at me in bemusement. He asked how I'd got on the train, and didn't seem to believe me when I said I'd entered through the door.... I asked how I could get back to Victoria, and he said that the only way was for him to reverse the train to there. And, after a brief phone call to his controller, that's what he did. Needless to say, the 2228 had gone by then, so I had to sit on a cold bench for ages ANYWAY, because the next (and last) train wasn't till 2320. By the time I got home I was frozen, but oddly cheerful - I never mind having a prolonged amount of time in which to read, and there is no-one who cares what time I get home (or even whether I do). (This depresses me if I let myself think about it, so I distract myself by reading!)

So, some links to entertain you after I've sent you all to sleep with my train trauma! The Mahler in Manchester series can still do no wrong - it was Mahler 6 the other night, with the BBC Phil, and the reviews are great: Telegraph, MEN, Times, FT, and Guardian. Oh, and the Radio 3 broadcasts start on Monday and continue weekly: Mahler 1 (BBC Phil) is on 5th April at 7pm, which suggests that our Mahler 2 will be on 12th, and Mahler 8 on 24th May. But you know what the BBC are like for interrupting series!

It turns out the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain were at the Lowry on Sunday. I would have loved to have seen them - they were great at the Proms, and this concert sounds as if it was great fun.

I love this story (on Stephen Hough's blog) of Steven Isserlis trying to get to a concert on time. Hilarious!

Intermezzo brings news that reading about music before listening to it is not always a good thing.

The Guardian has a long, detailed, interesting article about Renee Fleming singing non-classical stuff. You can even listen to the whole album there for free.

Yet more on the thorny question of when applause is appropriate, this time from Ivan Hewett in the Telegraph.

Great post from The Chorister called Am I a bad singer? I would add one thing - if you don't identify with anything in her post, I'm willing to bet you're not as good a singer as you think you are :-)

The all-conquering Gareth Malone has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London. Wouldn't it be great (and VERY convenient) if he felt like moving to Manchester? I think someone should ask him. (Seriously.)

The Guardian's music blog discusses the enduring legacy of Kate Bush.

I've mentioned Shazam a few times - here's an article from Mashable that compares Shazam to other methods of identifying the song in your head.

Chris Rowbury wants to discuss why men won't sing.

Mark Burstow (of the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir) has an interesting post about the difficulties of singing in English.

The Radio 3 blog has the first in a series of posts about life in the BBC Symphony Chorus.

And finally, the teachers among you will like this: a poem by Taylor Mali called What Teachers Make. Very true.

Polly put the kettle on

2010-03-26T05:05:00.002Z

There's a bit in the Mahler 8 alto part that I've had on the brain for the past few hours. I think of it as "the Polly Put The Kettle On bit", and I don't think I've ever sung it correctly before tonight, but I practised it on the bus on the way to choir (in my head, in case you're wondering!) and I can do it now. It's just two bars, of which the first is "Polly put the kettle on", and the second is a kind of warped version of "Polly put the kettle on" in which Mahler deliberately changed every note just slightly, but in such a way as to make the resulting bar as difficult as possible. Evil man.

The only other thing I have to report this week (it's not been the most exciting of weeks!) is that I gave a one-off singing lesson to a soprano a few days ago. She was very late, and just when I was amusing myself thinking "typical soprano, they're ALWAYS late", she called to say she was lost. I nearly got the giggles at that point, because I couldn't help thinking that if she'd been flat as well, she'd have embodied all the main soprano characteristics in one go! (Sorry, sops, I couldn't resist that! I love you really!)

By way of a change, I'm going to start my links with a few videos. The first one was mentioned by Graham in the comments last week: a large barbershop chorus singing Seventy-Six Trombones. Do watch the whole thing - it's absolutely wonderful, especially the end.

Here's another one that will make you smile - several people have emailed this to me: Elderly Couple Plays Piano Duet.

The Bridgewater Hall website has a set of three fascinating chats between the two Manchester music directors, who discuss the whole Mahler series in detail. I discovered all sorts of interesting things from these videos.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir has completed its second project, and if you were impressed by their version of "Sleep", you'll be blown away by Lux Aurumque. This is my favourite of his works anyway, but the quality of this performance is unbelievably high given how they did it. (Read Eric's description of the process - it's a lot more complicated (and musical!) than what they did for "Sleep".) Also, we get to see Eric himself in this one, and I think he's quite pretty :-)

That's all the videos. What else? Well, I'm sorry I couldn't witness this, but a trombonist was planning to play a duet with a RIVER the other day. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else - I'm hoping to find a recording eventually though!

Guy Garvey (from Elbow) writes in the Guardian about how albums are still important in these days of single-track downloads.

Oliver Condy, in the BBC Music Magazine, wonders whether London needs quite as many orchestras as it currently has.

Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) analyses the factors that make live performance different from rehearsal.

As with many things, I found this while I was looking for something else: something called the Complete Vocal Institute, which describes the four vocal modes. I'm mainly fascinated by this because I thought I knew quite a bit about singing, but most of the information on this page is completely alien to me, and I don't know how much of it to believe! I plan to ask Maggie to explain it to me :-)

Sad but true: an American high school banned an INSTRUMENTAL version of "Ave Maria" from a graduation ceremony, because it's too religious. *boggle*

Via Intermezzo, the chief exec of the London Phil tells the Times how it was possible for his orchestra to be defrauded of millions of pounds.

Also from Intermezzo: Aretha Franklin is singing opera. And from the same source: news of a Chorus Festival on the South Bank at the start of May. Some interesting ideas there - I'll be interested to find out what reception they get!

I'm a huge fan of Shazam, which is great for identifying music on the radio or during TV programmes. That only works with recorded music, though, and it's much less reliable for classical music, because the main information it uses is the beat, and there isn't always a clear and/or regular beat in classical stuff. However, the other day I heard about SoundHound, which allegedly works even if you sing or hum stuff into the phone. I haven't tried it, though, because it's not free - can anyone with an iPhone who HAS tried it let me know whether or not it actually works as well as Shazam?

I was in the Central Library today, wandering round trying to memorise everything about it (most of it closes next week). I love that place so much - I'll be very sad if it loses its character during the renovations. The Manchizzle agrees with me, but I'm mainly mentioning their post because it has a photo of the Social Sciences room - my favourite bit of the library. And I'm ashamed to say that today is the first time I'd ever really paid attention to the details of that room, and noticed that there is a quotation round the edge of the ceiling. I looked it up and found that it's from the Book of Proverbs: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee." I really hope that's still there when the library reopens! But in the meantime, the library has set up a Flickr page for people to put up photos of the library. I haven't looked through them all yet, but if they're all as good as the ones on the first page, I will be delighted. And I'm even more delighted that I realised (if somewhat belatedly) why they're calling this project "Get Wisdom" :-)

What will you be doing at 8.30pm this Saturday? Can you do it in the dark? If you can, you should, because it's Earth Hour.

I've seen a few people raving about this recently: FutureMe gives you the chance to send an email to your future self. I might try it if I can think of anything inspiring to say, but my mind's a bit blank at the moment!

Merlin Mann pleads with everyone to take computer backups seriously. The details in that article might be a bit too technical for some people, but the message is important enough that I wanted to mention it: if you've never backed up the important (i.e. irreplaceable) data on your computer, YOU SHOULD! And if you HAVE done it, but not for ages, go and do it again RIGHT NOW. Always assume that your computer could die at any time, and if (when!) it does, you will have lost all the work you've done (and photos you've taken, etc.) since the last time you backed up. If that's not a problem for you, you don't need to bother with backups. Otherwise... you really, really do.

A friend pointed this out to me today: the London Review of Books personal ads. There is no way I can describe them effectively - just go and look!

And finally, if you're a bit of a drama queen (or king), you may find this button useful....

Barbershop seventh

2010-03-17T23:59:00.003Z

I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I spend so much time doing what can only be described as "faffing online". However, I justify it by the fact that I learn so many new things as a result! Most excitingly, this week I discovered a NEW CHORD, plus several other related interesting facts. Well, it's not really a new chord - it's just a standard seventh chord - but I didn't know that it was known as a barbershop seventh. I also didn't know that there are strict rules for barbershop arranging, including the fact that barbershop seventh chords should comprise at least a third of the duration of the music... and the 2nd tenor part should have the tune all the way through. (I'd noticed that barbershop arrangements always do seem to have the tune in the 2nd tenor, and contain lots of seventh chords, but I never knew these were RULES!)

I've done lots of singing in the last week, and there's lots more to come. We're off to Mold on Saturday to repeat our a cappella concert, but tonight it was all Mahler 8. We had our German coach with us (the lovely Norbert), which was great, but we're all getting a bit fed up with the bittiness of the music. We'll love it when we can sing through a whole movement, but the fact that none of us are singing any of the choir 1 bits makes it difficult to do that at the moment. Oh well.

I also performed twice last Thursday. The funeral went fine - and our songs were listed in the Order of Service, so there was no shock from the congregation! I was a bit worried that the crematorium staff might make a mess of playing our backing CD (the right track at the right time, and both at the right volume) but they did fine. Then, in the evening, I went to help out the boys' choir at Sue's school, which involved Ave Verum Corpus (which I've sung a million times) and Haydn's Insanae et Vanae Curae, which I'd never heard of. Always fun to discover a new piece!

I was sorry to hear that Craig Wild, a fabulous trumpeter (originally from Rochdale) who I used to teach, had all of his trumpets and equipment stolen from Leamington Spa on Sunday. (Thanks to the BBC Phil Twitter feed for this info.) If anyone who's reading this hears anything, please contact Craig.

I wrote a guest blog post for Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir - my post was about what makes a good choral arrangement. Needless to say I was just as successful at driving away any commenters there as I am here! But do go and read it anyway. (Chris's most recent post (NOT written by me) is about why he believes it's a good thing for choirs to change their conductors every so often.)

Talking of choral directors, here's another thing I found while faffing: some great programme notes for The Dream of Gerontius, written by our own ex-choral director.

This Saturday is Dynamic Range Day - an online protest about CDs being too loud. I can't see it making much difference, sadly. Maybe we can do our bit by exaggerating the dynamics in our Mold gig :-)

I'm rather pleased to discover that this blog is now the top Google search result for "2nd altos". It's been ages since I looked to see what searches are bringing people here, but I did yesterday. One of them was "how good are choir seats at bridgewater hall"... so in case the answer wasn't obvious, I will say: great to sing from, but not quite so good to sit and listen from, because the seats aren't as deep (i.e. they're not as long from front to back) as the seats in the rest of the hall. I've always assumed this is to keep the choir awake...

The Bridgewater Hall, by the way, now has an archive of selected reviews: here's the page for the Mahler in Manchester series, and there's also one for some of the concerts from the 08/09 season.

Here's an interesting Guardian article about how someone became a Radio 3 listener.

Also in the Guardian, Tom Service is enthusiastic about the British Library sound archive.

I love this post by Stephen Hough, which explains why we remember music as more than just a tune.

Via Intermezzo and the Times: Scottish Opera is putting on an opera especially for babies.

I've been enjoying Sacred Music on BBC4, but I was a bit disappointed with the actual singing in the first episode - The Sixteen sounded a bit out of tune to me in several places. So I was a bit surprised to read this glowing review of a recent concert of theirs, which says that the choir were better than the soloists!

(Also, if you haven't been watching A Band For Britain, I recommend you do. There's only one episode left, but you can see the earlier ones on iPlayer.)

There's an exhibition at the Barbican featuring birds playing musical instruments. Tom Service has more to say about this, and tells us about some even better nature/music collaborations.

If you like pop songs but are a bit out of touch, the Telegraph has a helpful list (with YouTube links) of what it thinks are the top hundred songs of the last decade.

Via The Register: a bass (guitar) player was asked to leave a train near Portsmouth, because... well, you won't believe me if I tell you - read the story!

Hands up who knew that Manchester Cathedral is now hiring itself out as a non-classical gig venue? No, me neither.

It seems that Manchester City's stadium will be a glowing blue beacon from next season. I actually really like the way it looks at night already, although I'm still distraught that the B of the Bang was removed.

Talking of football and being distraught, I'm quite unreasonably upset about David Beckham's injury. I've been unable to stop thinking about it all week. If you haven't seen the moment when his world fell apart, here's a very sad (and very short) video. (DId you know that the Poet Laureate has now written a poem about this tragedy? More about this from the Guardian.)

The football fans among you will be amused by Dara O Briain's revelation of Fabio Capello's top-secret plan for the World Cup.

And here are some great photos (from the Big Picture) of the 2010 Winter Paralympics. What a pity none of these events were on TV!

If you ever deliver training sessions or presentations, you might like this: from Stepcase Lifehack, an exercise about changing your focus.

If you're having a bad day, there's always someone worse off: FMyLife may make you smile!

And if that doesn't, surely this will: from I Can Has Cheezburger, Kitteh Choir Director :-)

Take her wrap, fellas; find her an empty lap, fellas

2010-03-11T00:19:00.004Z

Alison and I are singing at a funeral tomorrow morning (a relative of a friend of hers). We are doing two songs: I Passed By Your Window (which I'd never previously heard of) and, would you believe, Hello Dolly. I've created duet versions and backing tracks for both of them (it's in a crematorium, so there's no piano or organ, so the backing has to be on CD). I'm just hoping that it will be widely known that these two songs are what the family has requested - I've never sung to an audience that's gazing at me in horror, but I imagine it's rather offputting!

I thoroughly enjoyed the concert we did at St Patrick's Church on Saturday. And what a pity we're not doing "We'll Gather Lilacs" or "The Bare Necessities" at the second a cappella concert - I suspect it will be a similar type of audience, and the audience on Saturday LOVED those two songs. I suppose I can understand why they've been dropped, though. I'm a bit more baffled at the fact that Bruckner's Ave Maria has also gone, despite the fact that it sounds fabulous in a church acoustic... yet "The Lamb" (which I have grown to detest over the years) is still in! *boggle*

Actually, there were three things that will particularly stay in my mind from Saturday: the sight of half the audience mouthing the words to "We'll Gather Lilacs"; the lady on the balcony who was dancing during "The Bare Necessities"; and the audience member who told me afterwards that I was a "model chorister" during "The Bare Necessities" \o/ I'm very smug about that!

Now, I'm not entirely sure how I've managed to accumulate 100000000 relevant links in the last week, but I have (well, almost that many!) so I'd better get on with sharing them. (In case you're a recent arrival here, I should explain that the links I share are of three types, and I tend to list them in this order: (a) music-related stories that interested me; (b) Manchester-related stories that interested me; (c) stories that interested me but that aren't related to music OR Manchester, but I thought you might not have seen them mentioned anywhere else.)

The Mahler in Manchester series has reached its halfway point: Mahler 5 was last Thursday, and the reviews are good, although a bit inconsistent: five stars from the Guardian, four from the Times, only three from the Telegraph. EDIT: And, belatedly, four from the Independent. But four stars from the MEN, and The Classical Source don't rate performances, but they seemed to like it!

Talking of reviews, I learned from this one that the William Byrd Singers have a new conductor that people in my choir know well.

Oliver Condy writes about early morning practice.

Via ChoralNet, news of a choir that only performs new works, and restricts this even further to Connecticut composers!

VHK's Singing has some interesting points to make about the increasing tendency for anthems in cathedral services to be thought of as separate from the liturgy rather than part of it.

I found this site while I was searching for the sheet music and/or lyrics of "I Passed By Your Window": My Mother's Sheet Music. (I didn't find either - at least, not free - so I ended up writing them out myself anyway!)

Philip Langridge died the other day, and this inspired the Guardian to write an editorial about English tenors.

A fascinating post from Allen H Simon on ChoralNet about a concert he's doing this weekend featuring misattributed works. What I found most intriguing was his description of how the singers treated the music differently when they knew it wasn't really by Bach etc!

BBC 6 Music has been arguing about who the best (non-classical) guitarists are. They have a poll in which you can vote.

Nigel Kennedy is running a Polish festival on the South Bank at the end of May. (I hadn't realised he lives in Poland these days.) The most intriguing event (to me) is a screening of the 1973 England v Poland football match, accompanied by Kennedy and Polish jazz musicians, playing a semi-improvised score.

Great short piece from the Guardian about bands who sing in minority languages.

Lots of discussion this week about a lecture given by Alec Ross to the Royal Philharmonic Society on Monday night. The subject: whether or not it's OK to applaud in non-traditional places. Tom Service and Intermezzo and Classical Iconoclast like what he said. The Times asked several influential people to comment before the lecture took place, but the exact subject matter turned out to be more specific than they'd imagined.

I enjoyed the first episode of the new BBC series A Band for Britain, in which Sue Perkins tries to help Dinnington Colliery Brass Band get new players. If you missed it, you can see it on iPlayer via that link.

Chris Rowbury wonders what rehearsals are for, exactly.

A fascinating article in the Spectator which explores the job of orchestra leader, specifically in an opera orchestra.

Tom Service reminds us that Elgar will soon vanish from our £20 notes.

Some news that involves both music AND Manchester: I've been warning you for a while that Manchester Central Library (including the Henry Watson Music Library) will close soon while the whole building is renovated over the course of three years. Well, I was in there the other day - the first time since the new year - and bits of it have already closed. The Henry Watson is still open, but only for the next three weeks - it closes at 8pm on 1st April. So, if there's some music you desperately need from there, get it ASAP! Full details (including specific dates and FAQ) about the Central Library closure are here, and specific information for users of the Henry Watson are here. (And if you're one of the surprising number of people who have never been inside the Central Library, do go and visit before the end of March, because it won't be there - at least in its current form - after that. The Social Sciences library (on the first floor) is one of my favourite rooms in any building anywhere, and I'm praying they don't change the basic structure of it. If you've never seen it, I beg you to.)

Here's a great feature about female Mancunian role models. One of them sigs in our choir :-)

Manchester Confidential tells us that the Beetham Tower is still whistling, even though it was supposed to be fixed recently. I've still never heard it!

Mancubist tells us that there is currently an exhibition about Manchester's past and present music venues - on platform 12 at Piccadilly Station. I hadn't realised that was an exhibition space, but there you go!

I'm sure you'll have read that the Lowry wants 1000 volunteers to be photographed naked. Sadly the dates involved are 1st and 2nd May, which is our Mahler 8 weekend. Otherwise I have no doubt our whole choir would be there :p

More Metrolink chaos this summer, this time on the Bury line.

Doctor Who is travelling round the UK on a tourbus! He'll be in Salford on 31st March, and there'll be a big-screen event in Manchester after that. I'm hoping I'll eventually get over the fact that he's not David Tennant any more, but it'll take a while!

This intrigued me: via BoingBoing, an article about an international argument over exit signs.

There are millions of online personality quizzes, most of them extremely stupid, but if you like that sort of thing, this one is a bit better than the majority: the HTML colour personality test.

And finally, I was telling Caroline about both these sites recently and realised that I don't think I've mentioned them here: Failblog and Learn From My Fail. They may or may not amuse you :-)

The bees are buzzin' in the tree to make some honey just for me

2010-03-04T01:49:00.003Z

Yes, I've still got The Bare Necessities on the brain, but I do now know it from memory. I could remember the notes almost immediately, but I kept stumbling over a few of the words. The line in the title caused me particular problems, but I have it now. I was thinking about the process of memorising stuff as a result of this, so I was delighted to see a post from the wonderful Chris Rowbury discussing the topic. (Chris works with choirs that always perform everything from memory, but the points he makes are equally valid for choirs that usually sing from music.) Oh, and don't forget my downloadable hints!

I went to see Ruddigore at the Lowry on Saturday, together with several other members of the choir (although we didn't all go together). I really enjoyed it, but I was intrigued to find that some of us found the words extremely difficult to understand (I reckon I could only distinguish about a quarter of them), whereas others thought that the diction was perfect and they could hear every word. In general the latter people were those who already knew the words extremely well, though, so maybe that's what makes the difference. I already linked to the Guardian review a while ago, but here's one from the Times (which says that the diction is crystal-clear) and one from the Spectator (which found lots of it inaudible, and - perhaps unsurprisingly - didn't enjoy it as much). I have to say that the fact that I couldn't make out many of the words wasn't as big a problem as I might have expected - I had no trouble following the plot.

The Telegraph wonders where all the contraltos have gone (thanks to Graham for pointing this out).

Via Intermezzo, Wagner's description of the perfect audience. This amused me a great deal :-)

Via ChoralNet, a great post from Helping You Harmonise about managing stage fright. I particularly like the point that "If your normal rehearsal warm-ups are about getting people up and going after work, you’ll find that using them just before a performance produces a completely over-hyped choir poised to sing sharp and rush tempi." Obvious when you think about it, but I don't think it ever occurred to me before!

Tom Service has a thought-provoking post about music education cuts. Short, but contains some useful facts and figures.

Similarly useful and thought-provoking, but rather longer, is this Guardian article about arts funding.

I'm not sure whether or not I want to hear the result of this, but I'm fascinated by the idea that they did it at all: classical music stars get together to record a charity single. (Note that it's the BBC that describes all those people as 'classical music stars', not me...)

Via Londonist, news of a Chopin exhibition at the British Library. It's on till mid-May, so if you're in London before then, go and have a look.

I suspect this news will be like Marmite, in that you'll either love it or hate it: Intermezzo tells us that there is an all-male production of The Pirates of Penzance, and it's on in London for a month or so from mid-April if you want to see it.

Via the Times: Simon Rattle is fed up with Britain. Most interesting facts from it: he's never done the St Matthew Passion before this year (he's doing it soon with the CBSO) and he's never done the B Minor Mass, and has no plans to because it's too hard!

Tom Service again, this time telling us why we need to build 22 new opera houses.

Intermezzo spends an afternoon with Andris Nelsons (who, I only recently realised, is conducting our Mahler 8 when we do it in Birmingham), and points out in passing that the way to get good audiences for concerts is to do them on Sunday afternoons.

Chet's has launched an appeal to raise money for their new building. I have all sorts of attachments to the old one, so I hate the idea that it's being demolished, but I suppose I have to accept that nothing lasts forever!

A couple of non-musical links to finish. Firstly, from the ever-wonderful Seth Godin (whose blog is linked in my sidebar - I recommend you all read it regularly), my current favourite word: Sprezzatura.

If your email inbox is plagued with a few friends and family members who continually forward jokes and other random stuff to you, here is a brilliant solution: StopForwarding.com. You can stop them anonymously and educate them at the same time!

For the geeks (or semi-geeks) among you: some fascinating facts and figures about Google.

And another brilliant idea: Let Me Google That For You. This will be useful to those of you who are always being asked questions which could be solved in seconds if the questioner could be bothered to use Google. You got to lmgtfy.com, which looks very like a normal Google page. You do the search yourself. LMGTFY then gives you a link to copy, and that's what you send to the person who asked. Watch this example of how it works (imagine you'd been asked "Who's Aaron Ramsey?")

Don’t spend your time just lookin’ around for something you want that can’t be found

2010-02-25T05:00:00.002Z

I've got The Bare Necessities on the brain, which is probably just as well since I'm trying to memorise it. (If any other members of my choir are having trouble getting it to stick, there is an mp3 on my download page that might help. I recorded it at tonight's rehearsal.) We finished the last three rehearsals with it (and that's in quite a short time - there have been MANY rehearsals in the past week). I think that's one reason why I've come away feeling as if I've enjoyed these rehearsals a lot more than some of the previous ones, but actually almost all the music we're singing at the moment is fun to do.

The wedding on Saturday (at which six of us sang an a cappella "I Was Glad" and Bruckner's "Ave Maria") went very well, although the priest got a bit confused and actually forgot to do the wedding vows - he'd done the next bit of the mass before he realised, and had to go back! Although he might have decided to ignore the order of service - it had dozens of mistakes in it. Most of them were very minor, but among the more significant errors were: the fact that it said we were going to sing "Amazing Grace" in addition to our other three songs (this was a total invention on the part of the printer as far as I can tell!); the spelling of "hymn" as "hymm"; and (my favourite) "deliver us FOR evil" (instead of FROM evil) in the Lord's Prayer. Changes the message somewhat!

Popstar to Operastar finished on Friday, and Darius won, although only by a very narrow margin (the votes are here if you're interested). You can see all the performances from all six weeks on the official website, or download mp3s of them (in a handy zip file) from my my download page. I thoroughly enjoyed the series (although there were many things about it that annoyed me) and it actually inspired me to practise! I don't do that often enough!

I was telling Ralph on Sunday about Eric Whitacre's blog, which is always interesting. Specifically, you may be interested in the post where he had an idea about an internet performance of "Sleep", and the post where he shares the surprisingly successful results of this idea. (Read the posts in between to find out how he solved the logistical problems - it's all interesting.) He's currently in the middle of another similar project, this time involving my favourite work of his, "Lux Aurumque". (I would LOVE to sing that.)

The Mahler in Manchester series is almost halfway through. Mahler 4 was last Thursday, conducted by the lovely Markus Stenz. The Guardian and the Times both seemed to like it - I haven't seen any other reviews yet.

I've been keeping a mental checklist of which of my "12 days of musical terminology" terms have come up in rehearsals in 2010 so far. I think I've only heard four of them actually mentioned by name, but more than that have come up in the music, even if they weren't pointed out at the time! For those of you who missed the series, here are links to the posts, with notes to say where the current examples are:

1. Dominant pedal - there's a sort-of dominant pedal in the Rachmaninov, in the 2nd bass part on the last line (all the repeated Gs). It's only "sort of" because although it seems fairly clear to me that the music IS in C major at that point (so that the G is the dominant), the piece actually ends on a G major chord, so you could argue that it's in G major. (You'd be wrong, though!)
2. Hemiola - I was about to admit defeat on this one, until I remembered bars 60 and 61 of "Faire is the Heaven" \o/
3. Suspension - "Lay a garland" has a suspension in just about every bar.
4. Ornaments - the Schubert has a few ornaments in the soprano part, although most of them are turns, which I didn't specifically write about.
5. Diminished chords - if you ignore the 2nd bass note, there's a great diminished chord in bar 11 of the Bruckner, but there are several in the Mahler too.
6. Neapolitan chords - the sf in the fourth bar of figure 41 in the Mahler feels like a Neapolitan, and sounds like one too, until you realise that the basses of the orchestra are all playing a B. Close enough, though.
7. Melisma - all the music we're doing has lots of these, but the Bainton has some particularly good examples, e.g. soprano five bars from the end.
8. Antiphonal - I already mentioned "I was glad" in the original post.
9. False relation - "Hear My Prayer" has loads of these, e.g. 1st soprano in bar 4.
10. Whole tone scale - soprano part (choir 2) three bars before figure 88 in the Mahler.
11. Recapitulation - Mahler 8, figure 15 in Part 1 (and other places too, but that was the one that was mentioned in rehearsal).
12. Fugue - none of the a cappella pieces are long enough to have a proper recapitulation, and the same goes for fugues, so it's Mahler again. Although there isn't a fugue in the strictest sense, the second half of part 1 (from figure 38 to the end of the movement) is often described as a double fugue.

(Next time you hear any of these twelve terms mentioned by a conductor, you will realise why I have a slightly smug grin on my face!)

Talking of me feeling slightly smug, at tonight's rehearsal it was decided that the 1st sopranos were drowning out the 2nds, and some of them were asked to move across so that there were equal numbers. However, there were (as usual) more than three times as many 1st altos as 2nds, but none of THEM were asked to move \o/

Anyway, a few links. Gareth Malone's next TV project sees him being an opera chorus master for a youth opera at Glyndebourne, and the Spectator has a great article describing what's been going on.

Hakan Hardenberger was busking outside the Bridgewater Hall on Tuesday, as publicity for his concert with the BBC Phil this Saturday.

On an Overgrown Path has a nice article about the death of St Francis of Assisi, who apparently died singing. I never knew that! It's a lovely story - do go and read it.

Here's another lovely story - I have no idea whether or not it's true, but I'm choosing to believe it is. It's called The Night I Met Einstein, and describes how Einstein encouraged a stranger to listen to Bach.

BBC News has a feature about the current popularity of the ukulele, and Tom Service talks about bagpipes.

Via ChoralNet, Jeffrey Tucker describes five great things about polyphony. I like this post - all five things are obvious when you think about them, but I hadn't really thought about them! (Scroll down a bit - there are a load of links at the top of the page that make it look as if there's no story there, but there is.)

Londonist and the Guardian report that seven out of ten Brits "said they'd like a Nessun Dorma-style theme tune for London 2012, played by a British orchestra". They're asking for suggestions - anyone have any?

BBC News tells us that teaching stroke patients to sing "rewires" their brains, helping them recover their speech.

I missed any mention of this at the time, but I would have loved to have been at this concert: Ex Cathedra celebrated their 40th anniversary by performing not just Spem in Alium, but a concert FILLED with 40-part choral works!

Here's a short but intriguing Spectator article about how to pronounce "Wednesday", and related topics!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there was part of an episode of "Shameless" set in the foyer of William Hulme's Grammar School. Well, the most recent episode took place partly in the WHGS car park and on the roof of one of the buildings. It was on E4 on Tuesday, but won't be on Channel 4 till next Tuesday night, after which you'll be able to watch it online. (It's not there yet - it's episode 6.) The scene in question is again right at the end of the episode - in the last ten minutes.

More Manchester news: it seems that this year there will be a big Manchester Day Parade! Hands up who never knew there was a Manchester Day? Yeah, me too. But the parade is on Sunday 20th June, and the theme is "Out of this World". If you want to get involved, here's the official website.

The MEN has a fascinating article about tunnels under the city centre.

I enjoyed the recent BBC series of The Virtual Revolution (which I think you can still watch via iPlayer - you should, it's very good), so I took the test on their website (it's HARD!) to find out what sort of web animal I am. I was a bit put out at first to be told I was a web elephant, until I realised that it wasn't entirely bad - I like to think I'm fast at doing stuff online, but the test results suggest I'm slower than I thought, but that it's because I'm thorough. Have a look at the descriptions and see what you think you are, then try taking the test!

And finally, it's rare that a week goes by without me discovering a new clever thing that Google can do. This week: the Winter Olympics on Google Maps. Great fun to play with! (Oh, and by the way, I'd never heard of skeleton or ski cross before a week ago, but now I'm a huge fan of both, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm just sad that I managed to completely miss the luge!)

Nicht schleppend

2010-02-18T00:55:00.002Z

So, this Friday is the final of Popstar to Operastar, although I won't be able to watch it live as we have a sectional (on a Friday night! AND rehearsals all day Sunday! It's just as well I have no life...) Can't say I totally agree with the results so far, but I also can't say that the two finalists don't deserve to be there. It's between Bernie Nolan and Darius Campbell, and I imagine Bernie will win, but I've been wrong several times so far!

On Saturday I'm singing at a wedding in Yorkshire as part of a group of six. We're doing I Was Glad (my a cappella version that I arranged for Dr Liz's wedding) and Bruckner's Ave Maria (adapted so that it can be done with six singers), as well as an a cappella arrangement of a hymn called On Eagle's Wings. We rehearsed on Monday night, so it felt really odd when the first two things that we sang in tonight's full choir rehearsal were Bruckner's Ave Maria and I Was Glad - except the proper versions! A little confusing. And it's been a while since I've sung I Was Glad without having to also sing the organ part :-)

The Mahler in Manchester series continues, and there are a few reviews of Mahler 3: Guardian, Telegraph, Times and MEN. The most interesting thing from those reviews, in my opinion, is Robert Beale's observation that "Mahler seems to have more of a male following than any other composer – at least it’s only when he’s on the menu that you get queues in the men’s loos, in my experience." Fascinating, if true!

I'm sorry to have missed Sunday's concert, which featured the lovely Jonathan Scott playing Rhapsody in Blue. It sounds as if I was one of the few members of the choir who WASN'T there! But I think it was Graham that alerted me to the Scott Brothers Duo's YouTube page - have a look at this great video of them playing the William Tell overture!

Thanks to Sheena and various others for alerting me to the fact that Janet Cardiff's Forty Part Motet sound installation is visiting Leeds until 3rd March. I saw this when it was in Liverpool a few years ago and loved it, but I thought it was now fixed in a permanent home (somewhere in Canada). There's a choral workshop too, if you want to go and sing it, on 27th February.

It's Chopin's 200th birthday soon, and Tom Service has an article about him.

Latest news about the Manchester Central Library closure, from the MEN: while the renovation is in progress, rare works will be kept deep underground in salt mines in Cheshire. There's all sorts of interesting info in that article, but the salt mines was the detail that fascinated me most!

And finally, the Big Picture has great photos of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

I met a strange lady, she made me nervous

2010-02-12T06:20:00.006Z

I'm a bit baffled by the recent court ruling about Men at Work's song Down Under. (There's coverage of the story by BBC News, BBC Music Magazine and Tom Service in the Guardian.) What baffles me is that I remember the song very well, and from the first time I heard it I assumed that the use of the Kookaburra riff was deliberate, in order to make the song seems authentically Australian. I knew the Kookaburra song from being in the Brownies, and it never occurred to me that it might be copyright (well, obviously I'd never heard of copyright when I was in the Brownies, but I had by 1983). Bizarre.

I'm also baffled by last week's episode of Popstar to Operastar, because in a huge miscarriage of justice Danny was voted out! Shocking. Anyway, there are two episodes to go (including tonight's), and if you're curious - but not curious enough to watch a whole episode - I've put all the songs performed so far into a zip file, which you can download from my mp3 page. Each song is under two minutes long, and the whole list takes less than 45 minutes! EDIT: I just added the most recent songs, so it's 50 minutes now (for 30 songs!)

Also new on my mp3 page: songs we're doing in the a cappella concerts. Plus, in case any of you couldn't find Mahler 8 on IMSLP, I've added the scores to my page too. (The full orchestral score is only a few pages longer than the vocal score.) (Although, I imagine anyone who's a regular reader of this blog will have known all about IMSLP, because it's been near the top of my sidebar for a while now.)

I'm enjoying rehearsing Mahler 8, but I must admit I'm very grumpy that we're choir 2. I remember being a bit grumpy about it last time, but last time we split and sang both choirs, so I was only grumpy that I wasn't in the half of the choir that got all the good bits. This time NO-ONE in my choir has the good bits. I know there are good reasons for us to be choir 2, but I don't have to like them!

Finally (for now) on the Mahler series: it's Mahler 3 tomorrow (with the BBC Phil and A Choir That's Not Us) so I look forward to seeing the reviews of that. I've been watching out for reviews of Das Lied von der Erde, which the Camerata did last week, but I hadn't seen one, until Graham pointed out this glowing one from the Sunday Times which also mentions both Mahler 1 and Mahler 2.

(Which reminds me: I was quite impressed with this Guardian article by Charlotte Higgins, about the current wonderfulness of British classical music, until I realised that she'd totally omitted any mention of Mahler in Manchester, which other critics seems to agree is a very big deal!)

This will mean nothing to anyone who's not in my choir, but last week's episode of Shameless had a whole scene that took place in the foyer of William Hulme's Grammar School, in the exact place where we queue up before our rehearsals. It was this episode, and in theory you can watch it online via that page, although it didn't work for me when I tried it just now. If you do want to see, the scene in question is right near the end - in the last ten minutes, if I remember correctly. And, unlike most of the rest of the programme, it has nothing rude in it!

I really like the Puma Hardchorus video - football fans singing in harmony! I suspect there may have been a few ringers added, but it's still fun.

An interesting post from Intermezzo about how much orchestral musicians earn, followed by an even more interesting part 2.

The Spectator gives us a bit of notice of some very big musical anniversaries in 2013.

Via BoingBoing: the New York Times warns us that if you're singing karaoke in the Philippines, it's best not to choose My Way as it could get you killed.

Here's an interesting article that I found while looking for something else: the search for a notation index. I have a copy of the Barlow and Morgenstern book - I've had it for years, so I didn't realise it was out of print. But I was pleased to find that there's an online version. It's a bit easier than the book (the book requires you to transpose your tune into C major or A minor, but the online version works in any key) but it doesn't have everything - I tried it with the first choir entry of Mahler 2 (which it didn't have) and the first theme of the first movement of Mahler 2 (which it did). (What prompted the whole of this search was that I was actually looking for a tune which has been stuck in my head all week. It's NOT "We'll Gather Lilacs", although my brain seems to have convinced itself that those words go with it. I'd write it out to see whether anyone here knows it, but I'm falling asleep. Maybe I will if I haven't identified it by next week!)

Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir argues that choirs shouldn't sing pop songs. I agree with SOME of his points - I've tried to comment several times to say so, but Blogger keeps eating my comments!

They're planning to fix the whistling of the Beetham Tower. I've never heard it myself, but I believe it's quite loud at times.

And there's a month-long arts festival at Zion in Hulme starting in a couple of weeks. It includes choirs in Asda's car park!

Before that, though, it's the Chinese New Year on Sunday, and there are celebrations in the city centre, including a dragon parade starting from the Town Hall at 1pm and ending with fireworks at 6pm.

If you're sick of being freezing all the time, the groundhog said last week that there'd be six more weeks of winter - bad luck.

How to be a Retronaut is a fascinating site which is best explained by getting you to go and explore it.

And finally, a video which made me smile. At first you will think it's silly, but as you watch more of it I bet it makes you smile too!

Mahler 2 reviews

2010-02-01T14:51:00.004Z

I will edit this list if more appear.

EDIT: Sunday Times

EDIT: Guardian

The Times

Manchester Evening News

Nottingham Evening Post

The Classical Source

I'm not convinced any of these has captured the full wonder of the concerts. And I take exception to the one that says we NEEDED the organ to keep us in tune. Oh, and the one that claimed the Matthews was in six parts. And both the ones that implied Markus Stenz wasn't PERFECT. Foolish critics - what do they know?!?

Nottingham, last night, was just as good as Manchester. They also had just as many inconsiderate coughers. (I considered urging the powers that be to include a page in every programme about what steps to follow if you HAVE to cough (and we all do, sometimes!) The steps would be as follows:

1. WAIT FOR A LOUD BIT.

(I'm thinking it could be in a really large font size.))

Finally on Mahler 2: I mentioned the series of posts by Kenneth Woods. He did a great post last week which concentrates on one particular aspect of the symphony - the keys. And this post really fascinated me, because I hadn't realised his main fact before he pointed it out. Summary: You know the series of brass chords in the last movement, immediately after the really loud "Was vergangen auferstehen" bit? Well, that chord sequence ends in E flat major, and that's the first time we reach E flat major in the WHOLE SYMPHONY. Which may not seem like a big deal, but the point is that since the symphony is in C minor, you would expect to have gone through E flat major (the relative major of C minor) quite a few times. But Mahler deliberately goes to unexpected keys instead, and saves the E flat major for the very end of the piece. I love facts like this :-)

Anyway, the next Mahler is Mahler 8. (Remember the tickets for the open rehearsal have gone on sale today - don't miss out!) I dug out my score last night and am excited already. For those of you who don't know it, you should be aware that (unlike in Mahler 2) the choir sings ALL THE WAY THROUGH. It's double choir, and the parts split occasionally within the two choirs. There is a separate part for boys' choir as well, and a million soloists (well, eight). And although most of it is in German, the whole of the first movement is in Latin just to confuse you! And there are some REALLY tricky bits. In case you want to listen, I've put the mp3s for the whole symphony on my download page (well, I'm actually uploading them now, so if you look and they're not there yet, try again in half a hour and they will be).

A few other links:

Rolando Villazon gives a very reasonable response to the people who are criticising Popstar to Operastar. (Latest news: Danny didn't have his best week, but he's still in it, while Jimmy Osmond is out. And Marcella Detroit did, as I predicted, finally sing the Queen of the Night aria.)

I'm a bit taken aback by another reality show story: a competitor from Britain's Got Talent is filing a discrimination complaint because she has a "condition affecting her ability to hear her own singing voice". And she entered a talent contest as a singer. *boggle*

There's a show at Earls Court in which you can perform with Abba holograms.

Great post about Bruckner from the ever-wonderful BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog.

On an Overgrown Path tells us about the Arabian Passion.

Intermezzo brings us the shocking truth about the classical charts. And it IS shocking.

Intriguing post by John Brough on ChoralNet about possible uses of the Apple iPad in choral music.

Manchester Confidential has some more detailed (and official) information about the Manchester Central Library renovation.

Here's another story about people wearing pyjamas outside the house: Tesco doesn't like it.

You'll already be aware that the Opera North production of Ruddigore is at the Lowry at the end of this month, but you may be even more inclined to get a ticket after you see this five-star review of it.

And talking of five-star reviews, Mariza is at the Bridgewater Hall this Saturday. She's a Portuguese fado singer, and I have an album of hers which I really like. Wish I could go this weekend: look at this review of her at the Festival Hall recently!

Hope that can never die

2010-01-27T23:54:00.005Z

I had a Manchester United season ticket until last year, when I had to relinquish it due to having no money. It's probably just as well that I didn't have one tonight, because I'm not sure what I would have done. Go to Old Trafford for the second leg of a highly-charged cup semi-final against City, or go to the Bridgewater Hall for the orchestral rehearsal for tomorrow's Mahler 2 gig? On the understanding, of course, that missing the orchestral rehearsal means not doing the concert... I have to say that I think I would have gone to Old Trafford, but it would have been a close thing (and if we were performing the Mahler from memory that would have swung me the other way!)

As it was, I was in the Bridgewater Hall for most of the game, but my mum was texting me score updates, and I am delighted to report that the first time my phone vibrated in my pocket - when Paul Scholes scored United's opening goal - coincided with us singing the words "hope that can never die" in the Colin Matthews piece, Crossing the Alps. (The words are by Wordsworth, from The Prelude (this bit, although not all of those words are included.) I wasn't a huge fan of this piece at first, but I've grown to like it a lot (at least, when we do it without stopping! There have been a few rehearsals in which we've stopped after every bar or so...) And the "hope that can never die" bit is one of my favourites.

The rehearsal went very well, although I must admit I thought we might be out early and we weren't. Markus Stenz liked us, and we LOVED him. (At the piano rehearsal last night, not only did he smile all the way through - AND made helpful suggestions, so that the Mahler sounded even better after he'd finished - but he actually WINKED at us altos when it came to our big moment! We all wanted to take him home!) Have a look at his website - there are VIDEO CLIPS of him conducting.

The only bad thing that happened during the rehearsal was to do with the seating, but I could have predicted that! On the seating plan, you see, I was delighted to find that I'd been put on the end of the back row (almost my very favourite position - the only place I like better is the end of the FRONT row), so of course it was only a matter of time before something happened to get me moved to a different place. Last time, you will recall, I managed to push Lindsey off the stage using the power of my mind in an effort to fix this, but it might be a bit more difficult this time! Dr Liz pointed out, you see (quite rightly), that there are thirty-one 1st altos and only nine 2nd altos, and a few of the 2nd altos were a bit isolated and wanted to be nearer the others. So now I'm not on the back row OR on the end, and I'm racking my brains trying to think of a way round this, but I don't think there is one! Oh well.

Anyway, I have a few more links (don't I always?) Here's one I found just now while looking for stuff about Markus Stenz: Universal Edition have a special Mahler blog which has all sorts of links about the anniversary. I haven't read them all yet, but I plan to.

This is exciting: Intermezzo brings us news that the BBC is going opera crazy. Tom Service has more to say about this, and it turns out he's not a fan of Popstar to Operastar! I'm shocked. Well, I still love it - as long as Danny wins :-)

The Guardian tells us that the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples deserves to be better known, and opens a new opera season today.

And if, like me, you don't know (or used to know but have forgotten) the function of the middle pedal on a grand piano, Stephen Hough can tell you. (He mentions that in all his years of playing, he calculates that he's only used the middle pedal about fifty times. And I was at school with him - he was a couple of years above me, but he MIGHT remember me - so I know that that's a LOT of years of playing!) (He also has interesting things to say about the right pedal and the left pedal, but I knew more or less what they did before. It's the middle one I'd forgotten!)

Mahler 8 in Birmingham - ticket news

2010-01-26T03:09:00.002Z

Quick posting, just to share some info with you. Well, it's not quite info, but you'll see what I mean... Because our Mahler 8 gig in Manchester has been sold out since the tickets went on sale, I know I'm not the only one who (a) has no-one coming to it because they didn't manage to get tickets, and (b) has people who are desperate to get tickets for one of the Birmingham performances in September. I've been keeping an eye on the Symphony Hall website, so I know that they're not even mentioned there yet, but the other day it occurred to me to actually ASK them. And I got a prompt reply, as follows:

Dear Jocelyn,

Thank you for your email. The concerts you mention are probably part of the next Birmingham International Concert Season, although we still don't have confirmation yet. The season goes on sale around mid June time but check back in around mid March as we should have much more information by then.

Kind regards,
Laura Marshall

So now you know!

While I'm here, I may as well share a few links, because this week is Mahler 2 week and I might not have time...

Via Intermezzo, news that the BBC is apparently jealous of the success of Popstar to Operastar and is launching an opera reality show of their own. (The story also mentions that apparently some opera stars were insulted by what Alex James did. I hope that's not true (at least, if they actually saw him), because (as I said at the time) I thought he took it very seriously and gave a good performance, even if he wasn't the best singer.)

On An Overgrown Path tells us about the Oxford Feral Choir. Can't say the music did anything for me, but I *love* the name!

Bachtrack has a blog post by a guy who hadn't sung in a choir for over forty years but was persuaded to join the tenor section for his daughter's school's performance of Zadok the Priest.

Very interesting post by Eliza Carthy about the links between folk music and politics, and how offended she was by recent events.

I hadn't realised this, but ever since that row at the Beijing Olympics over the little girl who mimed, lip-synching can get you in big trouble in China.

Talking of the Olympics, it seems that Calais wants to get visitors to think of it as part of London for the 2012 games!

It's Burns Night tonight (at least, it was until a few hours ago), and there was rejoicing because haggis is no longer banned from the USA. I never realised it was!

And, if you've ever wondered exactly how astronauts go to the toilet in space, here's the answer.

We got our moment back!

2010-01-23T02:30:00.002Z

I was fed up a few days ago because we'd been told that the BIG ALTO MOMENT at the end of Mahler 2 had been transferred to the 2nd sopranos. (If there is a bigger alto moment in ANYTHING, I can't currently think of it! Any suggestions?) But it now seems that there may have been some confusion, and we have our moment back. I'm VERY happy about this. (Just so we're clear, under normal circumstances I don't enjoy singing top Gs, but I do HAVE a top G - we all do! - and when I don't have to try to do it any quieter than fff, it's great fun!) Mahler did NOT make a mistake - he was well aware that the altos would be right at the top of their range there, but that's the EFFECT he wanted.

I don't actually have any evidence for this statement, I have to admit (although it's not one I've invented myself - I've heard far more experienced people than me say the same thing), but while I was looking for some, I did find that there is a blog (by a conductor called Kenneth Woods) which is doing a series of detailed posts about the Mahler in Manchester series. He also has a great series of posts (from a few years ago) about Mahler 2 specifically.

The Mahler series has started now, of course. The Guardian even had an editorial about it, of which the gist was "London COULD have done this, but they didn't, did they?" And the reviews for Mahler 1 were great: Guardian, Times, Manchester Evening News.

I'm actually really quite enjoying the Colin Matthews piece now, although I doubt it will be one I'll listen to very often after this month. We sang it through without stopping for the first time on Wednesday, and I think it will be great. The triplet crotchet scales sound impressive rather than difficult now, and the bars that have the really satisfying chords sound spectacular. And I love the end! Hope the audience like it on Thursday.

I'm also still loving ITV's Popstar to Operastar, although I remain baffled about why the producers are doing some of the things they're doing. Tonight, for example, of the seven songs performed, only FOUR were from actual operas. (Wikipedia, as ever, has full details.) It seems that the producers think that any song counts as operatic if it's in Italian! (I mean, VOLARE?!?) I don't understand this - it's not as if there aren't LOTS of well-known operatic arias! Also, one of the ones they did include - Brindisi - is a duet, so it makes no sense to have Kym Marsh sing it on her own... and in totally the wrong key, as I realised when the backing choir joined in! I've sung that backing part lots of times, so I remember quite well that the alto part is all Fs... but when I joined in with the alto part tonight, it wasn't Fs. Bizarre. (Note: I'm not blaming the pop stars themselves - I presume they're not choosing their own songs.) Anyway, I thought the lovely Danny McFly WAS the best tonight (although his song wasn't from an opera), but Marcella Detroit was a close second. I'm sticking to my prediction that it will be between the two of them.

I'm getting lots of interest in my website - it's doing well on Google, and the free downloads have proved very popular. However, despite a few promises from people, I haven't actually made any money at all yet, so I'm getting a bit desperate! I have a few strategies I'm planning to try, though, and giving up is not an option, so let's hope something works soon.

I seem to have acquired a load of links again, so let me list them for you.

Via Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, news about the Extreme Cellists.

I mentioned the recent a cappella festival in London. This short video from the Guardian shows a bit of the Swingle Singers performance from it, but mainly it's a lesson in beatboxing. Very interesting.

ChoralBlog brings us this amazing video of a marching band. Even if you think you don't like marching bands, PLEASE watch this. It is full of brilliantly creative ideas that enhance the performance, and it must have been SO much fun to do!

You'll have heard the story about the headteacher who uses classical music as a punishment, because it's been all over the place since the Guardian printed this.

Great article by Charlotte Higgins about amateur music-making in the UK. I particularly love the idea of a Cobweb Orchestra!

Tom Service tells us about the Cleveland Orchestra strike, and its speedy resolution. As he points out, there are issues here that may come up in the UK too.

Via Classical Iconoclast, details of the English Song Weekend which will take place in Shropshire this June. Looks lovely - wish I could go.

Via A Cappella News, a Times article explaining why choirs are now cool.

You can now vote online in the BBC Music Magazine awards.

Stephen Moss writes in the Guardian about the enduring appeal of Gilbert and Sullivan. (I've never seen Ruddigore, so although one of my main World of Warcraft characters is called Mad Margaret (all my WoW characters are from G&S), I was delighted to learn that "her bouts of insanity can be calmed by shouting 'Basingstoke'"!)

There is trouble in Spain over music played in hairdressers' salons, would you believe.

I told you about Glee last July (I hope I can honestly say "you heard it here first!") You'll no doubt be aware that it's been airing in the UK for the past few weeks. My very favourite episode is the one that will be on E4 on Monday (not sure when it will be on C4), so don't miss that one. But in the meantime, the BBC website has a fact-packed article about glee clubs.

Here's an Independent article about female conductors, and Tom Service writes on the same subject. I'm disappointed that neither article mentions Ewa Strusinska, though!

Did you know about the missing visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's grave? I'm fascinated by this story. (The Guardian mentioned it too.)

Oh, and in my only bit of Manchester news this week, they've found human bones underneath Victoria Station! Which is all very well, but I wish they'd get a move on and FINISH WHATEVER THEY'RE DOING TO PLATFORM TWO (which is where I presume the bones are, since it's currently the only one that's dug up). It's causing great inconvenience to everyone who uses the Bradford/Leeds line (i.e. me!)

Popstar to Operastar

2010-01-16T18:11:00.005Z

Yes, I know that title should be split into more than three words, but that's how ITV write it. Still, I'm fascinated by this programme. It was on ITV1 last night - if you missed it, you can watch it online via the link above, or you can wait till Wednesday, when it's repeated on ITV2 at 6.30. Via Intermezzo, there's a fairly balanced story in Wales Online about it.

My only real objection to it is that they give the impression that Katherine Jenkins is an opera star, although she's never actually been in an opera. (To be fair, I believe that she herself doesn't use this term - she refers to herself as a "classical singer".) And so far they haven't made clear that being an opera star involves more than just singing one aria, although there's only been one episode so far - maybe they'll make them do a whole opera in the finale, although I doubt they'll make them do eight performances of it in a week!

I'm supporting the lovely Danny McFly (well, his actual name is Danny Jones) because I have always loved McFly, as anyone who knows me well will know. I suspect that if it's entirely down to a public vote, he'll win even if he's rubbish, because he's probably got more fans than all the others combined. But I'd love it if he actually was the best one. He wasn't the best last night - he was a bit flat, and wasn't the most powerful singer, although he got better during his song (he did La Donna è Mobile). But I'm confident he will improve. He's a fabulous MUSICIAN, but this is a long way out of his comfort zone.

I expected the best singer to be Marcella Detroit, because I've always been very impressed with her voice in pop. She can sing RIDICULOUSLY high - for example, the last minute of Stay (probably their most famous song - the highest note she sings there is a top F (the one above the stave!)), or the beginning (and chorus) of You're History, which is in G, so she repeatedly gets the top B in the choruses, and I think she gets a high G (above the top B!) right near the end. I'll be amazed if they don't give her the Queen of the Night aria at some point. Last night, though, she did Casta Diva, and she did it pretty well.

The best PERFORMANCE, though, was (in my opinion) from Alex James. He was probably the weakest singer (in his defence, unlike all the others he never HAS been a singer, even in pop - he's a bass player!) but he sang his aria (Largo al factotum) very competently - he didn't stumble over the words, and it was in tune, but most importantly he COMMUNICATED. He was obviously having a great time, and I don't think he deserved to be voted out.

Several of the other singers were pretty good, and I think it'll be very interesting to see who improves the most. The one thing that baffled me, though, was that they gave Darius whatsisname - who has a lower voice than most of them - Nessun Dorma, but transposed it down a fifth! Why on earth didn't they just give him a different song? All the others had one that was appropriate for their range. Bizarre.

Choir, in case you're wondering, is making me grumpy at the moment, so I'd better not write much about it. We're doing Mahler 2 in a couple of weeks, which I was really looking forward to until it was announced that we're not doing it from memory after all, which means it won't be as good as last time. Such a pity. And we're also doing a world premiere of a thing by Colin Matthews, which isn't my favourite piece EVER but isn't actually that bad (although there are, obviously, no actual TUNES) - there are three or four bars I really like (not consecutive ones though!) What's making me grumpy with THAT is that although it's quite difficult and needs everyone to work at their own part, there are a few people who haven't, so we're doing more group notebashing than we should need to. I know that I'm lucky (in one way, at least) to be currently unemployed, so I do have time to practise - and I've spent quite a while on the Matthews. And I do understand that there are some people who don't currently have time to look at music outside rehearsals. But there are things that they could do DURING THE REHEARSAL to help themselves. For example, at the first rehearsal, a few people gasped in horror when they reached page 32 and realised - apparently for the first time - that there's a second evil triplet crotchet scale bit. Now, this music had been emailed to people a few days earlier so they could look at it, but I know not everyone had time to check their email. But even so, the fact that anyone could get to a point thirty minutes before the end of the rehearsal without AT ANY STAGE having at least glanced all the way through the score - that's what annoyed me. Even the busiest of people could take the time DURING THE REHEARSAL to flip through the score and mark which line they're singing (this isn't actually really necessary in this piece because the lines are in the same position on each page, but you'd have to look through it to know that!)

Anyway, I'll shut up about that now. I have a load of links!

Vuvuzela update: now the church is getting involved.

Via ChoralNet, a blog post about the top ten changes in classical music over the past decade. Some surprising inclusions - Maestro was the one that raised my eyebrows the most, I think.

I hadn't realised that Mahler used to conduct the New York Phil, but this Guardian article about his newest replacement sets me straight.

Michael Kennedy, in the Spectator, writes about Mahler's popularity.

Tom Service, in the Guardian, writes about Mahler too in rather more detail, and follows this up with a lot of YouTube links to Mahler performances.

I mentioned complaints choirs ages ago - now the Guardian has an article about them.

Via A Cappella News, an intriguing post by David Griggs-Janower that discusses possible reasons for the scarcity of tenors. He makes a lot of sense.

A Guardian article about a live music bill which seeks to "exempt small venues from the absurdities of the Licensing Act". There's a link to a petition you can sign.

A great article by Eric Siblin in the Guardian about Bach's cello suites.

Some sad news from Classical Iconoclast - apparently the V&A museum is closing its musical instrument gallery, so if you're in London any time soon, make sure you go and see it while you still can. (A few years ago, I spent a slightly insane weekend visiting ALL the major London museums and art galleries, spending no more than a couple of hours in each. I'd never been in the V&A before that weekend, and I wasn't particularly impressed with it, but the musical instrument section is the one bit of it I remember. To be fair, that's possibly because it's the only section in which I looked properly at every exhibit, but it was still good!)

Tom Service points out that the Festival of British Youth Orchestras is about to be lost unless someone finds some money to fund it.

Via A Cappella News, there's been an A Cappella Festival in London for the last few days. I would have loved to have gone to that, but even if I'd had the money, I'm a bit surprised not to have seen it advertised anywhere until it was too late! Either their marketing team needs replacing, or there are some obvious places I'm missing on my obsessive online faffing. (Yes, I know Facebook is one of them. That's deliberate.)

On the Radio 3 blog, there's a series of posts from the BBC Symphony Orchestra about their current Henze project. The introductory post is here, but the one I found most interesting is the one about a string sectional.

Another great post by Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir, this time about the dangers of complacency. This should be required reading for all choral singers, particularly before rehearsing Messiah.

Remember the X Factor v Rage Against the Machine chart battle? Apparently the next one will be the Smiths v Girls Aloud.

Bit belatedly, a great story about some guys who decided to launch their Christmas tree into orbit. Using 32 model rocket engines.

They're staging a crucifixion in Trafalgar Square this Easter.

For Mancunians, a summary of the most important local news stories of each year of the last decade. I'd forgotten some of these were so recent; they seem much longer ago!

A Manchester Evening News article about All Day Pyjama Syndrome. It seems that a doctor’s surgery in Wythenshawe has announced that patients will not be seen by the doctor or allowed access to the surgery if they attend in pyjamas. I hadn't realised this was so prevalent (although I've been baffled for YEARS about the other thing he mentions, i.e. girls going out with no coats etc.) - has anyone else encountered examples of it?

Here are some great photos of Manchester from above, in the snow.

And Manchester Confidential goes one better and brings us photos of rude snowmen in Manchester!

An interesting BBC News article about how other countries cope with lots of snow.

And finally, the Big Picture brings us a gorgeous selection of photos themed Fire and Ice.

Vamp Till Ready

2010-01-06T22:18:00.003Z

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.