Bad news, I'm afraid

We finally found out what happened to the little bird with the broken wing. (It was in the programme notes.) It got captured by the hawk! Now, it was not clearly stated that it actually died, but we think it's quite likely :-(

Apart from that, though, a good time was had by all tonight. It was a long day - we rehearsed from 3.30 (and some of us had been in a choir committee meeting from 1.30 till then) and came offstage for the last time at about 10.05. Didn't get much rehearsal with the orchestra, but then it wasn't really needed; we warmed up and rehearsed a few bits backstage, then went onto the platform and sang through the spirituals during the orchestra break, then listened to the whole of the Ritual Dances (so we knew where to come in) and joined in at the end. The piece is a lot more exciting with full orchestra, as usual.

I actually remembered to bring my camera today, due to realising that there have been no new pictures on the choir website since last September. Didn't get any really great ones, but the ones I did get are now online. Also, I'd totally forgotten that the concert was being recorded by Radio 3, until I got onstage and saw all the mics. Apparently it'll be broadcast on Tuesday 8th March.

First half started (after Mark's usual entertaining speech) with Leonora no. 1, which I don't think I've ever heard before. Pleasant but not that inspiring, IMHO. Then it was time for the Ritual Dances. They were more fun than I'd expected (I particularly liked the impressive clarinet duet). The piece was very descriptive - we could clearly hear where the little bird with the broken wing got caught by the hawk :-( We only joined in right at the end; not our best performance of the piece, but nothing went disastrously wrong. Our first note felt pretty good, though. And at least the audience seemed to like it (surprisingly so!).

I was delighted, during the interval, to talk to Richard (one of our newer tenors) and learn that he joined the choir because of my website! I feel I should get some sort of cash prize for enlisting a tenor, albeit unwittingly :p

Second half was less fun than the first, as it mostly consisted of Tippett's Triple Concerto. This is one of his later works and has far less concordant harmony than the Ritual Dances. There were two bits I did quite like - the last note (no, not just because it was the last note!) and the bit in the middle when all the Indonesian percussion started to play. Apart from that I couldn't engage with it at all and found myself struggling to stay awake. I did better than some others - one person said she hated it so much she wanted to run from the hall screaming! It was impressively played, though, and again the audience seemed unaccountably enthusiastic. Some of them actually cheered! We decided they were either Tippett's family or part of the Mark Elder fan club.

The last item in the main concert was Leonora no. 3; bits of it seemed familiar, but most of it was new to me. Again, pleasant enough, and rather more interesting than no. 1. I particularly liked the unexpected offstage trumpet; Gill and I tried to decide what it is about an offstage trumpet that is so spinetingling, and didn't reach a conclusive answer, but agreed that we love it :-)

After the bows we went offstage and came straight back on again (for some reason) for the spirituals. We were delighted to see how many of the audience had stayed for this "post-concert event"; the stalls were full (although admittedly this seemed to be because they were sending the circle people down there as well) so the hall looked pleasantly crowded. The lighting was much more atmospheric than we usually have - the stage was in total darkness, as was the auditorium; only the choir seats were illuminated. When Jamie came on we could hardly see him, as he was wearing all black, but when he reached the podium he got an impressive spotlight. Unfortunately his face was still not lit, which was not ideal from a conducting point of view (he uses his face a lot!) but we managed. The performance went pretty well; the soloists were great, and the choir stayed in tune. And more importantly, the BFBABTEIGW sounded more or less right from where I was standing! \o/ The radio broadcast will be very telling...

P.S. Sylvia pointed out to me tonight that people could only post comments to this blog if they got a Blogger account (which is free, but a bit of a hassle). So I've found that setting and changed it. Post away, Sylvia!

"Then you sing about carnal doo-dahs...”

I went home on my own tonight (Alison was poorly) but had a huge grin on my face for most of the time. This was for 3 main reasons. The most immediate was something Daphne said to me as we were all leaving the rehearsal, but the grin would've been there anyway as a result of Mark Elder - I'm not sure what it is about him that's so inspirational, but he manages it every single time. More of that in a second. But first, the third reason (and you'd better sit down before reading any further): the BFBABTEIGW is now almost right! It got better each time we did it, and by the last time I could hear more right versions around me than wrong ones. I think this is probably due to Clare - I suddenly heard (the second or third time we did it) the correct version being sung very clearly by one person behind me, and I turned to see who it was, and it was Clare, who appeared to be as irritated as me. Now she usually gets things right, so I'm sure she was singing it right all along, but maybe she just decided to sing louder in order to banish the wrong version. Whatever, I'm very grateful to her. There's a good chance it'll be right on the night now, and it would've spoiled the performance for me if it'd been wrong.

As for the rest of the rehearsal, it was unexpectedly wide-ranging. We'd expected to just do the Ritual Dances with Mark, with maybe a sing through the Spirituals if he finished early. But we also did Elgar and Mascagni. (The Mascagni was just a sing-through so that we'd heard it at least once with all the parts together - it's going to be great fun, from the sound of it. The tenors sounded as if they were getting properly into the spirit of the drinking song... Bruce, in particular, was plainly having a fabulous time!) The Elgar was unintended, I think, but when Mark finished everything he wanted to do on the Tippett, there was half an hour left, and he asked if we had anything else we could entertain him with, so we sang straight through the first half of the Elgar. Mark appeared to like it; he was mouthing the tenor part throughout (not because they were at fault, I hasten to add, he was just joining in!)

We spent almost an hour on the Spirituals before Mark turned up, and they're now much better. I've already mentioned the BFBABTEIGW. (Which, by the way, I listened to on two different recordings today. The Sixteen managed to get that bar right, but the LSO Chorus didn't, despite having an accompanying orchestra playing the right notes!) The key changes between some of the movements were still being problematic, particularly from Go Down Moses to By and By, so Jamie rehearsed that one a lot so as to get the muscle memory to kick in. Oh, and what Daphne said to me (that caused me to go home grinning) was that some of the sopranos had come up with a theory that the reason the choir is finding that particular segue difficult to pitch is that By and By starts with just choir 1 singing... i.e. the 2nd altos aren't. And, more specifically, that means that I'm not singing, and, according to Daphne, I am "known as a note-getter". Now, I'm not convinced I have anywhere near as much influence as they're implying, but it's nice to know they think that :-)

We had a chance to do a quick revision of the Ritual Dances and the aforementioned whizz through Cavalleria Rusticana before Mark turned up at 8.30 to run through the Ritual Dances. All went fine. He's looking forward to the weekend - apparently "all the London critics are coming" to the Tippett festival. Oh, and he supplied my favourite quote of the night: “This is, to my certain knowledge, the only opera libretto containing the word ‘sperm’ ... “

"Reduced to notebashing! Oh, the shame!"

I expected to do just Tippett tonight, with the gig being on Saturday and the piano rehearsal tomorrow, but we started with the Elgar. Spent some time on the middle bit. (We might have got further if certain sections of the choir had actually written "enlisTID" and "resisTID" in their copies when it was first mentioned... I really hope that doesn't have to be mentioned again!) I was slightly distracted by wondering what I meant by "bb", which I seem to have written in several places in my score. It was a while before I realised it stood for "big breath". (Most of my abbreviations are ones I've been writing for years, such as LTYT, HTYT, FTYT, STYT, IO, IM, IB, IT, IS, SN; people who've sat near me will know what some of those stand for! But "bb" was a new one.) (Oh, and also I like the bit on p. 54 where everyone's holding a long loud Eb and in the middle of it the altos go up the octave. "Such a great idea! And it's probably a misprint!" was Jamie's comment.)

Distraction of a different kind after the break, when a lovely beanie-clad guy came and sat next to David to page-turn for the Ritual Dances, while Naomi was taking someone to catch a tram. Couldn't work out who on earth he was, but very much enjoyed looking at him ;-) We did wonder (with a certain degree of hopefulness!) whether he was going to be involved in the promised "perpetual copulation" :p (we'd been given a synopsis of the plot of The Midsummer Marriage which mentioned this; Gill, typically, spotted the interesting bit immediately... but we were disappointed when we realised that it didn't mention the fate of the little bird! We're worried!)

Turned out that the mysterious yummy guy was the tenor soloist for the spirituals - I didn't recognise him due to the beanie, which I'm pretty sure he wasn't wearing last time. Great voice though. (Well, all four of them are great. The bass was missing tonight because he was singing elsewhere, but we'll see him soon enough, I guess.) The spirituals were mostly OK, but they need to be better by Saturday; today's falling-apart-at-the-seams bit was the link between the first two movements (G major to C minor - shouldn't be that hard, but (a) it took many people by surprise, and (b) it relies on the MEN to start on the right note!), but hopefully that will be OK next time, after Jamie rehearsed it pretty thoroughly. I've given up on the BFBABTEIGW. It'll just have to be wrong on the night - I've tried my best. "Nobody Knows" is mostly correct now, though, so at least some progress has been made!

Tomorrow night: same time, same place, different conductor - it's the Tippett piano rehearsal with Mark. He's usually pretty good at inspiring the choir to make that extra effort that gets the performance from "good" to "great" - let's hope this time is no different.

"There's no blood YET..."

Soprano and alto sectional tonight. Spent it being introduced to Cavalleria Rusticana, which we're doing with Mark in April. Jamie told us the story. Apparently the tenor "interrupts the overture to sing a love song... to the WRONG GIRL!" Of course he dies in the end. This led me to wonder whether the eternal shortage of tenors is in fact caused by this tendency of theirs to get themselves killed by jealous rivals. Maybe that's a possible topic to investigate for my OU project this year :-)

The music's not that hard - or at least it wasn't when we were sight reading it without the words! There's one ridiculously high bit (goes up to a top Ab!) (well, strictly the alto part doesn't, but since it's identical to the soprano part except for a few random notes put down the octave, most of us are just singing the soprano part - it's actually easier to stay up there once we've made it) but it's actually not that bad... without the words. (I can sing as high as you like, as long as it's loud and I can use random vowels!) But sooner or later we had to put the words in. I actually love singing in Italian once the words have sunk in, but it's hard to learn in, despite the fact that it's "all vowels, except for the consonants" (a typical Jamieism!)

There were a few good Jamieisms tonight. Mind you, we'd got the giggles during the warmup (which not only featured the notorious "red leather yellow leather lavender leather" exercise" but also a new one, even more evil, to the increasingly rapidly repeated words "kit kat kit kat"). But I was amused by "the words 'rocket science' spring to mind" when the poor guy was trying to explain to some of the slower members of the choir that a particular note needed to be held for an extra bar. (Seemed perfectly clear to me, but maybe I could hear better then people further back.) And then there was the bit where he said "I'll get some hiking boots and send them to you as an email attachment so that you can use them for the GUILT TRIP you'll be taking!" (I forget what the guilty party was supposed to be feeling guilty about, although it was probably not stopping the sound in a double consonant...)

Concert week next week. That means choir stuff on Wednesday, Thursday and most of Saturday. Promises to be exhausting, particularly as I'm also out on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Ouch. Oh well, it's usually fun :-)

Note to self: Write stuff other than Jamieisms next time!

"Gosh, this is fun!"

... said Jamie, while we were trying to get the Ritual Dances into our heads. It's really not that hard (although also not in the LEAST tuneful), and after spending the first half of the rehearsal on it, I think most people are quite a bit more comfortable with the thought of performing it next week.

(Jamie's comments progressed from "It goes up, you know THAT much!" - while trying to get the tenors and 2nd sops to actually have a go at the bar they couldn't do - to "You know what? That sounds remarkably close to what I've got printed on my page! Aren't you clever?")

Much hilarity after the break, when we switched to the spirituals. We started with the middle bit of "Nobody Knows"... for a while, no-one (even the altos!) could sing the "O" of "O brothers" to Jamie's satisfaction; he claimed we were all starting from above or below the correct pitch. Then he got the idea that this might be because of the way he'd brought us in, so he experimented with various hand gestures that might improve matters, but this led to "Maybe you need to stand at an angle..."

The bar everyone's getting wrong in "Nobody Knows"... well, not everyone is, but an awful lot still are. I think people have started to realise; at one point when Jamie was waiting to start "Go Down Moses", several altos behind me could be heard humming said bar (some more accurately than others!) As for GDM, I'm again disappointed that lots of people who couldn't do it last week seem not to have looked at it since. Mind you, I'm not much better myself - I can sing the notes and rhythm with perfect accuracy, but I keep meaning to see if I can do anything about my breathing problems in those very long phrases, and I haven't had time yet.

The change to "By and By" wasn't much better than last week, until it had been practised a few times. (I'm not entirely sure why it's so hard for the sops to get an E from an F, particularly when they've sung an E the previous note (admittedly in a different octave, but still).) And yes, *that* bar is still mostly wrong, although there are a few people singing it right now.

We finished with the wonderful "Deep River", during which Gill and I realised how hard we were finding it to sing the "Oh Chillun" arpeggio - Jamie was getting everyone to do the revving motorbike effect on it, but one of the revs is just on the break in our voices and hence harder. Must give that some thought.

"Let my people ... HAVE A go AT SIGHT READING!"

We finally did Go Down Moses! \o/ I was delighted. Particularly because I had a vocal coaching session during part of tonight's rehearsal, so I was sure he'd choose that moment to go Way Down in Egypt Land. But as it turned out I just missed a bit of The Music Makers, which occupied the first half of the rehearsal. (And it was only the first half of the piece, so I didn't even miss doing the end bit that I missed due to football.)

Go Down Moses started the second half. Unfortunately it wasn't very good. And I think it would be fair to say that most of the rest of the choir don't like it as much as I do. But I was rather irritated that a good many people obviously hadn't so much as glanced at it since the time we sight-read through it about 6 weeks ago, despite the fact that it was clearly very different from the Child of our Time version, and somewhat more difficult. Now I didn't seriously expect that everyone would have taken it home and practised it, but it was fairly apparent that many people hadn't even bothered to mark which line they should be singing. Bit rubbish IMHO. And it didn't give a very good impression to the 4 soloists (from the RNCM), who turned up to run through all the spirituals just when we were showing that we can't do Go Down Moses very well. However, it did get better, and I'm sure it'll be fine on the night.

(Brief hilarity when we got to the end of GDM for about the fifth time and Jamie went straight into By and By. Which, to be fair, he had said ages ago was the plan. But the noises that emerged when the choir tried to go from F minor to A major without warning were... well, kind of like the other bits of Child of our Time, IYSWIM :-)

One bit of good news concerning the BFBABTEIGW, though. Most people are still getting it wrong, but Gill, bless her, who was sitting next to me, got it right tonight, which made it much easier for me to do the same. (Usually I can stick to the correct line even if everyone around me is singing it wrong, but with this particular note I can't for some reason.) Ditto for Nobody Knows. So there's hope! (The thing is, Gill does actually know when she gets something wrong, and can correct it. There are some people who are seemingly oblivious, so it's very hard to get them to change something.)

"But, Jamie, what happened to the little bird with the broken wing?"

Seems like ages since last week's gig. Tonight was back to normal. Much praise and thanks from Jamie though, and apparently we made nearly £50,000. And, it seems, the BBC Phil were impressed :-)

We started with The Music Makers. Seems like ages since I sang it, due to going to the match last week. It's sounding pretty good. Progress was made on page 62, where the basses are now singing in the same key as everyone else :p I was also reminded that I meant to listen to my other Elgar recordings - I want to hear which bits are quoted. (Jamie pointed out the bit on page 69 that's the big tune from the 1st Symphony. I didn't think I'd heard the 1st Symphony, but that tune is very familiar, so maybe I have. And that reminded me that I've not heard the 2nd Symphony for years - I studied it in depth on an OU music course, and have played it, but I don't think I've heard it since.)

At the end of page 69 I appear to have written "WORD!", which amuses me each time we get to that point. It's actually shorthand for "think about the placement of the vowel sound while singing this word, and at the same time sing it as if you're DOING it" (the word is "cry"). But still. As for page 78 to the end, I think I've only sung it once, and that was ages ago. Apparently they spent a lot of time on it last week, so I've had a look through to check I can sing it, and transferred markings. Not too hard, but I hope we do it soon.

We did the Spirituals. Well, three of them. And guess what? The BFBABTEIGW? Everyone's still getting it wrong. Ditto for Nobody Knows. And we STILL didn't do Go Down Moses!

Oh, but I nearly forgot - we did do one thing that we'd been expecting to do long before now. The "other" Tippett, i.e. the Ritual Dances. The concert's on 26th February, yet this is the first time we looked at it. (I sang through it with the CD when I got home from work today, just in case today was the day - it's not too hard, and there's hardly any of it.) Jamie introduced it, though, by telling us the story of the opera they're taken from ("The Midsummer Marriage"). He's very good at this - one of the best rehearsals EVER was the one a couple of years ago when he introduced Iolanthe to us. That was also a good rehearsal because he managed to create an amazing new sound during the warm-up - one that still had everyone talking about it after the rehearsal, several hours later - but it's not often I've laughed as hard as I did during Jamie's telling of the Iolanthe story :p

Well, tonight it went something like this...

JAMIE: There's a hare being chased by a fox.

CHOIR: Awww!

JAMIE: But the hare gets away!

CHOIR: Hurray!

JAMIE: And then there's a fish being chased by an otter.

CHOIR: Awww!

JAMIE: And the fish gets slightly injured.

CHOIR: *outraged*

JAMIE: But it gets away!

CHOIR: Hurray! Hurray!

JAMIE: And then there's a little bird with a broken wing.

CHOIR: Awwwwwwwwwwwww!

JAMIE: And it gets chased by a hawk!

CHOIR: *beside themselves with worry*

JAMIE: But at that point the story suddenly switches to another part.

[cut: further explanation of story, plus an hour's rehearsal of the music]

JAMIE: So. Let's leave that piece for tonight. Any questions?

CHOIR: What happened to the little bird with the broken wing?

WOW!!!!!!!!

Concerts like tonight's are the reason we don't mind giving up all our free time to sing in the choir :-)

So, tsunami appeal gig at the Bridgewater Hall. I managed to learn the Russian lyrics for the Rachmaninov on the train (I'd stuck it on the iPod and played it repeatedly in the car to and from work today, which helped a lot) but arrived at the Hall to find that most people were panicking about it. They felt a bit better about it, I think, after we rehearsed it and it was fine.

Backstage was even more crowded than usual, what with not only both choirs being there but a whole extra orchestra... I was looking forward to seeing how they fitted them all on the stage at once. Turns out I was correct in my belief that the Hallé and the BBC Phil had never played together before. So that in itself was very exciting, but the evening was amazing for so many other reasons. The hall was totally sold out, and even the returns were snapped up immediately (I know, I asked at the box office on behalf of a friend). Frustratingly there were a few empty seats despite this - I guess some people thought they'd be doing their bit for the appeal by just buying a ticket, but I wish they'd put their money in a bucket instead so some more people could've experienced tonight.

The first half was the Hallé alone. We didn't go onstage till the Youth Choir vacated the seats - it was a huge thrill walking on. (Normally when we go on, it's 5 minutes before the start of the concert; half the audience are still in the bar and the other half are chatting and not paying attention to the stage. Tonight we walked on with a full silent hall actually looking at us. BIG difference.) We sang the Brahms - which went very well - and then got to sit and watch a fabulous young Ukrainian pianist play the Rach Pag Variations. He was so theatrical about it that most of us sat there grinning gormlessly throughout :-)

After the interval the BBC Phil took the stage. It's years since I've seen them play, and it was oddly weird to sit in the choir seats looking down on an orchestra that wasn't the Hallé. They are of course both great orchestras, rightly world-renowned, but I've often heard people claim that the BBC Phil are better than the Hallé. I've always wanted to defend the Hallé (because they're MY orchestra!) but have felt unable to due to not having heard the BBC Phil recently enough to compare them. But after hearing both on the same night, I have to say I thought the Hallé just edged ahead \o/

The BBC Phil played the Ruslan and Ludmilla overture (which I know quite well) and Capriccio Espagnol (which I don't). In fact I hadn't even realised the latter was a multi-movement work - there's one tune I'd heard, but the rest was totally unfamiliar, so that was interesting. And then it was our turn again, to sing the Ave Maria a cappella. But first there was a considerable kerfuffle as the stage was rearranged to accommodate TWO large orchestras at once :-) This took a while, and when the players all came back on there were still a few empty seats - but unlike with the audience, this was a GOOD thing, as it meant that even more players would be appearing for the finale! As it was, they were extremely squashed - much more so on the cello side than the violin side, for some reason - but when they started to play, the sound was... well, "not squashed" would be putting it mildly. Wow!

Before that, though, we got our big moment - yes, we'd already sung the Brahms in the first half, but that was with the orchestra. MUCH bigger deal to sing a cappella - and, remember, from memory! And not only that - the Hallé Orchestra have heard us frequently and recently, but the BBC Phil hadn't for years (and we know they think we're rubbish, because they invite choirs from all over the place to sing with them rather than ask a choir that is based in the SAME HALL as them...) So it was kind of an extra challenge to sing well in front of them. And I think we did - they seemed impressed, at any rate :-)

After that, our participation was over, but we got to sit there and witness the bit everyone had been waiting for - both orchestras playing together. They started with several of the Enigma Variations, ending with Nimrod. We'd all been wondering who would conduct the combined orchestras - Mark Elder (Hallé prinicpal conductor) or Sir Edward Downes (BBC Phil ditto). General consensus was that Mark would certainly conduct the Enigma, as he's an Elgar specialist (he's partway through recording the entire Elgar catalogue with the Hallé) and therefore Sir Edward would conduct the finale (Jupiter from The Planets). Mark did indeed come on to conduct the Elgar, so I wasn't surprised to see that although the players were all sitting in pairs (one from each orchestra) the BBC Phil players had taken the "upper" seats (BBC Phil string players were sitting nearer to the audience, wind players sitting nearer to the centre, etc.). I figured that when the BBC Phil guy was conducting, the Hallé would have the top seats. Seemed fair enough.

Well, the sound was predictably fabulous - so rich, especially the strings. (When they got to Nimrod, a woman sitting near the choir began to sob uncontrollably - although she seemed to be smiling - and had to be hugged throughout.) But then it was the finale. Before the conductor came on, though, there was what someone described as "a bit of a do-si-do" as the entire orchestra stood up and every player swapped places with their neighbour. It was unintentionally hilarious, particularly as most people hadn't expected it :-) Then, when they were all seated, the rest of the wind and brass came on - that weren't needed in the Elgar - and filled the remaining seats. The excitement level went up a notch at this point. The example of the trumpets may illustrate why - occasionally the Hallé (and, presumably, the BBC Phil) will do a piece (usually Mahler) that requires more than three trumpets, but the extra ones would be hired specially for the occasion to supplement the three permanent trumpeters. But tonight we had six "permanent" trumpeters. It does make a difference, believe me.

And then the conductor came on, and we were all surprised (but delighted) that it was Mark again - and, needless to say, he gave an inspirational speech, and we love it when he does that :-) We love it even more when he conducts Jupiter, because he conducts the middle bit (the "I vow to thee, my country" tune) with just his eyebrows. Seriously. I'd seen him do it once before, and I have to admit I thought he was having a heart attack. (I've heard them play Jupiter loads of times, but usually from offstage where I've been standing waiting to sing in Neptune. But on this one occasion, we were out of town and the local choir was singing that bit, so we got to watch.) He conducted the rest of it as normal, but when it got to that bit he lowered his arms and shut his eyes. I thought he'd been taken ill and was amazed that the orchestra continued playing. Only when he raised his baton again at the climax did I realise it was intentional. And since then I've been dying to see him do it again!

Well, he did just the same, and it was even more impressive this time because he was risking it with an orchestra that not only had he never conducted before today, but (more crucially) hadn't played together before today. (It says a lot for the musicianship of both sets of players that it worked.) But even that wasn't the best bit. I was watching the trumpets throughout. This was because it had occurred to me, as they took their places, how impressive the sound of all six playing at once would be. (I tend to notice the trumpets more than the rest of the orchestra because I'm invariably sitting right behind them.) So I was eagerly awaiting the moment when this happened. But this had clearly been carefully planned - by a GENIUS (probably Mark, but it might not have been) - because although at any given moment four of them might be playing, it was never the same four, and the only point when all six (and, indeed, the entire orchestra) played AT THE SAME TIME was the very last line of the piece - the last six notes. And... WOW. It felt as if the sound doubled in volume. And it hadn't exactly been quiet before that! I suspect it will be a while before I hear a sound as impressive as that again.

At the end of the concert (i.e. a few seconds after this amazing outburst) there was a standing ovation. Now, we do get a few people standing from time to time - I'd estimate that on our best nights ever there've been maybe a quarter of the audience on their feet. And that's rare - it's usually a handful, if any. But tonight EVERYONE stood up. Within a minute or two. I've never experienced anything like it. And although I think it was probably mainly due to those last six bars, in which my only role was to sit there and grin, it was great to have been a part of the event as a whole :-)

NOW they tell us!

Didn't go to choir tonight - I had a ticket for United v Chelsea (great game apart from the result, but that's another story). Just before setting off for the game I opened this morning's mail and found a letter from Naomi confirming arrangements for tomorrow (tsunami gig) including the fact that we are now doing the Rachmaninov Ave Maria as well as the Brahms. Not a problem in itself. But I got a text from Alison during the game informing me that we're doing it FROM MEMORY! Great. Would've been good to know this last week. Or even IN THE LETTER THAT WAS ONLY SENT YESTERDAY. If it'd been mentioned in the letter, I could've stuck it on my iPod and learned it while queuing for a tram. As it is I don't know when I'll be able to learn it. Falling asleep now, and during the day at work isn't an option (there's never a spare minute in a special school). So on the train tomorrow is the only chance I'll have - I just hope it'll stick quickly.

"Otherwise we'll only hear the sopranos, and that can only be a bad thing..."

Alto sectional tonight. Got a lot done as usual, but it was slightly frustrating because (a) I pointed out the bar-from-By-And-By-that-everyone-is-getting-wrong to Jamie, but he didn't rehearse it, just drew people's attention to it. (I only realised tonight that there's a misprint in one of its appearances - felt a bit stupid not to have examined it more closely before, given the amount of time it's been annoying me!) So I'm pretty sure the problem will still exist next time we rehearse it. Oh well. Oh, and (b) we STILL didn't do "Go Down Moses" :-(

Many amusing moments though, although as usual you probably had to be there... The above quote is from Jamie (although I'm sure he'll deny it!) and was uttered on page 21 of "The Music Makers" (I write these things in my score so that they may amuse me for longer :p). He also invented a word - he told us to "singerate" a long F, and the scary part is that we all knew exactly what he meant...

His phrase of the night was "the loudest... you've ever sung" - on page 12 it was "the loudest Bb you've ever sung", followed by "the loudest D you've ever sung" on page 26 and "the loudest C you've ever sung" on page 23 - and there were more! Oh, and it became apparent when we got onto the Spirituals that the BFBABTEIGW isn't the only one TEIGW... the repeated phrase in "Nobody Knows" is all over the place. Not sure what everyone's singing for the 3rd note, but it's not a C!

Tsunami appeal gig update

So it seems that this concert, which was only put together last week, is completely sold out, and it sold like no other event the Bridgewater Hall has ever staged - the box office apparently had queues eight or nine deep at every window all weekend. They've sold so many tickets that they're not even having both choirs onstage throughout - the youth choir are going on first, and then processing off after singing their bit, so that the adult choir can sit in the same seats. (They do usually sell the unused choir seats for popular concerts, but they don't make the choirs share seats...)

I'm a bit disappointed with our contribution - at the request of Mark (Elder), we're doing the 4th movement of the Brahms German Requiem. The work as a whole is of course wonderful, but that is my least favourite movement from it by a long way. Oh well. (We wanted to do the Ave Maria from the Rach Vespers but Mark preferred the Brahms. Also, one or more of the Tippett spirituals would have been lovely if we'd had time to get them really good. I'd love to know how the management would've reacted to us doing "Deep River" :p ) Still, we do get to see most of the concert, including the Hallé and the BBC Phil playing together on the same stage for the first time ever (I think).

Tonight's rehearsal was fun - Jamie is back from wherever he was last week. Spent most of the time on the Elgar, again - we are all so looking forward to performing and recording this piece; it's so wonderful, yet hardly any of the choir knew it (including me). Of course there's the usual Catch 22 of recording an unfamiliar piece - of course you want a CD to listen to while you're learning it, despite knowing it's a waste of money ultimately because you're going to record the definitive version!

Also did "By and By" again - not much better than last week, and the altos are still all getting the repeated notes wrong on "I'm gonna lay down". Grrr. Hopefully tomorrow's sectional will sort that though. And I was most amused by Jamie demonstrating how he wants the word "load" to be sung. Apparently it involves an elbow movement (like Nigel's James Brown Random 9ths... long story...) and a feeling of extreme heaviness, although my amusement was mainly due to being reminded of Hoggy doing his Sam impression from ROTK ("I could 'elp you carry it, Mr Frodo! Share the looooad!")

Still no "Go Down Moses", sadly, but we did get a run through "Deep River", and we finished with one sing through of the Brahms, which will be fine. Oh, and we got unexpected expenses from the Hanley gig, and United finally beat Exeter :-)

So, this seemed like a good idea a couple of hours ago...

We had a very entertaining rehearsal tonight. Well, they're usually entertaining, but there's not always as much giggling and, well, smut as there was tonight :-)

It started during the warmup, when Maggie (vocal coach) seemed unable to say anything that didn't make everyone smirk. Of course I can't remember any of it now (well, there may have been a mention of going down on the altos and basses, but the rot had set in long before that!)

Spent most of the rehearsal on the middle bit of The Music Makers (Elgar). Some tricky stuff, but it'll be fine after a few goes at it. Nice to have quotations from Enigma and Gerontius (the piece was written in 1912, after both of those), but unfortunately the "our souls" section will never again be sung with a straight face after Fanny (standing in for Jamie) said "Now, speaking of the basses... Our Souls". It took a while before one half of the choir realised why the other half was giggling... Yes, we are easily amused :-)

Then onto a quick look at two of the Tippett spirituals (Steal Away and By and By). They're not my favourites of the five (I like Go Down Moses best, particularly after we discovered last week that the 2nd altos have several good bits that we don't have in the Child Of Our Time version) but of course all five are lovely. It was all complicated by the tiny printing and the confusion caused by the German words and alternative rhythms, and the fact that most people apparently hadn't bothered to go through and mark which line they were on, despite getting lost last week. But some progress was made, notably by the sopranos and basses, who are now actually singing the verse bits in By and By. (It took several goes before they could be heard.)

Finished with a sing-through of the Elgar with Maggie singing the alto solo part. It was great, although sadly we ran out of time and didn't get to the end. Came out to discover that United hadn't managed to beat Chelsea, but at least they hadn't embarrassed themselves as they did on Saturday. And I forget at what point in the rehearsal it occurred to me that it would be fun to have a choir blog, but it did :-)

(The choir website is here. Must update that sometime.)