In the dead of night, all the world lay sleeping in the blanket of the dark

I've had the subject line of this post in my head for the last three days nonstop. Brownie points if you know what song it's from!

We've had three carol concerts now, with the last one to come tonight. They've been quite fun - not as silly as in previous years, but never mind. Actually, the second and third concerts were much more fun than the first, after we were exhorted to be more festive - I think we rose to the challenge! The orchestra did too - the second concert saw the welcome return of both the moving Santa hat on the second desk of the 2nd violins, and the brass standing up for their jazzy solo in Sleigh Ride; the third concert saw the horns standing, at last, to interrupt Sleigh Ride with a line of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (Sleigh Ride just sounds WRONG without that!)



The choir was quite depleted on Sunday - partly due to illness, partly due to people who'd always had other plans, and partly due to the extreme weather conditions. I can't remember the last time I saw so much snow in the city centre. This probably affected the audience too - there were lots of empty seats (rare for the carol concerts) and lots of people arrived late. A few of the orchestra were delayed as well - in fact the organist didn't arrive until the second half, so the first verse of Once in Royal had to be played on the piano.

Amy wins the prize for the most dedication to the spirit of Christmas, by the way - she left her sleighbells on her seat on Saturday night and they'd vanished when she went back for them fifteen minutes later... so she went out on Sunday morning and BOUGHT SOME MORE (from a shop I've never heard of, but it sounds lovely: Little Nut Tree Toys of Chorlton). There were quite a few sets of sleighbells being used by the alto section, in fact - I must try and get a photo of all of them together!

My favourite part of the concert (apart from Sleigh Ride, which is always great) was the bit when the Children's Choir was singing Babe of Bethlehem by Edmund Walters, and everyone else was asked to hum Away in a Manger in the last verse. It was a magical moment. I noticed that all the brass players (who don't play in that piece) were humming along too, with contented looks on their faces. Lovely!

There's been some debate in the alto section over which is the cutest member of the Children's Choir. We're torn between the dark-haired boy on the end of the front row, and the blondish bespectacled boy in the middle of the third row. Both of them are so engaged with their performance that it's difficult to look away from either of them. (The others in the choir are all great too, but these two are the ones who've caught our eye.)

The Youth Choir are sounding really good, too - in fact, better than they've sounded in years. There are fewer of them than there used to be, but they're really good. (Quality rather than quantity is our unofficial 2nd alto motto - on Sunday afternoon there were seven 2nd altos and twenty-three 1sts. Usually there are more of both, but the ratio is usually about the same - three times as many firsts as seconds.)

I didn't realise until yesterday that Petroc Trelawny, our presenter, has a blog on the Telegraph website. Looking back a few entries, I found a great post he wrote about our very own orchestra.

Talking of great posts, here's one by Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) about the connection between singing and our sense of self. It mentions the Alzheimer's Choir that Amy told me about the other day, plus all sorts of interesting related things.

On a similar subject, here's a BBC News article about how stroke patients were helped by Kenny Rogers songs.

And here's a fascinating one from the BBC News Magazine, about several unusual carol singing traditions in various parts of the UK.

A Telegraph article tells us why Christmas carols make the church feel nervous.

From Tom Service, news that the British Library has put parts of the autograph score of Messiah online. It didn't work when I tried it, though, so I lost interest.

Here's an article from BBC Music Magazine about how audiences are different in different countries.

The MEN tells us that both the Manchester Boys' Choir and the Manchester Girls' Choir have ceased to exist because the council will no longer fund them. The official reason is falling numbers (the girls' choir apparently only had six members), which makes it all the more impressive that our own children's choir had more than eighty members on stage this weekend at each concert. I wondered for a moment whether those two facts are connected, but I think the MBC and MGC were shrinking long before our children's choir was formed.

The MEN also tells us that the new yellow tram is now in operation. I'm quite excited about this - sad, I know!

I mentioned the Duel in the Pool that took place in Manchester this weekend. Unsurprisingly the USA won overall, but a local guy beat Michael Phelps!

I absolutely love this post (from Making Light) about the Christmas lights of Mousehole.

I also love the Astronomy Picture of the Day from Saturday - an aurora AND a meteor.

And finally, in case I don't get round to writing again in time, don't forget the NORAD Santa Tracker on Christmas Eve (especially if your kids have never seen it) and the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race on Boxing Day. And if the days start to merge into one another, Is It Christmas? will help :-)

It's the last posting date today!

For second class post, anyway. I'm sure you all knew that and have already sent all your cards. I haven't, but maybe I will before the end of the day.

There's been a lot of singing for me in the past week. Saturday was the day of the two Pleiades gigs (one in Bury for FC United, closely followed by one at the Henry Watson Music Library). There were complicated plans, not only because we only had an hour between the two gigs and had to get from Bury to Manchester in that time, but also because Alison couldn't make it to Bury (and possibly not to the library either) so we had Amy standing in for her. There was also a possibility that Claire wouldn't be able to make it to the library. And there was the fact that part of the Bury gig was outdoors, with no possibility of cover, which meant that if it rained we could probably still sing (if there was an umbrella to stop our music getting wet) but we wouldn't be able to use our guitarist for fear of wrecking his guitar. So I had several different set lists planned - two for Bury (a fair weather one and a rain one) and three for the library (one for if Claire could make it - that list included the ones with the highest sop parts), one for if either Claire OR Alison could make it (there was one song in which Claire's part was vital but not very high, so Alison could sing it if Claire wasn't there, because Amy was still singing Alison's part) and a third for if neither Claire nor Alison could make it.

As it turned out, of course - and I should have expected it, because something like this ALWAYS happens - all five lists had to be scrapped, because on the day Amy woke up with a sore throat and no voice. This meant that some songs had to be left out entirely, and most of the others involved a bit of part-swapping so that all the parts were still covered. But it wasn't as complicated as it might sound to rearrange everything, because I know all the arrangements inside out, so I actually had the new instructions finished before I changed buses in Rochdale. The Bury gig went very well (although it was almost as cold inside the clubhouse as it was outside - Bury FC had turned the heating off for some reason) and we managed to get to the library with ten minutes to spare. By then, there was a new problem - my revised library set list relied on Alison to get there, but she texted twenty minutes before our slot was due to start, to say that she was stuck in traffic in Altrincham. We could still do most of the songs by using the same voice allocations that we'd had in Bury, but there were a couple that had too many parts. They were both towards the end of the set, and as it turned out Alison got there JUST in time for them. In fact, the only thing that went even slightly wrong during the library set was that Nigel started "This Little Babe" at a speed of about crotchet = 3000, and he was concentrating so hard on playing the right chords at the right time that it was impossible to slow him down. We just about managed to keep up, but an accurate description of the lyrics would be "babbled", I think! Not to worry.

Sunday featured a totally different style of singing - I was helping out Susan Oates by singing in the Oldham Hulme Grammar School for Boys carol service. There were six of us forming the alto section, including my friend Lindsey, whose nephew Aidan turned out to be the treble soloist in Once in Royal David's City (and he did it very beautifully). Lindsey's normally a soprano, and she says she now understands why the altos tend to get things right - she hadn't realised that so many of our parts consist of the same note all the way through!

Wednesday was the piano rehearsal for the carol concerts, and it went well, although there was a bit of a surprise when we arrived to find that And the Glory of the Lord (from Messiah) was on the programme, and we were supposed to be rehearsing it that very night... but we hadn't been told it was on the programme, so none of us had brought our Messiah scores. This was actually really good, because the conductor decided it was worth rehearsing it anyway on the grounds that we probably knew it from memory - and it turned out we did! I think a lot of people were quite surprised at how much they knew, and how good it sounded - and the conductor seemed VERY impressed. I don't think there are many choirs that could have done that, with no warning!

This weekend includes an orchestral rehearsal plus three concerts, with the final concert being on Tuesday. I look forward to seeing whether the silliness matches the standards of previous years!

The first of this week's links is the Manchester Evening News story about Pat - make sure you "view gallery" to see all the pictures.

Judy Paskell had a lodger a few years ago - a singer called Ron Samm. She's kept in touch with him since, and on Saturday she went to see him take the lead role in Otello in Birmingham. I was sure she must have been mistaken when she told me that he was the first black singer to take the role in the UK, but she is absolutely correct. The reviews are great, but do get Judy to describe the experience to you if you get a chance - it sounds amazing. In the meantime, here's a Guardian review, and an extra report from Tom Service, and a Times review, and news (from Intermezzo) that there is to be a TV programme about it.

Talking of opera, I was very surprised to learn that Nikolaus Harnoncourt - one of the mainstays of the historically informed performance movement - has recorded Porgy and Bess. (No reason why he shouldn't - it just seems odd!)

And here's a great Spectator article about various modes of transport used within operas.

Also in the Spectator, Peter Phillips discusses whether or not there is still any need for the term early music.

Tom Service discusses baton sizes.

It seems that El Sistema (the Venezuelan music education system) has begun in England, but you'll be shocked - SHOCKED! - to hear that the organisers are worried about spending cuts.

I'm sure most of you knew this, but if not: While Shepherds Watched used to be sung to the tune of On Ilkley Moor.

I really like this Spectator article about how music can help dementia sufferers.

ChoralBlog has a post that includes a spoof video imagining what musicologists might be able to say about the Beatles in a thousand years' time. The video didn't do much for me, but I found Allen's accompanying comments very thought-provoking - what he says is obvious, but I hadn't ever considered it in quite that way before.

You are probably aware of the current chart battle for the Christmas number one single (if you haven't, the short version is that some people have started a campaign to prevent the X-Factor winner from being the Christmas number one, by urging people to buy a specific different single). Freaky Trigger has an interesting post discussing this.

I've often linked to The Big Picture. This week they've published a selection of 120 of their best photos of 2009. Part 1 is here, and there are links at the end to parts 2 and 3. Spectacular as ever.

The Guardian has a list of some of the new words that have emerged over the past decade. I've never heard of most of these! How about you?

BBC News has some interesting comparisons between British and American chocolate. (I hadn't realised there were ANY differences, but then I've only been to the USA once, and that was over ten years ago.)

I mentioned a London quiz a few posts ago - here are the answers.

I also mentioned "Brick Factor" Lego auditions - well, they had a winner.

It looks as if Manchester will get Oyster cards after all! Yay!

And finally, this report of the recent world pie-eating contest amused me a LOT.

It is our duty to sparkle a little

Singing has been very helpful this week - a welcome distraction from a few very bad days (that included a broken-down boiler AND a repossession letter). Tonight was a frantic (but, as always, fun) rehearsal with my band, which has two gigs this Saturday afternoon and therefore thirty songs to rehearse. Needless to say, there wasn't time to rehearse any of them as thoroughly as we would have liked, but none of the songs are new, so I'm sure we'll be fine. Current favourites: the Carols for Choirs 4 a cappella version of Deck the Hall, and my own a cappella arrangement of 2000 Miles. But we also had fun doing This Little Babe (one to a part, plus guitar) and the old favourites such as Lonely This Christmas and Merry Xmas Everybody. You can hear all of these (and more) at the Henry Watson Music Library on Saturday from 4pm. (The event starts at 2pm, and you can also see City of Manchester Opera and the Cavendish Singers.)

Choir on Wednesday night was almost as frantic, because of course there were many Christmas carols (plus a bit of the Christmas Oratorio) to learn in time for next week's concerts. There was also an extra presentation to Pat for her fifty years in the choir - she got quite a few surprises, and when she said "what a pity you couldn't give me Willard White", it turned out that they'd managed to get a signed photo from him, dedicated to her! Very impressive. Also there were some excellent cupcakes!

The most amusing bit of the rehearsal was definitely the Jingle Bells argument - there's a bit in verse 2 where the ladies are supposed to sing a couple of lines, but in the past the men have done it while we whoop and shout "yee-ha!" etc. After much discussion, that's the way it will happen this year :-) I was also very amused, however, by Ding Dong Merrily - when this was announced, there was a sigh of relief, because the choir knows that one VERY well... but it turned out to be a version we'd never done before, and everyone had to rapidly go into sight-reading mode. I'm not sure quite why this was so funny, but it amused me for hours.

Anyway, a few links. I mentioned Glee a while ago (that new American TV series about a high school choir). Well, the pilot episode is on E4 on Tuesday, so you can see what all the fuss is about, with the rest of the series in the new year. I've seen twelve episodes of it, and I've found it quite silly but occasionally fun (especially the one where they use a Beyonce song to help the football team...)

Most of you will have seen by now that there was a review for our Messiah - pity it has a few errors, but it's a good review despite them.

But this cracked me up - a condensed version of Messiah. Sample: Lift up your heads, O ye gates / And be ye lifted up, ye doors / Unless you are the sort / That are on hinges / In which case / You can open / Normally. Hee!

This story from Intermezzo about Nathan Gunn introduced me to the concept of barihunks. (There's even a blog devoted to them!) Intriguing.

Tom Service has a great review of the decade in classical music which mentions our orchestra. He also tells us that Simon Rattle and the Berlin Phil are coming to London in 2011.

Talking of the Berlin Phil, Intermezzo drew my attention to an article in The Scotsman that mentions how much it costs to book them. See if you can guess before you look!

Great article on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Blog about the standard of Scottish compositions compared to Czech ones.

From ChoralBlog, news of the choral nominees for the 2010 Grammy Awards. I think we've already beaten at least one of them to a major award :-)

A nice thing in the BBC Music Magazine about how church choirs are not just for Christmas.

And, the plans for a Royal Opera House in the North are moving again. (More about this here.)

There will be a load of swimmers that even I've heard of (e.g. Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington) in Manchester next weekend, for something called Duel in the Pool. We'll all be singing carols at the time, but it's on TV if you want to watch.

I've seen all sorts of stories about this: a weird spiral in the sky over Norway. Seems to be genuine - I wonder which theory is correct?

There's going to be a festival in Manchester in 2012 to celebrate Alan Turing. About time.

I'm amused by this use of a waxwork of Robert Downey Jr on the London Underground. And, while we're on the subject of London, Londonist has a quiz to see how well you know London.

And finally, apparently redheads can get free travel in Wigan!

It's witchcraft!

Well, yesterday's Messiah was one of the most memorable yet, although not for musical reasons. I hasten to add that I don't mean to suggest it wasn't good musically - I thought it went very well, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. And so did I! It did have the one Messiah feature that I love the most, which is that the Hallelujah chorus was done properly, and just about the whole audience stood up without anyone patronisingly asking them to. Yay!

The soloists were great, too - all four of them. True, it was a countertenor instead of an alto AGAIN, but at least it was a very good one (Iestyn Davies - and I see from his website that he has several more Messiahs to do before Christmas). We also had Sarah Fox (soprano), Benjamin Hulett (tenor) and Derek Welton (baritone).

So why was it memorable OTHER than for the music? Several reasons. First of all, there was the whole falling-off-the-stage thing! This happened TWICE in two days... and it's possible that I might have CAUSED the second incident, with the power of my mind... On Friday, you see, when we rehearsed at the BBC, Margery fell off the stage just before the rehearsal started. I'm not sure exactly how, because I WASN'T ANYWHERE NEAR HER AT THE TIME (I just want to stress that, in view of what happened the next morning...) - I was actually walking into the hall with Dr Liz when the alarm was raised and people dashed out looking for Dr Liz. Luckily Margery was OK - she was just a bit sore, I think. She stayed for the rest of the rehearsal, but sadly didn't come to the concert.

The next morning, we had a rehearsal in the Bridgewater Hall. I was very excited when I saw the seating plan and realised that I'd been put on the end of a row. I absolutely LOVE being on the end of the row, so needless to say I hardly ever am! (Someone asked me at some point WHY I love it so much, and I couldn't give a definitive answer. But it's something to do with not feeling enclosed, I think. I hate crowds.) My excitement was short-lived, though, because Lindsey had a bad cough and wanted to sit on the end so that she could go out with less fuss if necessary. Of course I agreed, but in my head I couldn't help thinking "Oh well. But maybe her cough will get worse before tonight... or something else will happen that means she won't be here". Immediately I was horrified with myself for thinking this, but while I was still on the "I'm a bad person" thought, Lindsey only went and fell off the stage as well! And it was much more dramatic than Margery's fall, because Lindsey's chair went over the edge (she hadn't realised how little room there was, and I think she must have just moved her chair slightly until one side of it was balanced on nothing but air). She fell - with the chair - down three fairly steep steps, and hit the floor quite hard. And, alarmingly, there was quite a bit of blood spilled.

It wasn't as serious as it looked, thankfully, although it's probably just as well that Dr Liz and various other medical people were very near (actually, when Margery fell, even though she ASKED for Dr Liz, there were so many other concerned people gathered around when she arrived that she couldn't actually get near Margery!) Lindsey walked away - with help - and went to hospital to have stitches and checkups. But of course I felt INCREDIBLY guilty! I knew I hadn't really caused Lindsey to fall, but the timing of everything was just spooky. It all worked out for both of us, though, because she recovered in time to come and sing in the concert - and she insisted that I sit on the end. And I didn't fall off the stage \o/

If that had been the only incident, it would already have been the most memorable Messiah in years. But we had a huge surprise at the start of the concert. We were onstage, the orchestra had tuned up, the lights had dimmed slightly - we were just awaiting the conductor and soloists. But instead, our Music Director walked on. This was unprecedented, at a concert in which he wasn't involved. I wondered whether someone had died, or we'd just won some major award in the previous ten minutes, or something... but no. He hastened to reassure us that he was there only to bring good news - and he proceeded to make a lovely speech about Pat, one of our sopranos, who's been in the choir for FIFTY YEARS. He also gave her a commemorative brooch. It turned out that the concert was dedicated to her, and it said so in the front of the programme. Which explains why we weren't given programmes during the warmup as we usually are! Anyway, it was a lovely surprise, not least to Pat, who was as baffled as everyone else when he appeared. (The awards for long service are usually presented in orchestral rehearsals, but there's never been a fifty-year one before!)

Only a few links to share with you today, because I cleared my list on Friday.

There are still reviews appearing for the ENO Messiah, and the Independent actually has two - I think the first reviewer liked it rather more than the second one!

The New York Times has more information about the iPhone Orchestra I mentioned the other day.

From the Front of the Choir has a very interesting post about why basses get confused. It's not quite so relevant to basses who can read music, but several of the points he makes are valid whether they're reading music or not.

I found, quite by accident, a helpful page on the Manchester City Council website (I know! The shock!) which has details of all the Christmas attractions in the city centre.

And finally, I promised to list my most useful iPhone apps. I won't describe any of these in detail, because the links take you to iTunes pages that do that for me. However, if you want to ask me further questions about any of them, please do. (All of these are free, apart from two of them, which I'll indicate.)

My favourite iPhone apps

Music-related (in order of usefulness):

MiniPiano

Metronome

FourTrack (£5.99)

Shazam

SleighBells 3D

Santa's Sleigh Bells

Bravo Gustavo


Non-musical:

Air Sharing (£2.99)

Free Translator

thetrainline

Sudoku (Free)

Sky+


And, last but not least, the best one of all is part of the built-in software (i.e. you don't have to download it specially): Voice Memos. The recording quality (using the built-in mic) is unbelievable, and transferring the recording to your computer is no hassle at all - it does it automatically when you connect to iTunes. When I was voiceless in the last couple of rehearsals before The Kingdom, I recorded the orchestra and choir on my phone using this app, and emailed the results to a few choir friends (I don't have the recordings any longer, so don't ask me for them - it was just an experiment), and they were all rather impressed with the quality, given that it had been recorded on a phone. So, if you've been considering buying some recording equipment... just get an iPhone instead :-)

Mahler 8 is already sold out!

I'm quite shocked about this. Well, not really, because I knew it would sell out early, but the concert's not until 2nd May! Of course I've been telling people about it for months, and encouraging them to buy their tickets ASAP, but neither my mum nor my best friend had got round to it yet, so neither of them will be there, although they were both keen. (I've told them to pester the box office for returns, but I suspect they won't.) Oh well.

In the meantime, this week it's all Messiah, with a bit of other Christmas stuff. More on Messiah in a minute, but before I forget: good news! The Henry Watson Music Library, which (you may recall) cancelled its Christmas Music Day because it was due to close for refurbishment this month, has been persuaded to UNcancel the event now that the closure has been postponed. It's possible that I might have had something to do with this :-) Anyway, it will be on a smaller scale than in previous years, and I'm not sure who else will be there, but Pleiades will be performing at 4pm on Saturday 12th December. Come and see us - there will be mince pies!

Earlier in the day, we'll be singing at Gigg Lane before the FC United game. We did this last year and it was great fun, although I don't think I've ever been so cold. Several extra layers of socks will be in use this year! If you're around, you will be able to hear my arrangement of The Twelve Days of Cantona, with its totally ridiculous descant.

The Messiah gig is tomorrow night, and I'm off to catch the bus to the orchestral rehearsal shortly. But first, a load of links, many of which are Messiah-related.

From The Chorister, news of how someone used the Hallelujah Chorus to escape from a toilet.

Lots of stuff about the recent ENO Messiah, which I've mentioned before. Classical Iconoclast has a review and a discussion about how best to stage the piece. Intermezzo also has a review (this one includes the word "turkey" - you may be able to guess the gist of it...) The Classical Source was a bit more impressed. The Guardian didn't like the visual aspect. I was going to link you to the FT review, but they've recently made changes to their website that restrict how many times you can look at stuff, and I can no longer see it!

Via ChoralNet, a great article about the history of Messiah from the Smithsonian Magazine.

In the Spectator, Kate Chisholm talks a bit about Messiah but mainly about a recent episode of The Choir.

An AMAZINGLY useful article from The Chorister, about how to tell the difference between different voice parts. It even has video clips. And it taught me something - I'd never heard of the term "oktavist" until I read that post.

Via ChoralNet, an interesting post about the fact that lots of professional classical musicians are so miserable and/or pessimistic.

Maggie told me yesterday about the British Voice Association. There's some interesting stuff on their website, such as this page devoted to voice care.

Via my friend Chris Atherton, a theory about a possible biological link between music and speech, specifically to do with major and minor scales. I'm far from convinced by this, but if I start explaining why, I will miss my bus. Short version of my argument: major scales include both major and minor intervals, and so do minor scales. So if they're just looking at INTERVALS there shouldn't be any significant difference whether the music is in a major or minor key. (It's possible, of course, that I read the article too fast and misunderstood what they are claiming, in which case I apologise.)

Interesting article from the Guardian about singing out of tune.

Via Tom Service, Bachtrack have created a classical-music-event-finding app for the iPhone. Bachtrack provide a very useful service even if you DON'T have an iPhone - go and look at their website if you haven't before. (Sadly they don't have any of OUR concerts listed, but I don't have the authority to do anything about that.)

Talking of iPhones, a group of students has created an orchestra out of different iPhone apps. (I must do a list sometime of which musical iPhone apps I use - there are a few!)

Classic FM have a poll for the nation's favourite Christmas carol - is yours on the list? (The Darke version of In the Bleak Midwinter always seems to win these things, but I'm SO sick of it. I much prefer the Holst version.)

Via ChoralNet, a fascinating (and slightly disgusting) video called "Glottal Opera".

I was fascinated to see that there were auditions in Manchester last week for expert Lego artists - Brick Factor!

Via BoingBoing, an interesting account of a meal in the dark at a San Francisco restaurant.

From NASA's Earth Observatory, a photo of a lake with blue-green algae. Not particularly newsworthy - I'm just fascinated by the picture!

Most of you will be aware that ID cards are now available in Manchester, but have you seen one close up? Here's a photo of one. (Unlike many people, I have no real problem with the CONCEPT of ID cards, but I lost interest when I found they were going to cost money!)

A card which WOULD be useful, though, is a Manchester Oyster Card. Manchester Confidential updates us on the plans. (Anyone who EVER travels to London and doesn't have an Oyster card is insane, by the way. Get one immediately. It will save you lots of time AND money.)

The John Rylands Library is cooking medieval food.

If you haven't been past the Band on the Wall this week, you won't have seen their Giant Graphic Equaliser. Go and look!

An interesting report from Snopes (always the best place to check the truth of urban legends) about whether or not hand-driers cause disease. I've heard people argue passionately both ways, so it's good to see some facts.

I'm not planning to buy a games console any time soon, but if you are, you will find this Guardian article invaluable.

Via the Big Picture, the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Fabulous.

And finally, the best seventeen seconds of your day so far: Surprised Kitty.

If he delight in him

More Messiah this week, plus we tried a couple of things for the carol concerts. I actually quite like the sense of panic at this time of year (you know, the "so many concerts, so little rehearsal time" thing). And, just to be clear, I do love Messiah - that is, the piece itself. I like performing it - I just hate the rehearsals for it! I could write a long list of my favourite things about the actual piece. Top of that list would be the start of the Hallelujah Chorus, IF the audience stands uninvited (I hate it when the conductor patronisingly stands them!). (I realised last night that I like this SO much that I actually get a thrill when I turn a page in my score and see that we've reached "Thou shalt break them", because I know that "Hallelujah" is next!)

Also high on my favourites would be: 2. "He trusted in God", if done properly (i.e. with a true Lucius Malfoy sneer); 3. the bass part on the last page of the Amen Chorus; 4. the chords at the beginning of "Thy rebuke"; 5. the fast bit in "But who may abide" (unless they've annoyed me by getting a countertenor instead of a female alto, which seems to happen most years now). (I have no problem with the EXISTENCE of countertenors - although I've never heard one whose voice I've really liked - but it annoys me that there are already fewer opportunities for alto soloists than sopranos, so it doesn't help if countertenors take some of them. I realise this is a bit unfair of me, but I can't help it.)

But that's all in the performance, which isn't until a week on Saturday. My favourite bit of this week's REHEARSAL was right at the end, when we sight-read a bit of the Christmas Oratorio that was new to me - I do love sight reading, and sight reading Bach is more fun than most. Hint to people who find sight reading difficult - well, I've given lots of hints before (you can download some of them from the link on the right), but the single top tip would be: LOOK AHEAD MORE. I was HUGELY amused to see that there was an alto entry immediately after a page turn, and a large number of altos didn't come in because they didn't turn their page until the first barline on the page had already happened. But then I have to admit that when I get bored in a rehearsal because it's a bit where I'm not singing, I like to watch the rest of the choir to see which people turn their pages early and which people turn very late. I find it VERY illuminating.

It turns out that the Manchester Evening News did have a review of our Nocturnes gig - they just took ages to put it on their website.

From a website I've only just discovered - Muso - here's an article about routes into conducting. It includes comments from our ex-choral director. (Pity that the Muso website doesn't seem to have any RSS feeds - that's remiss of them. It means I won't look at it unless I remember, unlike all the sites that DO have RSS feeds, so that I automatically know when they're updated.)

From Tom Service, here's an all-too-rare article about the impact that performing has on the performers.

Many of you will have heard of HC Robbins Landon. I feel slightly guilty that I hadn't actually realised he was still alive until I heard that he'd died. Anyway, Tom Service writes about him.

Talking of things I hadn't realised, another is that Elgar played the trombone - badly (and again Tom Service has more to say about this). If it hadn't been for this story, I wouldn't have paid much attention to the reviews of the recent period instrument performance of The Dream of Gerontius, featuring Elgar's own trombone. As it is, I can tell you that neither the Guardian nor the FT thought much of it, and that apparently (according to the FT review) Elgar is out of fashion in most of England.

I think I linked to a video of a "complaints choir" ages ago, but I've only just discovered that this is apparently now a worldwide phenomenon.

From The Chorister, a really great post about how upset we can get when we get a poor reaction to our singing. I can identify VERY strongly with this.

Via ChoralNet, an article about why everyone in the choir needs to attend rehearsals, however good they are.

Did you know that Halifax is now a minster town? If you've never visited the church in question, I recommend it - it's lovely.

National Geographic had a photography contest, and The Big Picture has some of the entries. Spectacular pictures.

I feel oddly angry that from December the Circle Line will no longer be a circle. (The Times is calling it a tadpole.) It just seems so wrong!

Lovers of the Yorkshire Dales will be delighted to learn that Grassington Moor and Malham Cove will both feature in the final Harry Potter films.

And, finally - I can't seem to make myself read this article properly, because it includes several words that automatically make me glaze over and start skimming, but I find myself fascinated by the table halfway down the page, which compares our use of TV to our use of the internet.

While Luzar and Jim have tea

Brownie points to anyone who knows what famous Christmas song contains the line above (without googling!) It's one of several for which I was working out chords yesterday.

It's Messiah season for the next two weeks, which makes lots of the choir very happy. I'm enjoying it about as much as usual (i.e. not very much at all), but at least it will soon be over. (It's a great piece - I just hate the rehearsals for it, for reasons I've explained in the past and don't plan to go into again. Sorry if you don't agree with me - I know I'm in a minority!)

For choir members that haven't sung it before, I've put mp3s of all the choruses online for you on my mp3 page.

I'm much more excited about Christmas carols and Christmas pop songs. I'm rehearsing with my band tomorrow, and I have four new songs (well, new only in that we haven't tried them before) to give them in addition to the fifty-five Christmas songs already in our repertoire. As usual the main problem will be deciding what to miss out!

Anyway, here's some stuff I've seen online recently. A few musical items, and then lots of Manchester-related news!

Over on ChoralNet, Allen H Simon wrote this article about candy music. I particularly liked the description of Bruckner and Mendelssohn as well-prepared vegetables.

I've mentioned the vuvuzela in the past - that's that trumpet that's very popular in South Africa. Well, it seems that Japan as asked for them to be banned from the World Cup! FIFA's comment is That would mean one would have to take away the cow bells from Swiss fans and ban English fans from singing. I like that they seem to consider our national instrument to be the voice.

Peter Phillips, in the Spectator, gives us an article about music expressing moods that is well worth reading but hard to describe briefly!

I'm amused to discover that Stairway to Heaven was popular with DJs because it's the perfect length for a cigarette break. And there are also toilet tracks.

From Intermezzo, news that a German chamber music group is to give a recital in a brothel.

This might be nice for any amateur guitarists among you: a guitar lesson based on Happy Xmas (War is Over) (another song I wrote out yesterday).

This will mean nothing to people who weren't at tonight's rehearsal, but I wanted to look up a couple of things that were mentioned. To save you doing the same, here's Ralph Allwood's website and his Wikipedia page, and a page about St Peter's Ancoats, and the newspaper article about it.

I'm sure you've all seen the news that Manchester Victoria, the station in which I've probably spent more time in my life than all other stations combined, has been named as the worst station in the UK. (More on this story here, here and here.)

Did you also see that we won the battle over the National Football Museum? And it turns out that the 2012 Olympics could actually start in Manchester. (The Londonist blog mocked us a bit for getting excited by this. I suspect they're probably just a bit jealous.)

Via the J-Walk Blog, fifteen Google interview questions to make you feel stupid. See if you can get ANY of them. I got three, which I was quite proud of. (There were several that I didn't even understand when I saw the ANSWER.)

And finally, here's a place I really want to visit: Galloway Forest Park.

Those duplets and triplets'll get them every time...

Busy few weeks, hence the very long gap between posts - sorry about that. I unexpectedly got three weeks of full-time work (back at RNID, covering for someone who was off sick) which happened to coincide with a busy time for the choir AND several of my part-time things all happening at once. The money is very helpful, and will allow me to pay a bit towards some bills that have been overdue for months, but it's been a very exhausting three weeks. Last night, with it finally over, I slept for seventeen hours nonstop, and now I feel great! Time to get back to all my other stuff. (Things have gradually started to improve lately - I'll explain at some point what I'm actually doing, but not now because this post will be long enough as it is!)

My to-do list for tonight includes a new a cappella arrangement of a Christmas song that I've had in my head all week, but I wanted to do a blog post first, if only because I realised I had more than fifty links to share with you! I'll get to them in a minute. But first, what's been happening with the choir? Well, I know I said I was looking forward to the new Matthews piece, but this positive attitude didn't last very long - it's really quite dreary so far. But we've only got the first part of it, so maybe it will get a bit more exciting in the bit we haven't seen yet.

We've also done a very small amount of Messiah, but mainly the last few weeks has been ladies only, rehearsing Debussy's Nocturnes, which we performed on Thursday night. I haven't seen any reviews yet, but I will post any that appear. (I was a bit outraged to find that the orchestra was repeating the Nocturnes in Nottingham last night, without us, until I noticed that they were only playing the first two movements, which we're not in. Pity though - I would have gone to Nottingham!)

I've done this piece a few times before, and it's always exciting because we are part of the orchestra (rather than being a separate entity) and actually sit on stage next to the instruments. In the past we've sat scattered around the stage, in pairs. I think I sat next to the clarinets last time. This time, there were too many of us for that to work, so we sat in two rows at the back of the stage. We did still sing seated, though, so it felt more as if we were orchestral players rather than a choir that stood up when it was about to sing. I sat behind the clarinets and bassoons, and enjoyed following their parts in the bits before we sang - we used to be able to do that in the Free Trade Hall, when I was usually behind the trumpets or trombones, but in the Bridgewater Hall choir seats we're much further away from the orchestra.

The always-few-in-number 2nd alto section did itself proud. Not that we don't always, but we felt very good about ourselves during this project! There were only eight of us, compared to the twenty-six 1st altos (although only twenty of them were there at the concert), but we kept drowning out the 1sts :-) And there was a bit where we had to sing stupidly high notes, while the 1st sopranos had two bars' rest, and plan B was for us to drop out and let the sops do it. But Plan A was the one that was used in the concert.

Our movement is called "Sirens", and there was much discussion of sirens during the rehearsals. (The Starbucks logo, often seen as a mermaid, is actually a siren - here's an article about how it's changed.) David (the guest choral director) had invented a very convincing (and useful) story about what the Sirens were actually doing in each phrase of the movement. It seems that the consensus is that sirens don't do what you might expect with the sailors once they've lured them - they actually eat them! However, the Wikipedia article suggests a few alternative versions of the legend.

Oh, and I almost forgot - Gianandrea Noseda was at the concert! We were very excited to see him with our principal conductor at the interval. I'm not sure I've EVER seen them in the same place at the same time before - it's great to see that they're friends, and even greater that he was at our concert when he wasn't even conducting it!

Debussy is over now (although I think I'll have that harp-and-muted-trumpet bit from the 2nd movement in my head for a while yet) and next week is Messiah and carols. Also I'm rehearsing Christmas stuff with my band on Thursday. Which reminds me - latest news on the Henry Watson Music Library is that Manchester City Council has changed its plans, and the library is currently NOT going to close in December. The closure has been put back to some unconfirmed date in 2010, probably June. So the library COULD have had their Christmas music day after all, but the librarians told me that the plans have changed so many times that it's still possible that anything might happen! They did also mention that when the new library reopens, in four years' time, it's likely that the music library will be on the ground floor. You heard it here first.

Anyway, are you ready for about a million links? (Well, fifty, anyway...)

First, a great 20-minute video from Itay Talgam about how conductors do what they do. My favourite bit is right at the end, when he shows Leonard Bernstein conducting with just his face, but it's all good stuff. (In fact, if you've never seen any other TED talks, I recommend you explore the site a bit - there's loads of good talks on there.)

One of the most useful sites I've found recently - Chordbook. It's mainly useful for guitarists, but I'm not a guitarist and I've found it invaluable, mainly when I've been working WITH a guitarist and I wanted him to play a chord he didn't know. This site tells you the guitar fingering for every chord you can think of, with or without capo.

Another site that some of you may find useful - mp3 accompanist. I offer mp3 accompaniments as a service myself, so I found this while I was researching the competition. Looks like a very handy site. (They have lots of mp3s ready to sell, whereas I currently only have a few, and I only do them as a sideline, because they take quite a long time to create. So I'm happy to promote this site.)

Here's a story about two churches whose congregations sing too loudly!

And I'm sure you saw the story about the shop assistant who was told she couldn't sing while working unless she had a licence.

From Tom Service, a heartwarming story about Cape Town Opera.

From Intermezzo, news that stagehands at Carnegie Hall get paid more than performers.

A Cappella News tells us that the Vienna Boys' Choir is to admit girls. (EDIT: Allen H Simon, the webmaster of ChoralNet, says this is not true. I must admit I thought it was odd that A Cappella News didn't include a link to their source...)

BBC Music Magazine points people towards downloadable resources for the Sing Hallelujah project.

I've never heard of the Gold Badge awards before, have you? They're for music professionals other than performers.

ChoralNet tells us about a singing teacher who gives lessons using Skype. A great idea - I must try it sometime.

I'm intrigued by the ramifications of this Electronic Rock Guitar T Shirt from ThinkGeek. They also have a Personal Soundtrack T Shirt and a Drum Kit T Shirt. I can see the latter being a bit painful if your friends get carried away!

Talking of geeky things (as you know I love to), someone's found a way to play Guitar Hero without any guitars (plastic or otherwise!)

Also from ChoralNet, news that Leonard Bernstein's annotated scores are to released online.

Thought-provoking article about youth orchestras from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog.

Tom Service writes about Classic FM's recent list of the top 10 classical works loved by children, and a rival (and much more interesting) list from Radio 3. The Radio 3 blog has more about this.

4 Bars Rest is one of the best sites for brass band news, and they often have bits of non-brass musical news I haven't seen anywhere else. Recently they had two stories about anti-brass snobbishness in the musical world.

Haven't seen this anywhere else, but apparently Leonard Slatkin recently had a heart attack while conducting.

From ChoralNet, news of a Philharmonia Orchestra project that lets people experience being part of an orchestra from the inside. As part of the choir, we get to do this all the time (although not often quite so thoroughly as we did on Thursday), and I often grin to myself when I think of how privileged we are.

Here's a guy who tells us about how singing has helped his cystic fibrosis.

Remember that thing about the ENO Messiah project? The Radio 3 blog brings us an update, with a link to the backstage blog, which has stories from the participants.

An interesting article from The Chorister about whether or not choirs should have auditions.

Equally thought-provoking, From the Front of the Choir discusses the use of the word "choir".

The Guardian wonders whether or not Christmas songs can ever be cool.

Those of you not on Twitter yet may not be aware that not only is the world's best orchestra on Twitter, they also tell us useful bits of news there, such as the fact that the Mahler series is to be recorded and broadcast on Radio 3.

The Guardian has some suggestions about how to write a family-friendly opera.

The Spectator has a great article about Murray Perahia.

Here's a great article about artistic masterpieces in English cathedrals.

Manchester Confidential, one of my favourite sites, tells us about the ice rink in Spinningfields, and several other attractions in Manchester city centre this Christmas. They also have some interesting thoughts about the decline of King Street, which was once Manchester's top shopping street.

The Guardian has some thoughts about Manchester's literary renaissance.

BBC news has an amusing story about the difference between the sexes when it comes to gadget-related problems. I'm most amused by the news that "64% of male callers and 24% of female callers had not read the instruction manual before ringing up for technical support". RTFM, people!

The Man in Seat 61 tells us, again, why travelling to European destinations can be better by train than by air. (And members of my choir may be interested to see his explanation of how to get to Prague by train. There has been mention of a possible choir trip to Prague next year, and if it goes ahead I'll almost certainly be doing it this way!)

I haven't tried this yet, but it looks useful - a site that lets you do online optical character recognition i.e. you upload a photo that has text on it, and the site converts the text to a document which you could then edit.

In astronomical news, I'm quite intrigued to hear that there is water on the Moon! And also that NASA's Martian polar lander has survived. Now if only they'd find Beagle 2!

(And, since people often ask me about this: the extremely bright "star" that's currently visible low in the south west sky until about 10pm is Jupiter, and the pinkish (but not quite as bright) one that's visible low in the north-east at 10pm (and increasingly higher in the sky throughout the rest of the night, until it's due south at 6am) is Mars. You can also see Saturn low in the south-east from 3am to sunrise, but it's nowhere near as bright as Jupiter or Mars so it doesn't stand out so much. The brightest of all is Venus, visible low in the south-east just before sunrise.)

Finally, three fabulous recent photo collections from the ever-excellent Big Picture. The one depicting Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy is sobering and rather depressing, but the Berlin Wall collection is great, and the Martian landscape pictures are amazing. But still no Beagle 2!

"Warm and fervent, mellifluously blended and pitch-perfect."

That's how the Times describes our choir. Quite right too. We ARE very fantastic.

The MEN is slightly more restrained, mentioning only that "we rose to the challenges of the big moments".

Those are the only reviews I've seen so far of Saturday's gig - I'll edit this post if any more appear.

I did enjoy it in the end, although I nearly didn't sing at all - I somehow managed to lose my voice earlier in the week (without feeling ill at all - I just couldn't make any noise!) It was just a tickle at the start of the week, but by Wednesday I could talk but not sing. I went to the rehearsal anyway, and mimed in the first half. This turned out to be a very bad idea (even though I am *convinced* I didn't make any sound) and made my throat worse, so I just sat and listened in the second half. On Thursday I couldn't even talk, let alone sing, so I had the very great pleasure of sitting in the auditorium and listening to the choir and orchestra (and soloists) from the front. Can't remember the last time I got the chance to do that! On Friday things had improved slightly, and I could talk a bit but still not sing, so I sat out again, with the aim of being able to sing on Saturday. This strategy worked, and by Saturday afternoon I found I could sing without coughing, although not loudly... and by the evening most of the volume had returned. Perfect timing!

(While I was voiceless, I was looking up suggestions for remedies online. There are several here, but the one I kept seeing all over the web was ginger tea. Have any of you ever tried that? Does it work? Or, what's your preferred remedy? I ended up just sipping hot water with honey in it, on the grounds that I actually HAD some honey, but I didn't have any of the stuff for most of the other remedies!)

This week it's all change. Elgar is replaced by Debussy, Handel and Matthews (the latter is still being written, unsurprisingly), and we have a new guest choral director. I'm looking forward to the Matthews, but only because it's NEW. I've previously mentioned (and been lambasted for) my views on Messiah, so I won't repeat them (at least not yet!) The Debussy is his Nocturnes, which for the choir means being Sirens. I thought I'd had this on the brain all week, until I realised that I'd got it muddled up with Daphnis and Chloe! They are very similar in many ways, though, although our bit in Nocturnes is considerably less exciting. Anyway, if you don't know it, here's an mp3.

Loads more links for you. In no particular order, other than that I generally put the musical ones first...

Via ChoralNet, another interesting project from Eric Whitacre. He is one of the most groundbreaking composers currently working, and not just in musical contexts.

Via Intermezzo, an interesting look at how Germany differs from England when it comes to conductors in the news.

Intermezzo also tells us how much opera singers get paid.

Have any of you heard of The Manchester Carols? I hadn't, until I saw them being advertised while I was looking for something else.

Peter Phillips wonders where's the best place to be in a concert - singing, conducting or in the audience? He concludes that it's best to be singing - see if you agree with his argument!

Yet another discussion (with figures) of how Spotify is making money.

Via BoingBoing, a musical staircase in Sweden.

EMI and the CBSO issued instant CDs of their concerts the other day. I like this idea.

Not to be outdone, Radio 3 can now do synchronised opera surtitles.

Two blogs I discovered quite recently (and am not sure how I missed them): Classical Iconoclast and Tom Service's Guardian music blog. Both are now on my sidebar. (I've often linked to Tom Service's articles but I didn't realise until this week that he actually had a blog too.)

Not all arts critics are doing as well as Tom Service - all the Daily Telegraph ones recently lost their jobs.

A new exhibition of Spanish religious art at the National Gallery has a singing curator. I *really* want to see this!

Ash (a rock band you may or may not have heard of) are doing a UK tour in alphabetical order.

Manchester Confidential tells us about the new back view of Chet's. (I went past there today - the diggers are very busy! It's like the first chapter of Hitch Hiker.)

Next weekend Manchester hosts the UK's first ever robot festival!

Letters of Note is a fascinating new blog that publishes interesting actual letters (for example, this one from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol).

From the London Review of Books, an enlightening explanation of why many postmen are so unhappy.

SayNoTo1870 is a useful website that gives you cheaper alternatives to 0870 numbers. (The Guardian claims this site has saved people a fortune.)

If you know any Deaf or hard of hearing people, make sure they know about the Emergency SMS trial, which means they can now contact 999 by sending a text message.

Astronomy Picture of the Day has long been one of my favourite websites, and last week they had a lovely new Pleiades picture.

(Ooh, that reminds me - those of you who use the Henry Watson Music Library may be unaware that the whole of Manchester Central Library (and, in fact, the Town Hall extension building) is closing for refurbishment in December, for a REALLY LONG TIME. (Three years, I believe, in the case of the library - not sure if the Town Hall is the same.) There are many, many items in the Henry Watson which are not in any other library in the UK. I have no idea whether there are any plans to make their stock available during the refurbishment - I can't imagine how they'd do it, given how much there is, so if you need anything from there, I'd make the trip ASAP.)

And finally... I'm sure you're all aware of the hilarious way in which Liverpool lost their match on Saturday - the ball went in off a beach ball that a Liverpool fan had thrown onto the pitch. Well, Liverpool play host to Manchester United this coming Sunday, and my absolute favourite story of the past few hours is that the Liverpool club shop has sold out of beach balls and the United fans are to be searched for them. "United supporters are suspected of being behind the increased demand for Liverpool beach products." Hee!

We do hear them speak in our tongue

I can't say that I've particularly enjoyed this week's rehearsals (although Wednesday's was MUCH more pleasant than Monday's), but that's mainly because I never really liked The Kingdom in the first place, so I'm a bit sick of it after rehearsing it for five weeks. Next week is the end of it, though, and I do usually enjoy performances of things (even Messiah!). In this case we're recording it too, AND there are four consecutive days of singing it, so I might be REALLY sick of it... but at least after Saturday we'll get a change! And maybe I'll have an epiphany during the week and grow to love the thing anyway.

I do have a few links for you, though. Let's see...

For some reason it only occurred to me this week to look at the Amazon reviews for our award-winning Gerontius CD.

The Guardian talks about what conductors do and how much they get paid.

My old school is having an open day (free, no booking required) on Saturday 17th October from 11am. Perfect timing for any choir members who are in town early before our rehearsal and always fancied having a look at Chet's.

BBC Music Magazine has a new concert diary, although it doesn't seem to have all concerts in it (they didn't have The Kingdom when I looked!)

Here's a thing about the eigenharp, a.k.a the "sci-fi bassoon".

The Guardian tried to calculate how much it costs to run Spotify... and then corrected their sums shortly afterwards.

The Guardian also quoted a BIllboard report which lists the ten best ways for UK pop artists to gain exposure. I think this is fascinating. For reference, the list is:

1. Doing a guest performance on The X Factor
2. Having your music featured in a high-rotation TV ad for Apple
3. Getting added to the Radio 1 playlist
4. Having your song covered on The X Factor
5. Performing on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
6. Getting a listing on the iTunes front page
7. Performing at Glastonbury
8. Getting added to the Radio 2 playlist
9. Getting a cover story in Q magazine
10. Performance/interview on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show

Until I read this piece about someone creating an ending for Turandot, I hadn't actually realised it was unfinished. I need a bigger clue than that (for example, calling something the Unfinished Symphony!)

Tom Service raves about a film called Trip to Asia. It sounds familiar, but I can't imagine how I could have seen it, unless it's been on TV - does anyone know whether it has?

It seems there's someone collecting love stories from passengers on the 85 bus. I have to say I've never seen any of these postcards, and I've caught the 85 many times (it's the only bus that goes from the city centre to the inconvenient location of most of our rehearsals). Not that she'd get any useful stories out of me - I mostly live vicariously!

And finally, this is pretty, and very therapeutic: Wheel of Stars.

Just a perfect day

I had such a lovely day yesterday, although I feel absolutely exhausted today despite having had eight hours' sleep. I think it's probably because I spend a lot of time alone, and prolonged periods of time interacting with other people always tire me - but not usually this much! Oh well. I was determined to finally tackle my email inbox today, but instead I think I might go back to bed for a while after I've written this. (Sorry, if you've been waiting for an email reply from me! I'll get there eventually!)

It was Dr Liz's wedding, and it was fabulous from beginning to end. The photo above isn't great, but it's the only one I have - there were people in the way every other time I tried to get one! I have no doubt that there will be many proper photos available at some point.

The weather was OK - not sunny, but not too cold and not actually raining. The church was packed. The service went off without a hitch. (The brass quintet playing at the start was a lovely touch.) The evening reception featured a ceilidh - I watched more than I danced, because there kept being an odd number of people in our group and I didn't have a partner. But this was fine because I was melting as it was, so I was happy not to get any hotter! I was particularly amused to see Elaine and Gillian dancing all the dances as if they'd been doing so all their lives (which, they both admitted, they practically had) while their husbands exhausted themselves attempting to keep up :p

Our singing went very well indeed. There were six of us - two sops, two altos, a tenor and a bass (Lizzy, Claire, Amy, me, Tom and Richard) - and we did three songs a cappella. The first was the aforementioned I Was Glad, in which Lizzy was rather nervous about singing a top B flat on her own (but she needn't have been - it was spot on every time she did it), and we also did Perfect Day and Dream a Little Dream of Me. All three went down really well - there were people in the congregation mouthing the words throughout the latter two songs, which is always a nice thing to see. (In I Was Glad they mostly sat there open-mouthed, which is also encouraging!) The service was recorded, so I may be able to share mp3s with you eventually.

I felt really good about the number of people who came up to me during the rest of the day to tell me how much they'd enjoyed the singing. Most of them asked how many months we'd been rehearsing, and I don't think they all believed me when I told them we'd never sung together as a group before this week, and had only had one rehearsal. Needless to say this made me feel even more smug! And one guy - who has his own choir - was so excited about I Was Glad that he paid me for a copy of the arrangement, there and then. (He said his choir has tried it in the past and it's never really worked because the organist hasn't been good enough. And when he'd heard that this wedding would include an a cappella version with only six singers, he didn't believe it was possible.) You will understand that I very much enjoyed this whole conversation!

The six of us enjoyed ourselves so much that we were all quite sad that it's over and we have no excuse to sing together again - so if you know anyone who's getting married and has no music currently planned, let me know!

(Actually, that was one thing from yesterday that intrigued me. One of the people who came to tell me how much she enjoyed it said that it made a nice change to have something happening during the signing of the registers, because at most weddings the congregation are just left to talk amongst themselves. I was really taken aback by this, because at every wedding *I* go to, there is music during the signing of the registers.... but then it occurred to me that of course I'm usually there as one of the singers! I can't actually remember the last time I went to a wedding as just a guest - it was many, many years ago. What's your experience? Do most weddings have music at that point or not?)

P.S. Almost forgot.... When I was at Victoria Station on my way home, I was a bit baffled at the large number of people on the concourse, and even more baffled when a brass band started to play (at 11pm!) Turns out it was all in aid of the last ever train on the Oldham Loop line, which was about to depart from platform 1 when I left from platform 2. I'm annoyed with myself for not making the connection at the time (hee! I mean, the connection about the date - I did make my TRAIN connection....) because I was aware of the line being closed but had forgotten!

We are the champions!

Yesterday was the 2009 Classic FM Gramophone Awards, for which our Gerontius CD was a finalist in the choral category, and we won! We didn't win the overall award for recording of the year, but it's still pretty good. We beat The Sixteen in the choral category, although they did win Artist of the Year!

I'm off to sing for Dr Liz in a few hours - if you're wondering why I'm awake, it's because I'm nocturnal at the moment (I often am). Just wanted to post the award news. But I may as well share my recent links while I'm here.

Gustavo Dudamel is getting a rock star's reception in LA.

Some amazing images from the Big Picture showing China's birthday celebrations. They are great at doing stuff in perfect formation. I'd love to know whether they can just all do it perfectly first time or it takes days of rehearsal!

Here's a site that has no practical use at all - but just waggle your mouse over the picture. Very therapeutic!

A bit more info about the Manchester Camerata/Venice synchronised concert.

From the "you couldn't make it up" department, the Hull City first team squad went for a walk across the Humber Bridge and saved someone from suicide as a result.

A nice article from the Independent about how a Salford school improved its results by working with the world's best orchestra.

Alex James has been conducting again, this time at the Albert Hall, and he got very nervous.

The roads are all closed in a large part of Manchester city centre next week - beware.

A friend told me about the Cragg Coiners yesterday - a fascinating story, I'd never heard it before!

And finally, I was very amused yesterday lunchtime, when two of London's tallest buildings were having an argument with each other via Twitter.

Plenteousness within thy palaces

I've had a busy few days, but it's been fun. Dr Liz gets married on Saturday, and I've sorted out the mini-choir for the wedding, and I'm VERY excited about it. There are six of us, and I think we sound pretty amazing! We had a rehearsal on Sunday afternoon - the first time we've met as a group, and the only rehearsal before the day - and we all had a great time. I can't wait to see what Dr Liz thinks. Oh, and one of the things we're singing is an a cappella version of "I Was Glad", which no-one really thought would work - but it does! It sounded great in Claire's front room - I'm hoping it will be even more impressive in the church acoustic.

(We'd expected to end up giggling in "I Was Glad", but we didn't - the most amusing part of the rehearsal was actually one of the other songs, in which the sopranos have to sing a harmony part most of the way through, only getting the tune in the last two bars. The first time we tried it was HILARIOUS - they were very unsure of their parts, but when it got to the final two bars, they both eagerly sang as loudly as they possibly could. It's still making me smirk thinking about it - maybe you had to be there!)

I had fun last night because a friend bought me the 4-track iPhone app as an early birthday present, so I was experimenting. At first I was discouraged because it seemed as if it wouldn't work unless I had a microphone that would connect to the phone - I have several mics, but none that would connect, so that would have been no good. But it turns out that it works brilliantly with just the built-in mic on the phone itself. The only problem, if you're using the tracks for singing, is that you need to be able to hear the OTHER tracks you've already recorded while you're recording each new track, and the only way to do this is to plug in headphones, and even then it's really difficult to hear. So tuning can easily become an issue. (Keeping the beat is no problem, because there's a metronome that you can set up, and the clicking doesn't come out on the final recording.) It'd be fine if you were playing an instrument rather than singing, but unfortunately it'll be mainly singing I'll want to use it for. But it's still useful for rough recordings. (I'll make one for you and post it, so you can see what I mean.)

I enjoyed the last episode of Gareth Malone's community choir thing, in which he organised a festival which was attended by the entire population of the town, as far as I could see. What was particularly nice was that they actually showed a performance of a full song, with no interview clips in the middle and no commentary over the top of it. It's sad that this is a remarkable occurrence, but there you go! And as a nice postscript to the series, the choir begged Gareth to stay longer than he'd planned, and he agreed. (They have a website too.) There's a nice article by Norman Lebrecht about the series, and another one on the Radio 3 blog.

Tom Service at the Guardian has an interesting interview with Bernard Haitink.

ENO are looking for people to take part in Messiah - but not singers or instrumentalists!

Via J-Walk blog, the strangest thing I've seen in a while: Concert Hands: "a revolutionary product that allows you to play the piano in hours". *boggle*

During last week's Kingdom rehearsal, there was some discussion of a statue I'd never heard of, so I looked it up: the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (clearer picture here).

The Guardian brings to our attention the effect of changes in copyright law on session musicians.

The LA Phil website has a conducting game in which you can pretend you are Gustavo Dudamel. You can download it as a free app if you have an iPhone (you then conduct by waving the phone around!) - the non-phone game on the website is nowhere near as much fun, sadly.

The Manchester Camerata are doing a live synchronised concert with a group in Venice. Interesting idea. Hope it works a bit better than that time we sang in the Last Night of the Proms and we were supposed to be synchronised with the orchestra in the Albert Hall....

I'm fascinated by this: I mentioned to a friend yesterday that I was on my way to Gorton for a wedding rehearsal, and I was a bit taken aback when she immediately said "Gorton girls know all the words to songs by Chaka Khan"! Turns out this is a famous piece of graffiti that appears all over Manchester. I've never seen it myself, but I will be looking out for it from now on!

Talking of Manchester things, don't forget it's the Manchester Food and Drink Festival soon.

Did you know you can now borrow books from any library if you're a member of a different library? I like this idea. (I was in my local library today, actually, teaching my Silver Surfers class, and the librarian asked us to fill in a survey. One of the questions asked what effect my library use had had on my personal relationships, which seemed a bit of an odd thing to ask!)

I recently discovered the Rands in Repose blog, and I particularly like the article about book stalking and the one about people networking.

And finally - the always-wonderful Big Picture has some great photos of a recent dust storm in Australia. I don't think I saw this even mentioned on the news over here, but it looks like a big deal!

Welcome to Manchester

I'm mainly posting today to correct an error in a recent post, but I couldn't resist the title! Many of you will be aware of the controversy caused by the billboard poster that appeared just after Carlos Tevez moved from City to United a few months ago. Yesterday the teams played each other at Old Trafford, and the fans unfurled a banner in reply (above), except that this one was able to mention the silverware United had won, thus rubbing in the fact that City haven't won anything since 1976 :-)

The match was very exciting indeed, and could have gone either way, but United won 4-3 in the end, courtesy of a Michael Owen goal in the 95th minute. This being the case, I expect the police will be even more worried about what might happen on Wednesday (23rd September), when both teams are at home on the same night. This is the main reason for me posting today - I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but for some reason I told you that these matches are on 23rd *October*, and they're not. (United are at home on Wednesday 30th September too.)

I watched Gareth Malone trying to teach Barber's Agnus Dei to his community choir, did you? (Oh, and later the same night he presented How a Choir Works, which was not quite as interesting as I'd hoped but DID feature a bit of our very own scratch performance of Spem in Alium, conducted by David Lawrence.) I was very unconvinced by his reasons for why this was the best thing for them to try for their FIRST EVER CLASSICAL PIECE, and he did actually seem to have doubts later on, but they did perform it, and it was better than you might think... although I got the impression that the community choir was only singing in 4 parts rather than 8. The commentary mentioned - VERY briefly - that some members of another choir joined the community choir for the performance so that all the parts could be there, but they didn't show ANY rehearsals with that happening, so it was very glossed over. Oh, and he also has a kids' community choir, and he got a few of them to join the adult choir so they could sing the very high notes that the sopranos in the adult choir were scared of, but I have no problem with that because they didn't try to hide what they were doing in THAT case. The rest of it, though... it just seems so odd that they would choose such a hard piece and then hide the full details of how they got away with it. Why not just choose something slightly easier?

Anyway, a few links.

This made me laugh a lot: a story about how a Tesco employee got in trouble over being a Jedi. The last line is my favourite.

It's a couple of days late for this year, but as a reference guide for the future, here are some hints on how to talk like a pirate.

You've probably seen all the recent fuss about how the new London tube map has no river on it (Boris is trying to get them to change it back) but here's an even simpler one.

I forgot to mention that our Gerontius recording is up for a Gramophone award.

Elbow played another Manchester gig the other day, and they think they might have set a world record for biggest backing choir.

I really, really, really, really want this, but it costs £5.99: a 4-track recorder for the iPhone!

And finally, I hadn't previously realised that there was a BBC Music Blog, but I've added it to my soundbar now I do.