The bells, the bells!

In a first for the blog, I can actually bring you some breaking news! Tour is nearly here – the tour choir is convening in Madrid tomorrow night – and some of the choir have already started their heroic journey across the continent. Neither ash nor strikes shall cause us fear, we charge ahead undaunted. But airport security shall apparently stymie us! It had never occurred to us that the handbells we’re using for Whitacre’s “Cloudburst” might be considered potential weapons, but our first departee with a handbell got stopped at security this morning and forced to switch it to her checked baggage. I’m not sure what they thought she was going to do with it – dong sonorously at other passengers? This has caused some consternation, as many other handbell guardians weren’t planning to check luggage at all, and are now desperately trying to offload their offensive weapons to other members of the choir. Shady transactions are taking place all around London tonight, with Oriana members in large raincoats going “pssssst!” at each other from behind bushes and surreptitiously swapping briefcases. I am not a handbell guardian, but I confess I’m worried. I was planning to take a set of Indian chimes. They’re sitting on my table looking at me innocently, but I don’t know, I suppose the string keeping them together could be used to strangle a leprechaun. Maybe I’d better not risk it.

Anyway, if we’re not all in cells at Heathrow, a large part of the choir will be performing in Segovia on Saturday and Madrid on Sunday – hurray! It’s interesting to see the different balance of a tour choir to the normal choir. The sops, used to being hidden in a vast crowd, have dropped from about 40 to a measly 11, giving us 5 and a half people on each of the two soprano lines. We’re not used to being this exposed, and we’re a bit nervous. “Welcome to our world”, said the tenors’ body language. The tenors have managed to field an impressive 7 – more than did the last concert - and I think there might actually be more altos on tour than there are in the entire choir. They are either the most conscientious part or the most hardened drinkers.