Choral singing is fabulous, but it can also be a pretty hard slog sometimes, and last Saturday’s pre-concert rehearsal was a good example. We were determined to nail the remaining few tricky bits in both the Leighton and the Martin, which meant a lot of hard work and extreme concentration in a church as cold as the cold cold grave. We froze solid for four grindingly hard hours, wrapped in coats and scarves, bolting as one down High Holborn during the break to form an agonized queue in Cafe Nero. But it was worth it. By the time of the concert we were ready to give it our all. There were a couple of hairy moments – I think I may have done an unintentional solo at one point – but it was atmospheric and at times overwhelmingly beautiful. I got shivers during the Martin Agnus Dei in particular, and it wasn’t due to the cold. Well, not entirely, anyway. And I’m happy to say we Jedi-mind-controlled our way through the tricky Hosannas with great success. Thank you, the Force.
So another concert successfully completed, and we’re straight into the next challenge. Wednesday was spent singing our way through the music for our next Oriana concert in April. We’ll be doing Shicksa ... Schiscka ... sssiska ... something in German by Brahms, Gardner’s A Burns Sequence, and Puccini Missa di Gloria. It feels much more relaxed and lighthearted after the majesty of the last concert, but again really great music. But before that, on Easter weekend we’ll be taking part in the Star Wars extravaganza at the O2, singing music from the film scores. We were really hoping this meant singing the theme tune with some random words attached – “Star – WARS – Sta-a-a- AAAAAAAR – wars” - but sadly it appears to be genuinely choral music from the prequels rather than a Singalonga event. But I have high hopes for some improvisation in the bar afterwards.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Friday, 12 March 2010
5 times is bad times
Call me old-fashioned, but what’s wrong with a nice stable 4/4? We all know where we are with that. If the time signature just stays the same, we can get on and sort out the melody and the harmony without concentrating reeeeeely hard and having to count quavers on our fingers. And seriously, what is it about the word “hosanna” that makes 20th century composers break out in 5-time?? What’s wrong with them? I remember when hosanna was a nice 6/8 word, in my primary school days. Does that really need tinkering with?? It shouldn’t be allowed. And especially, ESPECIALLY, composers should be banned from throwing in the occasional 6-time bar just when we’ve got our heads round counting in 5s! That’s just cruel.
The Leighton is mainly the piece causing this angst, although that doesn’t get Martin off the hook. The rhythm is the only tricky thing now because we’ve sorted the complicated, dissonant harmonies. In fact we’re attacking the discordant clashes with some relish, and I’m even confident that those discordant clashes are AS WRITTEN in the score, something I haven’t always been able to say in my choral career. So all was going well with the Leighton at this week’s rehearsal, and I was particularly psyched to get picked for the semi-chorus singing the beginning of the Sanctus, which I was banging on about last week as the loveliest part of the piece. But then the word “hosanna” approaches, and Kenneth gets his 5/4 hat on. Suddenly the entire choir were all over the place. 5-time is HARD. “Do you want only the semi-chorus to sing this bit too?” the soprano sitting behind me asked David-the-conductor hopefully. I glowered at her as befits such a blatant escape attempt, but she just looked back at me like butter wouldn’t melt. In this situation we did what any choir would do, and resorted to epic Hollywood. “Use the force!” cried David, Yoda-like at his music stand. We felt for the notes with our minds, and, incredibly, the force was with us. Now we just need to retain the force until the concert on Saturday. I’m maintaining it through meditation and some mild ewok-baiting.
The Leighton is mainly the piece causing this angst, although that doesn’t get Martin off the hook. The rhythm is the only tricky thing now because we’ve sorted the complicated, dissonant harmonies. In fact we’re attacking the discordant clashes with some relish, and I’m even confident that those discordant clashes are AS WRITTEN in the score, something I haven’t always been able to say in my choral career. So all was going well with the Leighton at this week’s rehearsal, and I was particularly psyched to get picked for the semi-chorus singing the beginning of the Sanctus, which I was banging on about last week as the loveliest part of the piece. But then the word “hosanna” approaches, and Kenneth gets his 5/4 hat on. Suddenly the entire choir were all over the place. 5-time is HARD. “Do you want only the semi-chorus to sing this bit too?” the soprano sitting behind me asked David-the-conductor hopefully. I glowered at her as befits such a blatant escape attempt, but she just looked back at me like butter wouldn’t melt. In this situation we did what any choir would do, and resorted to epic Hollywood. “Use the force!” cried David, Yoda-like at his music stand. We felt for the notes with our minds, and, incredibly, the force was with us. Now we just need to retain the force until the concert on Saturday. I’m maintaining it through meditation and some mild ewok-baiting.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Luscious Leighton
After the glory of Sound and Vision, we came back to earth with a clatter this week when we realised our next concert was only 10 days away. We’re singing Masses for double choir by Frank Martin and Kenneth Leighton. They’re both superb pieces, but pretty complicated and a complete change of style from our recent pop successes, so we’re working super-hard to polish them for performance.
Up to now I’ve been far keener on the Martin than the Leighton, but after a rehearsal devoted to Leighton and lots of listens to the recording, I’m really starting to understand the shape of the piece much more. Leighton was a master of counterpoint, and this mass is no exception. The Sanctus in particular is gorgeous, interweaving the voices in lyrical triplets. And just as it’s lulled us into a soothing false sense of security, in comes the hosanna with tricky crossing entries and changing time signatures to thoroughly wake us up again. The Agnus Dei ramps up the emotional tension, with beautiful solo lines set against the choir exploring its full dynamic range. I was briefly disconcerted when the soprano solo line ended with a jarring slide upwards, but that luckily turned out to be the sound of my train departing King’s Cross. The joys of the i-pod age. And if the music itself isn’t enough to fall in love with the mass, it’s dedicated to a man with the happy name of Herrick Bunney. Hurray!
We must have been struggling to make the change of style, however, because David-the-Conductor went off into ever more extravagant realms of imagery to get us to infuse expression into the music. And we duly came to life. The altos had a good go at being perverted. The basses were positively sinful. We all invoked the exact wave of terror you feel when you’re in a kebab shop and someone runs in and hits you on the head with a bottle and runs away. It was all very appropriate for a Mass setting. I’m not sure I’ll ever see church-going in the same way again.
Up to now I’ve been far keener on the Martin than the Leighton, but after a rehearsal devoted to Leighton and lots of listens to the recording, I’m really starting to understand the shape of the piece much more. Leighton was a master of counterpoint, and this mass is no exception. The Sanctus in particular is gorgeous, interweaving the voices in lyrical triplets. And just as it’s lulled us into a soothing false sense of security, in comes the hosanna with tricky crossing entries and changing time signatures to thoroughly wake us up again. The Agnus Dei ramps up the emotional tension, with beautiful solo lines set against the choir exploring its full dynamic range. I was briefly disconcerted when the soprano solo line ended with a jarring slide upwards, but that luckily turned out to be the sound of my train departing King’s Cross. The joys of the i-pod age. And if the music itself isn’t enough to fall in love with the mass, it’s dedicated to a man with the happy name of Herrick Bunney. Hurray!
We must have been struggling to make the change of style, however, because David-the-Conductor went off into ever more extravagant realms of imagery to get us to infuse expression into the music. And we duly came to life. The altos had a good go at being perverted. The basses were positively sinful. We all invoked the exact wave of terror you feel when you’re in a kebab shop and someone runs in and hits you on the head with a bottle and runs away. It was all very appropriate for a Mass setting. I’m not sure I’ll ever see church-going in the same way again.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Robert Plant hit me with his microphone
Actually that didn’t happen, but it could have! We performed at Cancer Research’s Sound and Vision Event with Robert Plant and Beth Nielsen Chapman on Thursday, and up until Wednesday night I was just concentrating on the music and not especially bothered about the celebrity element. But on Wednesday, as we stood all ranked up on the stage at the iconic Abbey Road Studios for our rehearsal and sound check, with Robert Plant swinging his mic in front of us, I confess I got a bit starstruck. Robert Plant was right THERE! I could reach out and pull his hair! Cool eh?
So Sound and Vision was going to have to be pretty amazing to make up for all the effort, extra rehearsals, memorizing the music, gurning in front of the mirror in an attempt to look good singing, cramming ourselves up together and getting the tape measure out to see how many choir members we could squeeze into our allotted space. And did it live up to expectations? Absolutely! We walked onto a hot, dark stage in front of 400 gig-goers whom we fully expected not to be much interested in the choir. But in fact the atmosphere was electric.
Our two songs with Beth – The Colour of Roses and How We Love (for which Beth played John Lennon’s piano) were faultless and beautifully atmospheric. We also did two Oriana classic pieces just by ourselves. Calabash Trees is probably our most visual performance piece with clapping and clicking interspersed through the singing, so it seemed appropriate for the event. Our other classic – Sleep by Eric Whitacre – had dragged a bit in the Wednesday rehearsal because it needs so much energy and commitment to make it work, and some of the choir didn’t know it that well. But we made a last-minute decision to use the sheet music, and on the night it was magical. Then the high point - Robert arrived on stage to sing two very different pieces with us. Scott Walker’s Farmer in the City was spine-tingling, with Robert intoning soulfully over the slow harmonies of the choir building to a stunning climax. I Bid You Goodnight was a jollier piece with inflections of country, blues, gospel and rock. Robert did some superb improvisation while we popped in with the occasional “good night!” The grand finale was a rendition of My Sweet Lord, on George Harrison’s birthday, for which we were joined on stage by Beth, David Gray and Newton Faulkner. This was our potentially most disastrous number, as we’d had no rehearsal with two of the soloists. And indeed there were a couple of “gulp, just keep smiling!” moments, but it was great fun and by the end the audience was roaring along. This song, along with the others we sang with Robert and Beth, were all in choral arrangements by our conductor David Drummond, and once again he did us proud by providing such exciting arrangements and steering us through the partnership between soloists, musicians and choir. The whole evening was superb, and I think reconfirmed all of us in our commitment to this amazing choir! And as a bonus, we all got a signed CD from Robert. Who could want more?
So Sound and Vision was going to have to be pretty amazing to make up for all the effort, extra rehearsals, memorizing the music, gurning in front of the mirror in an attempt to look good singing, cramming ourselves up together and getting the tape measure out to see how many choir members we could squeeze into our allotted space. And did it live up to expectations? Absolutely! We walked onto a hot, dark stage in front of 400 gig-goers whom we fully expected not to be much interested in the choir. But in fact the atmosphere was electric.
Our two songs with Beth – The Colour of Roses and How We Love (for which Beth played John Lennon’s piano) were faultless and beautifully atmospheric. We also did two Oriana classic pieces just by ourselves. Calabash Trees is probably our most visual performance piece with clapping and clicking interspersed through the singing, so it seemed appropriate for the event. Our other classic – Sleep by Eric Whitacre – had dragged a bit in the Wednesday rehearsal because it needs so much energy and commitment to make it work, and some of the choir didn’t know it that well. But we made a last-minute decision to use the sheet music, and on the night it was magical. Then the high point - Robert arrived on stage to sing two very different pieces with us. Scott Walker’s Farmer in the City was spine-tingling, with Robert intoning soulfully over the slow harmonies of the choir building to a stunning climax. I Bid You Goodnight was a jollier piece with inflections of country, blues, gospel and rock. Robert did some superb improvisation while we popped in with the occasional “good night!” The grand finale was a rendition of My Sweet Lord, on George Harrison’s birthday, for which we were joined on stage by Beth, David Gray and Newton Faulkner. This was our potentially most disastrous number, as we’d had no rehearsal with two of the soloists. And indeed there were a couple of “gulp, just keep smiling!” moments, but it was great fun and by the end the audience was roaring along. This song, along with the others we sang with Robert and Beth, were all in choral arrangements by our conductor David Drummond, and once again he did us proud by providing such exciting arrangements and steering us through the partnership between soloists, musicians and choir. The whole evening was superb, and I think reconfirmed all of us in our commitment to this amazing choir! And as a bonus, we all got a signed CD from Robert. Who could want more?
Friday, 19 February 2010
Who will make it through to Boot Camp?
Concerned that we might go a whole week without a guest at the rehearsal, David-the-Conductor nobly went skiing this week so we could have Howard-the-Conductor as a guest. It’s always interesting having a guest conductor, as they pick up on different things, throwing the influence of our normal conductor into sharp relief. So for example, Howard-the-Conductor asked us to sing our “ah” sounds in a narrower, darker fashion to make the sound more rounded. A perfectly legitimate style suggestion, but it caused some dubious looks and panicked exchanges of glances. Little did he know he was going against a central Daviddologism – the bright open “ah” sound in an Italianate style. We had a go, but we clearly weren’t comfortable. You’d think we were all from the West Midlands. David should be very proud of how well schooled we all are.
The Sound and Vision event doth approach, and we have an extra rehearsal on Sunday to prepare properly. Unfortunately (and very unusually) we have more people signed up for the concert than we have room for. The choir's policy on concerts is that if you don’t know the music well enough to look up from the copy, you don’t get to sing, so usually numbers naturally reduce. But none of us want to miss out on this event, so everyone is revising frantically. On Sunday we’re actually going to be filmed to catch those with their noses buried in their copies, who might then be asked to step out of the concert if not enough people voluntarily drop out. It feels a bit like the X Factor. I have an extra handicap when it comes to visual presentation, though, as I happen to know I look like a rabbit in the headlights when I’m singing. If you ever see the DVD of Beth Neilsen Chapman’s concert in St Pauls, I’m the one behind Beth looking really worried. So as well as revising the music I’m also spending time in front of the mirror trying to look nonchalant. I could cope with losing out on the concert because I didn’t know the music well enough, but imagine getting dropped for giving off a general air of doom!
The Sound and Vision event doth approach, and we have an extra rehearsal on Sunday to prepare properly. Unfortunately (and very unusually) we have more people signed up for the concert than we have room for. The choir's policy on concerts is that if you don’t know the music well enough to look up from the copy, you don’t get to sing, so usually numbers naturally reduce. But none of us want to miss out on this event, so everyone is revising frantically. On Sunday we’re actually going to be filmed to catch those with their noses buried in their copies, who might then be asked to step out of the concert if not enough people voluntarily drop out. It feels a bit like the X Factor. I have an extra handicap when it comes to visual presentation, though, as I happen to know I look like a rabbit in the headlights when I’m singing. If you ever see the DVD of Beth Neilsen Chapman’s concert in St Pauls, I’m the one behind Beth looking really worried. So as well as revising the music I’m also spending time in front of the mirror trying to look nonchalant. I could cope with losing out on the concert because I didn’t know the music well enough, but imagine getting dropped for giving off a general air of doom!
Friday, 12 February 2010
Week 5 - A guest and some steering
Our rehearsal this week was again enlivened by a guest – Beth Nielsen Chapman popped in to run through some songs ready for the Sound and Vision event on February 25th. We’ve worked with Beth before – in fact my very first Oriana concert was a charity concert with Beth in St Pauls Cathedral, which was an amazing event. So we’re excited to have the opportunity to work with her again, and try some new material. It was possibly a bit dull for our normal accompanist though, who was ousted from his seat at the piano by Beth. But he still contributed to proceedings by reading the paper in a very musical way.
As there’s still an embargo on mentioning the music, I decided to attend my first ever steering group meeting this week to give me something else to write about. Organising the choir in terms of concerts, venues, rehearsals, finances, subscriptions, tours, marketing etc takes a lot of work and decision-making behind the scenes, but the choir is very egalitarian and anyone can go along to a steering group meeting and put in their opinion. I would love to say I was a valuable asset to the meeting, but actually I just got steadily drunker on the wine and all stroppy about David-the-conductor nicking my chocolate fingers. (He was taking them off my PLATE! Honestly!) Item 4 on the agenda was an item about PR, and someone carelessly mentioned that effective PR depended on being sure we knew the direction the choir wished to go in. There was a collective indrawn breath, and some people may have turned ashen with terror. One longstanding member of the committee pointed out that whenever this gets mentioned there are more opinions than attendees. And sure enough, two hours later we were still arguing and the wine was almost gone. At this point I had to leave to get my train, so I’m still not sure what direction the choir is going in. But hopefully it’s going there in less of a zigzag than my walk back to the tube station. In any case, I have developed a new respect bordering on awe for the people who have to make those decisions and try and keep everyone happy. Blimey.
As there’s still an embargo on mentioning the music, I decided to attend my first ever steering group meeting this week to give me something else to write about. Organising the choir in terms of concerts, venues, rehearsals, finances, subscriptions, tours, marketing etc takes a lot of work and decision-making behind the scenes, but the choir is very egalitarian and anyone can go along to a steering group meeting and put in their opinion. I would love to say I was a valuable asset to the meeting, but actually I just got steadily drunker on the wine and all stroppy about David-the-conductor nicking my chocolate fingers. (He was taking them off my PLATE! Honestly!) Item 4 on the agenda was an item about PR, and someone carelessly mentioned that effective PR depended on being sure we knew the direction the choir wished to go in. There was a collective indrawn breath, and some people may have turned ashen with terror. One longstanding member of the committee pointed out that whenever this gets mentioned there are more opinions than attendees. And sure enough, two hours later we were still arguing and the wine was almost gone. At this point I had to leave to get my train, so I’m still not sure what direction the choir is going in. But hopefully it’s going there in less of a zigzag than my walk back to the tube station. In any case, I have developed a new respect bordering on awe for the people who have to make those decisions and try and keep everyone happy. Blimey.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
As Mystery-Meister, I shall now offer the solution to one puzzle with one hand while simultaneously unfolding a deeper conundrum with the other. It’s like an episode of “Lost”. I can now non-exclusively reveal that our Mystery Guest last week was Robert Plant – true rock legend, amazing musician and very nice man. We are honoured to have been asked to sing with Robert and Beth Nielsen Chapman at Cancer Research UK’s Sound and Vision event at Abbey Road Studios. However, what we will be singing is still confidential, while we work the programme out. So rather than give anything away, I shall be performing the rest of this blog in mime. (to keep yourself entertained while I'm doing that, please read the information below on the event and how to bid for the last few remaining tickets)
VIP tickets to meet David Gray & unique music memorabilia... Sound & Vision's eBay Auction is now live
Cancer Research UK's unique music event at Abbey Road Studios on February 25th is sold out, but launching today an eBay Sound & Vision auction is offering you a chance to bid for the last few remaining tickets to see Newton Faulkner, David Gray, Beth Nielsen Chapman, the Oriana Choir and the legend that is Robert Plant inside the studios which the Beatles made world famous.
Plus, you can bid for exclusive music memorabilia including signed drum skins, guitars and handwritten lyrics from rock legends including Clapton, Kaiser Chiefs, Bob Dylan and many more. All money raised will go towards Cancer Research UK's lifesaving work.
Bid now at www.soundandvisionebay.com
VIP tickets to meet David Gray & unique music memorabilia... Sound & Vision's eBay Auction is now live
Cancer Research UK's unique music event at Abbey Road Studios on February 25th is sold out, but launching today an eBay Sound & Vision auction is offering you a chance to bid for the last few remaining tickets to see Newton Faulkner, David Gray, Beth Nielsen Chapman, the Oriana Choir and the legend that is Robert Plant inside the studios which the Beatles made world famous.
Plus, you can bid for exclusive music memorabilia including signed drum skins, guitars and handwritten lyrics from rock legends including Clapton, Kaiser Chiefs, Bob Dylan and many more. All money raised will go towards Cancer Research UK's lifesaving work.
Bid now at www.soundandvisionebay.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
