Dresden & Jena

After an excellent second rehearsal with the orchestra for the 1st and the 2nd, we travelled to Dresden, for a concert in the beautiful Dreikönigskirche
It has a beautiful Baroque altar [well, 4/5ths of same] which along with the back wall and the tower was all that was left by the RAF in 1945; then the Russians destroyed a bit more.... after much fundraising from all over the world, it was finally reopened as a church in 1990... clearly the damaged altar is a wonderful and moving monument. There is also a frieze along the back wall which looks original.
The church was full to bursting, and they were in a mood for a New Year's concert... even happy to rattle their keys about in Sleigh Ride.
A lovely evening - and even Bine from Die Medlz came, which was nice...

And tonight we have been in the Volkshaus in Jena - another packed house... an early concert, pre-fireworks... they are starting up in earnest now... Wonderful place to sing in, and a delightful, and seemingly delighted crowd... lots of CDs spread amongst Eastern Germany over the last two days.
We were looked after splendidly, and were given lots to eat.. what more could one desire.

Happy New Year!

PS: Thanks to Dr Wok in Jena for my lunch today, tho' did you have to put sugar in my green tea?

Frankfurt (Oder)

First rehearsal with Howard Griffiths and the Brandenburgischen Staatsorchesters Frankfurt this morning went very well... everyone gorgeous!  ...and with a Harp and a third trumpet tomorrow will be even more so.

We have two New year concerts on the 1st and the 2nd  in Potsdam and Frankfurt (Oder) - we last worked with Howard on some New Year concerts in Zurich with the ZKO near the end of the last Millennium - clearly Steve has got younger, but the rest of us agreed we looked good on it!

Also bumped into the illustrious Hilliard counter-tenor, David James on our flight out to Berlin with his wife and son - what splendour... They live in Berlin and the UK, and David says they often share the plane with muzos... even Sir Simon Rattle.  He has still not forgotten that he gave me my first singing lessons - what a burden for anyone to bear! ... but truly, it's not all his fault.

More orchestral rehearsals and then two pre-New Year gigs {Dresden and Jena} before the concerts. 

We are all going to cross the bridge by the concert hall later today and walk into Poland...

Marvellous.

I'll be home for Christmas

Busy couple of days in Switzerland, firstly a concert in a beautiful church in Zurich, where Decca records Cecilia Bartoli... amazingly enough, it was beautiful to sing in!
Then on to Berne - firstly to wish a seniors party a Happy Christmas, we sang them through it, inbetween the speeches, Elvis was there again! - and we all sang together the German Christmas Classic, O du fröhliche, then to the wonderful slightly underground ONO theatre [just down the road from Einstein's old house] in the centre of the City...
At all three events, lovely to see friends old and new... and to be given many treats... some of which we shall share with our families (if they make it home!)

Zuzwil, CH

Another packed church, this time courtesy of of our friend (and Swiss agent), Silvan (and his friends and family)...
Elvis decided only to put his wig on today, rather than the full change... but it might well have felt de trop in such surroundings!
There was even a smattering of snow which came down in the interval, thus creating a white blanket for us to leave the church on.
A wonderful meal after the concert with Silvan, Andrea and little Michel... (who sang us his rendition of Hey Jude).
More snow now... looks like we can stop dreaming...

Erpe-Mere, BE

A very Christmas-filled a cappella evening in the church at Erpe-Mere [quite near Brussels]... lots of festiveness, some serious, some lighter, and a packed church of happy faces.
Glorious - and a great deal of action at the CD table afterwards - we are lucky that people have been so lax buying presents, and need to rush to us!
As ever, in Belgium, glorious food abounded - my big brochette especially fine...
Presently at Sheraton at Brussels Airport, we fly to Switzerland pretty early tomorrow for the last four gigs before Christmas break.

Antwerp with Kiki

Blog 100 of the year...

We shared a bill last night in a dock hangar in the port of Antwerp with Kiki Dee & her guitarist, Carmelo Luggeri; and we sang a couple of songs with them too...

The hangar is transformed every 4 or 5 years for a massive celebration of the company Mourik - when we arrived it was still quite hangar-like, but it was, by the evening, full of chefs and excellent food, and a fully-rigged stage.

After our set, wonderfully accompanied by Chris Hatt as ever, Kiki Dee did her stuff...
As an encore, we felt we had blundered into a light ent TV show from years ago, as we backed Kiki in the Bee Gees song How Do You Mend a Broken Heart? and then White Christmas.  Wonderful to work with Kiki and Carmelo - both fantastic, and also to share in Mourik's festivities.

On to Erpe-Mere tonight...

Bridewell Hall #2

Another lovely night in the City of London... a packed Bridewell Hall had as good acoustic as ever, and a wonderful atmosphere of revellers!
We reprised Wendell the Worm as from our Captain Beaky efforts last week at the RAH... and everyone laughed lots.  Was it our dancing?
Lots of Christmas fun for one and all - including Steve dressed up as Elvis (although as a friend pointed out, an Elvis who has been on a serious diet!)...
Christmas and Cricket CDs were popular - how alliterative people's tastes are...

Now just a jaunt to the European mainland before Christmas - Belgium and then Switzerland; before Germany, Estonia, Russia and Belgium again in late December / January - what fun!

Wonderful Captain Beaky for UNICEF

Fantastic evening at the RAH... Captain Beaky and his wonderful band were all there... Lots of dancers from National Youth Ballet (playing a large array of animals - not a dry eye at times), and a Kirov & ENB master, Dmitri Gruzdyev, as well as Jeremy Lloyd & Jim Parker (writer and composer), Joanna Lumley, Roger Moore & Deborah Moore, Alan Titchmarsh, Hugh Bonneville, Rosie Ashe & the original Captain Beaky himself, Keith Michell, appearing both on large screen and in a box in the audience to rapturous applause. Also old friends from Chess in Concert, Tabitha Webb, Tiffany Graves, Caroline Sheen, & Jon Robyns - who used his Avenue Q experience to bring Hissing Sid to life!

Our contributions were accompanying Rosie in Desmond the Duck, being accompanied by David Firman & the excellent band in Doreen the Duckling, and getting away from ducks, we sang an a cappella Wendell the Worm.  We provided comments from 'offstage' in a poem read by Joanna Lumley - back to the Ds... Dilys the Dachshund, and we all sang together in There's a Light...

Splendid to see the octogenarians strut their stuff, Roger Moore in his DJ (only with green tights on his legs - he told us it was all the rage); and Jeremy Lloyd clearly moved and loving his words being displayed again to a packed house.

Mike gave Alan T. a DVD copy of Christmas Pebble Mill show that had involved both AT and Cantabile in the 1980s... the green-fingered one was delighted and said he had nothing from that time he could watch!

A glorious evening - all in aid of UNICEF... & put together by Director, Hugh Wooldridge with his usual aplomb - let's hope it can happen again sometime...
I'll ask Joanna the next time I see her at my local bus station (I've seen her before!)

sing-along-a Roger Moore

For Captain Beaky:  just rehearsing in a dressing room at English National Ballet [just around the corner from RAH], a song with some echoes from the chorus...
We sang away, and then heard the dulcet tones of Roger Moore pitching in with the echoes from the attached Men's room... what an honour to form a quintet with a former Bond (even if he was in a separate room)!

Great rehearsals all morning... all looking and sounding good.

Excellent to meet the writers too - Jeremy Lloyd and Jim Parker - fantastic...

Opwijk, BE

Despite my having forgotten my computer's power cable *, a fine two-day sojourn in Belgium was enjoyed by all...
Opwijk was a splendid Christmas evening, and we were treated excellently... Could this be because it is the home town of our Belgian agent, Thomas? Who knows...
... we did Sleigh Ride, asking the audience to provide the bells with either coins or their keys... one guy asked to borrow Richard's! Richard said it was the first time he had indeed handed over his keys to a gentleman!  Oddly enough when he asked for them back, the man's wife had them.
Funny Old World.
Gertie was there once more (and heard some different songs from yesterday, thank goodness) - and we put the world to rights in the bar afterwards...

Captain Beaky weekend awaits...

* Although this is of no interest at all, let me tell you that I was able to borrow Richard's power cable when he was not using it.

Herk-de-Stad, BE

Two Belgian dates before our Beaky weekend...
Just a slightly Christmas concert to start in Herk-de-Stad - near enough to Holland for our dear friend Gertie to visit - how splendid!
Once again, our new CD, Songs of Cricket outsold the others - it's a miracle; we are spreading the cricket word abroad!
As is so often the case in Belgium, the theatre here had an excellent restaurant attached - all good!

The people at the Theatre saw us at Lemmens, and convinced everybody else that we should come to Herk - these are great people! - fantastic that they did... we had a splendid time...
...on to Opwijk today...

Bridewell Hall & St Barts EPAM bash

Two gigs in one night - how splendid....luckily within a mile of each other.

Having spent a pleasant afternoon wandering on the South Bank [Globe & Tate Mod.] with Cantabile friend from Austria, Lotti...
& then had a pizza with my son & met up with my wife...
We had the first of our Bridewell Tuesdays [there's one more if you missed it on the 13th!] at 7pm, and had a lovely time with a great crowd in the splendid-to-sing-in Bridewell Hall; which had been especially Christmassed up for the occasion...
Friends old and new greeted us at the St Bride Institute, where, of course, we are Artists in Residence.

We chased on to St Bart.'s Church & heard the last half-an-hour of Tenebrae singing under the masterly direction of Nigel Short some carols published by Peters Edition and Faber [and a bit of OUP] - wonderful to hear the choir again.
Once everyone had a mince pie and some wine in their hand in the long gallery after all that, we sang our newly-published A Festival of Carols in Two Minutes (Carol, as was)... and The Twelve Days of Christmas to cheer everyone on in their drinking!  Good to see old friends there - Steve McNeff, Ben Parry (who have both written for us), as well as my ex-UEA colleague, Griselda who works for OUP... (very good to see rival publishing houses being able to work together amicably!)

Off to Eurostar and Belgium in the morning...

Limburg

Sitting in Frankfurt aeroport, having performed in Thing last night.  Disappointingly, we find that in fact the venue was called Thing and not the place... we were truly in Limburg itself [we had thought it was a suberb of same]... but it was indeed a fine thing nevertheless.
More Christmassy atmosphere... not least in the fact that there was a Chocolate shop opposite our hotel, full of treats [don't tell my wife & son]... it rained a bit, but still surprisingly temperate for wandering around the Christmas markets...
Bliss.
Various winter ailments held off long enough for the audience to hear us...
Martin looked after us well for these two German days... & our old friend Marco did the sound last night.

Now looking forward to the first of our Bridewell Tuesdays.... tomorrow... then it's off to Belgium for two days before Captain Beaky at the RAH; rehearsal then show on Sunday at 6pm... We are singing songs on our own, but also accompanying Miss Rosie Ashe... marvellous.

In case you did not know, Hissing Sid is innocent...

Burbach Christmas

Christmas starts... looking forward to all; but especially our Bridewell Tuesdays... (6th & 13th)...

Had another Captain Beaky rehearsal on Friday... & everyone was happy...
All looking good for Sunday 11th; where we will share the stage with lots of huge names:-
O More Roger
Marsh Titch Alan
Grave Van Redessa
...and Joanna Lumley amongst others.

We then landed in Germany, and had a lovely Christmas evening in Burbach...
... a great crowd in the excellent 1950s theatre [which used to be a Nobel dynamite factory!], provided a splendid atmosphere; our first Christmas concert hopefully sets the tone for the next few weeks...

We are playing Thing tonight.... what larks!

(Sir) Tim

Had a morning recording vocals on a track for a demo of Tim Rice's new musical (written with composer Stuart Brayson):- From Here to Eternity... recorded in Tim's son-in-law's studio (Pete Hobbs of The Boy Least Likely to).
Great fun....
Let's hope it works... it's planned to come into town next year!

Whilst on the great man - here's a video of our all performing together:
CLICK HERE for fun!
Our 'hit' ...Wanderin' Star, btw... (as recorded at Lady Taverners do the other week).

Champs Hill & Malcolm...

Great day down at Champs Hill, recording with Malcolm Martineau at the piano...
We completed everything we planned; Vaughan Williams, Haydn, Bridge, Poulenc, Quilter & Heneker - splendid - thus (working title) Songs of Love and War is well on its way; one more recording day, we feel and we will have all...
With our schedule in the next few weeks (and Malcolm's more so!), we 're not sure when we will finish all this... but we'll keep you posted!

Off this am to record a quick demo of a song for the new Tim Rice musical... (From Here to Eternity)... no waves in the studio, I think...