Wednesday 29 August 2012

Final Recording Session


Managed a rather magical image with my phone!  Here is Richard, taken through a window, thus the garden-frame is reflection - sadly some of my forehead in shot too!!

Final day of recording for new album at Champs Hill, with the terrific Malcolm Martineau on piano too - splendid...
Songs of Love & War - out in 2013 we expect... more news when we have it.

Great studio to record in... picaresque views, art on the walls... all gorgeous.

Saturday 18 August 2012

Riga - Gala Galante

Fantastic evening in Riga.
The evening, hosted (as was the whole week) by Latvian superstar Inessa Galante, was expertly conducted by Aleksandrs Vilumanis (or Mr Ragtime Band as I liked to call him - geddit?!)
First third of the concert, William Tell from the Orch. {The Lone Ranger if you must}... & then the delight of
Gábor Boldoczki playing the Haydn Trumpet concerto exquisitely...
The second third started with the orchestra's rendition of 
Janice Dixon sang Spirituals (accompanied by Inna Davidova - who helps run this whole thing - on the piano) and Gershwin with the orchestra - glorious.
We started with Perpetuum Mobile (on our own), then sang Handel's Lascia ch'io Pianga & Yesterday with Inessa herself.  All went down terribly well with the packed audience.
Then we gave them Italian Opera in 4 minutes... Genée's Italian Salad... This part was finished off by us with the orchestra, mapping William Arms Fisher's words to the Largo from Dvořák's 9th Symphony onto the symphony movement itself.  We'd done this before with the Québec Symphony Orchestra (OSQ) & it was splendid to do it again.
We sang Bring Him Home & Hush Macushla with the orchestra [Latvian National Symphony btw], as well as Henry VIII's Pastime with Good Companye & Duke Ellington's Caravan...
A Latvian Jazz singer sang Ain't no Sunshine... and then...
The whole cast performed together Barcelona (a rather splendid Olympic song in this Olympic year!) & Summertime, and we were there!
Just four hours after starting!
Phew! A lovely evening in Latvia - one we hope we shall experience again...

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Riga

We are in Latvia - first time apart from a couple of hours in January in Riga Airport (Rix to its friends) - and hoorah for that...
To celebrate Summertime with the Latvian operatic star Inessa Galante - she is a huge star, and we look forward to singing Handel's Lascia ch'io Pianga with her.... & other joys... Dvorak with the Latvian National Orchestra....
Full line-up:

Inessa Galante (soprano)
Janice Dixon (soprano, USA)
Gábor Boldoczki (trumpet, Hungary)
The London Quartet (vocal group, Great Britain)
festival’s guests
Latvian National Symphony orchestra
Aleksandrs Viļumanis, conductor

Rehearsals tomorrow - more news when we have it!

The Baltic looks lovely just shimmering over there!