Fantastic concert at the venerable Bishopsgate Institute - a brilliant concert hall (it has just had a 7-figure refurbishment - cool!), and a great history... opened in 1895 by then Liberal PM Lord Rosebery, as a multi-purpose hall & library...
City Music Society is also a wonderful institution, providing concerts in the city on a Tuesday lunchtime all year round... terrific.
A great audience turned up, and I suspect did more laughing than is usual in this concert series! Tho' naturally we did sing much serious music first...
Splendidly, Carole came in her busy lunchtime and EPAM were very well represented too - great to see many friendly faces...
The theme of the last blog continued, as I bumped into Peter Davison (Doctor Who 5) at Liverpool Street Station...
...and now Andy Murray is in the Australian final - hoorah!
Friday, 25 January 2013
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Olonne-sur-mer, FR
Well, we did , what we call, 'Le Show' -altho' posters call it «Suzette Forever» - after a gap of quite a few months... & we remembered all the moves (including quick changes) and the myriads of french text...
...and we were in Olonne-sur-mer, which with fantastic logic is just a bit further away from the sea than Sables d'Olonne.
Wonderful!
Snow beset our Paris debut of Le Show a few years back (when it was so heavy on both sides of La Manche that only I managed to catch the correct Eurostar) - this time it just meant that all Eurostars went v.slow, so we felt as if we were on trains on Saturday and Monday all day!
On the way to the coast, we stayed on Saturday, at our French agent's (Bertrand Henrion) place & were delighted to see his wife, and meet their wonderful little boy... who decided that our breakfast was best accompanied by his doing a Tour de table (many, many laps) in the kitchen on his wee tricycle... what a sweetheart...
...then we rushed off, as the show was in the afternoon...
As ever, in France, everything seemed to revolve around when we would eat! ...and what is wrong with that!
For those who have yet to see this thing (we have another one in April!), we have lots of costumes (I have a lovely pair of orange overalls, as created by our Swiss friend, Silvan), swings to swing on, more props than usual and even (dare I mention it!)... ACTING! Devised by French thespian and all-round intellectual, Hubert Drac - it is a whirlwind of a thing that lasts about 85 minutes...
...and it was splendid... apart from the travelling which did rather drag on....
...and we were in Olonne-sur-mer, which with fantastic logic is just a bit further away from the sea than Sables d'Olonne.
Wonderful!
Snow beset our Paris debut of Le Show a few years back (when it was so heavy on both sides of La Manche that only I managed to catch the correct Eurostar) - this time it just meant that all Eurostars went v.slow, so we felt as if we were on trains on Saturday and Monday all day!
On the way to the coast, we stayed on Saturday, at our French agent's (Bertrand Henrion) place & were delighted to see his wife, and meet their wonderful little boy... who decided that our breakfast was best accompanied by his doing a Tour de table (many, many laps) in the kitchen on his wee tricycle... what a sweetheart...
...then we rushed off, as the show was in the afternoon...
As ever, in France, everything seemed to revolve around when we would eat! ...and what is wrong with that!
For those who have yet to see this thing (we have another one in April!), we have lots of costumes (I have a lovely pair of orange overalls, as created by our Swiss friend, Silvan), swings to swing on, more props than usual and even (dare I mention it!)... ACTING! Devised by French thespian and all-round intellectual, Hubert Drac - it is a whirlwind of a thing that lasts about 85 minutes...
...and it was splendid... apart from the travelling which did rather drag on....
Monday, 14 January 2013
De Haan, BE
An amazing Sunday for us!
Depending on which of us you talk of, we were out of our houses for 11 to 13 hours and out of the country for about 8 hours.... the chunnel (and Steve driving) got us To the Belgian coast and back for a New year's concert at Wielingen, De Haan ...
With the hall packed to the rafters of people eating and drinking, and with our ever-busy Belgian agent, Thomas Van der Spiegel on hand once more to look after us, we had a lovely afternoon on the coast... even tho' the temperature was 0°.
...but we were mostly quite amazed that we could do all this so quickly...& in just half-a-day!
btw, our last journey was enlivened by seeing Ben Bradshaw MP at Heathrow & Mark Urban (BBC reporter) at Hamburg airport... no such touches of fame this trip!
Depending on which of us you talk of, we were out of our houses for 11 to 13 hours and out of the country for about 8 hours.... the chunnel (and Steve driving) got us To the Belgian coast and back for a New year's concert at Wielingen, De Haan ...
With the hall packed to the rafters of people eating and drinking, and with our ever-busy Belgian agent, Thomas Van der Spiegel on hand once more to look after us, we had a lovely afternoon on the coast... even tho' the temperature was 0°.
...but we were mostly quite amazed that we could do all this so quickly...& in just half-a-day!
btw, our last journey was enlivened by seeing Ben Bradshaw MP at Heathrow & Mark Urban (BBC reporter) at Hamburg airport... no such touches of fame this trip!
Saturday, 12 January 2013
Wilhelmshaven, DE
Wonderful to start the 16th a cappella festival here - lots of wonderful groups to follow, including old friends Die Medlz and The Magnets, as well as The Wise Guys (DE) and Voice Male (BE)... Excellent festival and excellent brimming full church to see us perform two gigs in one! As we were in a church, in the first half, we performed lots of early tunes & church music, from Hildegard of Bingen to recently-deceased Richard Rodney Bennett.... then in the second we did a wee synthesis of our Best of British programme... exhausting to do two shows in one... but the full crowd made it all worthwhile...
Not many shows start with Hildegard of Bingen, Byrd & Arcadelt and end with Yesterday and The Lambeth Walk backwards!
Lots of joy for the rest of the Festival...
...and we're off to the snowy wastes of Belgium on Sunday - wish us luck!!
Not many shows start with Hildegard of Bingen, Byrd & Arcadelt and end with Yesterday and The Lambeth Walk backwards!
Lots of joy for the rest of the Festival...
...and we're off to the snowy wastes of Belgium on Sunday - wish us luck!!
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Esch, Lux - New Year Concert
Delightful late afternoon of New Year's celebration in Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg); thank you to Charles, Marc and the rest of the team who invited us & looked after us so well.
We did our conventional mix of the silly and the serious - the audience liked our Beatles-on-a-train & our Bee Gees 'tribute'!
But yes, we did some Strauss! (Blue Danube & Radetsky) & we were very happy to be joined by our old friend Paul Plummer at the piano. He was not let down by the European train system...
... sadly another old friend Gertie was let down by her (only a few months old) car, which failed to get her to Luxembourg... except in time to hear the last few hand claps. Some might say she drew the longest straw by sampling the after-show champagne reception without having had to suffer a single note of music!
Sold lots of our CDs and our new songbook - hooray!
Splendid hotel too; and a great way to celebrate the birth of 2013...
We'll talk to you throughout the year!
We did our conventional mix of the silly and the serious - the audience liked our Beatles-on-a-train & our Bee Gees 'tribute'!
But yes, we did some Strauss! (Blue Danube & Radetsky) & we were very happy to be joined by our old friend Paul Plummer at the piano. He was not let down by the European train system...
... sadly another old friend Gertie was let down by her (only a few months old) car, which failed to get her to Luxembourg... except in time to hear the last few hand claps. Some might say she drew the longest straw by sampling the after-show champagne reception without having had to suffer a single note of music!
Sold lots of our CDs and our new songbook - hooray!
Splendid hotel too; and a great way to celebrate the birth of 2013...
We'll talk to you throughout the year!
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