Friday 26 July 2013

St Michaeliskirche, Hildesheim

Beautiful sunny summer evening in St Michaeliskirche, Hildesheim
Lovely building and excellent acoustic. (Do look at above link...)

Entitled O Sing Joyfully! - we sang early music for the most part for the first half... Arcadelt, Henry VIII, Hildegard of Bingen, Byrd, Mozart & Batten (whose anthem provided the title).... as well as Bist Du bei mir (Stölzel, of course) and Thoinot Arbeau, with some Peter Warlock touches (two movements from Capriol).

Our more conventional fare in the second half from Johann Strauss to Billy Joel via Ellington and Frank Sinatra.

Our delightful German audience were happy to join us in our journey from the middle of the 12th century to today!  ...and seemed gloriously happy about it.
Thanks so much for Sven for looking after us...

Another sojourn to Germany next weekend (Fritzlar (with Voxnorth from Denmark) and Friedrichshafen)... more fun in the sun!

btw.... two brushes with fame... I walked past Andy Flower at Heathrow before this trip (he's the England Cricket Coach - doing quite a good job at the mo!) & also, when I went to see Maria Freidman's wonderful production of my favourite musical ever - Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along - A certain Lord Lloyd Webber was in the audience... small world, eh!?

Monday 15 July 2013

Wonderful evening with St Edmund's - Madrigal to McCartney

We had a terrific time listening to, and performing with the young people from St Edmund's Canterbury on their UK tour - Cambridge, London, Windsor... we were the London quotient!

We sang in that fantastic London church - Grosvenor Chapel, just south of the US Embassy.

The first half was from the school chamber choir - we sat in awe with everybody else as Will Bersey conducted them singing fabulously.... some of our favourite pieces... beginning with exquisite Faire is the Heaven by William Harris - sung with great assurance... and from memory!  Much excellence followed, music by Gershwin, Whitacre, Rodney Bennett, Hamlisch and Lennon & McCartney... an excellent Edition Peters moment too - Ola Gjeilo - a splendid Norwegian composer... his Second Eve was especially beautiful... (all enquiries to Edition Peters!)

Also heard were the five young gentlemen of  the Ex-Choristers - lovely ensemble... They sang Palestrina, Sullivan and Lennon & McCartney - all very finely done.

We sang a couple of songs with them too - both of which are heard on our albums, but which need more voices to be performed live....

With the Chamber Choir: Noel Gay's Love Makes the World Go Round (in 22 parts)
&
With the Ex-Choristers: Over the Rainbow (in 8 parts)

Both were great to be involved with; splendid to unleash David Cullen's huge orchestral/vocal arrangement, but the latter was especially great (and is a particularly moving arrangement anyway by Andrew Pryce Jackman) as it was apparently the Ex-Choristers swansong as they all disappear off to University.  Spine-tingling and wonderful it felt to us & the audience seemed as moved...

We finished off the evening with 45 more minutes of Madrigal to McCartney - and of course ending with a rendition of The Lambeth Walk - OY!

Carole was there to greet friends old & new - splendid; and we even had a visit from Gertie - all the way from The Netherlands... fabulous!

Great to share a concert with these excellent young people, they were wonderfully professional and more poised than I ever remember being at that age!

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Upcoming London Concert - July 9th

Come and see us in central London:
Grosvenor Chapel, Tuesday July 9th at 7.30....
A joint concert with St Edmund's School, Canterbury...

Get your tickets here

You can see two songs which can only be heard on CD - Love Makes the World Go Round (from Music of the Night - which requires 22 parts) & Over the Rainbow (from A Tribute to Hollywood - which requires 8 parts)... a must for all!

See you there!