Friday the 13th joys in Scunthorpe...

We did indeed have a splendid time in sunny (well a bit windy and rainy too) Scunthorpe...

There was even a world-première...
We gave the first ever performance of our a cappella arrangement of Quia Respexit Humilitatem from the Bach Magnificat; clearly Sarah-Ann had done this before & sung it beautifully, but our vocal noodling behind her had never previously been heard in public!

Scunthorpe Concert Society had been very brave and invited us back after only an interval of 15 years...
...and we sang in an excellent Performing Arts School, with great rehearsal facilities etc and a very good hall in which to sing.
We took the audience on the journey from Madrigal to McCartney, from Henry VIII (his Pastime with Good Companye) to Richard Rodney Bennett (his glorious A Good-Night from A Garland for Linda).

A delightful evening, with audience not only of people of a certain age; it was very good to see some young faces in the crowd too... But all of them, whatever age, were terrific and enthusiastic.
They also loved Chris's and our singing of California Dreamin' and When You say Nothing At All...

We hope Scunthorpe Concert Society goes from strength to strength...

The evening was only blighted by the disastrous news that started appearing at the end of the night of the appalling debacles in our beloved Paris... horrendous; what barbarity.

We are back in Lincolnshire on Wednesday the 2nd of December at Grantham....details here.

I wandered past the North Lincolnshire Museum on the way home... and found this old lady...

...and perhaps one of her mosaics!

Out to Germany at the end of this week.... Heilbronn & Montabaur;- all info on site...

Wunderbar!

Fabulous vocal glory in Germany!

Brilliant time in Germany... not only lovely gigs and audiences, but more opportunities to meet others singers/groups & enjoy their excellence!

These last few days we have met/shared stages with a wonderful array of talent.

Firstly as part of SangesLust - a four day vocal Festival in Bayreuth (October 1st - 4th)...
Thanks to Manuel and Nadia of the Bayreuth marketing team... good to see you again.

We sang in the street with the other groups in the afternoon - Bayreuth was alive with singing for 4 days (perhaps it always is - singing of one kind or another!)...
Then in the evening, we and Jazzation (from Hungary), Ringmasters (from Sweden), Sebastian Fuchs (German beatboxer) & Singers (from Denmark) went to five different restaurants doing 20 minutes in each... so the audience heard all five acts in one night... quite tiring, but excellent!
It is certainly interesting that performing the same 20 minutes 5 times is much more exhausting than doing 100 minutes in one place!
Audiences were fabulously receptive, and clearly enjoyed the different styles of the five acts...
Sadly the continuing gig in the last bar/restaurant was curtailed by our feeling the need to sleep having been up since 5AM... The Ringmasters were still pinging away at 3.30AM, we were told, before going to a club - ah, youth! They have recently been Barbershop World Champions and sound utterly terrific - however much sleep they get!
We only heard one song from these people, as we were always in different restaurants, but in the introductory serenade from ein balkon in the city, we heard:

Sebastian Fuchs' excellent beatboxing:

Jazzation's beautiful rendition of Fly Me to the Moon:

Singers' wonderful version of Stevie Wonder's As:

...and Ringmasters' spell-binding performance of Tonight from West Side Story - it just went up and up and up...

We performed Penny Lane... and here is most of us, watching Sebastian do his thing!

A long but very rewarding evening...

The next day was the first in our Mitsing concerts... our mitsing debut.

This is a very big thing in Germany; along the lines of Messiah from scratch concerts and singalong Sound of Music showings in the UK... Germany has gone mitsing-mad... in all manner of styles, classical, folk, schlager & pop.

...and loads of keen singers turned out at then Bayreuth Stadhalle to join with us!

We sang lots of new things too.... including Rolling in the Deep (Adele), When You Say Nothing at All (Ronan Keating), Another Day in Paradise (Phil Collins), California Dreamin' (The Mamas & the Papas) & Happy (Pharrell Williams... but a cappella!) to name but a few...

But they sang anything with us... Killing Me Softly, Beatles, Abba and even Ich war noch niemals in New York...

It was a really great experience for us all; gliding along on a sea of huge singing from the audience... (when we remembered to change the screen with the words on!   Thanks to Chris this was pretty slick! He has a younger brain than the rest of us)...

Sarah-Ann was especially excellent at getting the crowd to a fever-pitch of participation and we had a thoroughly delightful evening... (even including torch waving) ... do seek out film of this on facebook and/or twitter! 

S-A's flute solo in California Dreamin' a particular highlight...

After the delights of Bayreuth, we went to Blieskastel, where we have been many times before... for an a cappella nacht... sharing the stage once more and seeing old friends. 

We re-met Delta Q, who we invited to Romania two years ago... another brilliant quartet; and met the splendid OnAir for the first time... who are as much sound sculpture as vocal group...

The audience seemed to agree; another evening of varied vocal styles, but great entertainment...

Good to hear the other groups in such good form.

Here we all are.... once we had finished (14 happy singers...)!

Thanks, Peter Martin Jacob, Hamed, Bettina, Nicole and all the Magenta team for making these last few days happen.

Brilliant!

New line-up flourishes

Great times in Germany...
Germany welcomed Chris O'Gorman as the new 1st tenor!
Firstly to the beautiful town of Walldorf, which looked like this, in the excellent September sun...
Blue skies!

Lovely concert in a splendid tent, as part of their Zeltspektakel... with a gloriously enthusiastic audience... atmosphere (and food) equally tremendous!
Thank you to Jürgen for inviting us.... last time we saw him at a show, he missed our gig for the very good reason that his son Mika was being born... this time all the family met us!
Great to have lots of Magenta agency there too, Peter, Hamed & the lovely Bettina... (not that Peter and Hamed are not lovely too, of course)

Then there was a long drive to Dresden... it should have been 5-6 hours but a glorious traffic jam made it more like 9!
Wonderfully Martina Lange, who waited patiently for us to arrive, was indeed Job-like, and took our fine-cutting of it, in her stride!
We were helping to celebrate an anniversary of DREWAG (Stadtwerke Dresden GmbH)... & we performed in the quite glorious Schloss Albrechtsberg...
It looked like this (once it was dark!):

...and we performed in here:

I suppose this chap was our host, in a way!

Quite fantastic building in which to sing & a fine trip to Germany... and we'll be back next month, in Bayreuth and Blieskastel...
With a new Mitsing show in Bayreuth ... on October 3rd!

A couple of unmentioned things over the last few months... the end of CI tour gig at Jersey Arts Centre was splendid... and Jason and his team were very attentive and excellent... lovely tour in the CI all round!
...and thanks also to Jeffrey Wynn Davies & Fiona Clucas for inviting us to sing at the Cranleigh Choral Week... we had a most brilliant time, what a great and appreciative audience the singers were... & this is the largest choral course in the UK... wonderful... lots of CDs and songbooks flew off the table after!

Channel Islands tour

Well, we have done Guernsey, Alderney & Sark on our CI tour...
Just as the last two times we have done the full tour, it has been a splendid experience... tho' a bit more time aboard boats than previously!

Summer weather has finally arrived...(this AM).

Starting on Guernsey at the marvellous St James Arts Centre and delightful large crowd there... we have been to Guernsey most often of the islands & it was great to see many old friends...
Thank you Kirstin for your support as ever & being a lynchpin in the organisation.
Very responsive in The Lion Sleeps Tonight... tremendous!

Then our only tiny plane of the trip, to Alderney... Ralph and his team as ever very organised and attentive to detail...
...I suspect the colour scheme is not up to them, alternative but traditional all at once!

This time we sang in St Anne's Church, rather than the Island Hall, which had a fine acoustic and an even finer crowd of enthusiastic people...

Despite this notice, I could not find The Sword in the Stone on my travels...

Clearly by travelling to Alderney we were in good company:

Then the planning had to change... we had only just got onto Alderney by plane; the fog covered just as we landed & so there was a huge backlog of flights the next morning (and wind and rain); so obviously... a BOAT to SARK was the very best option!

Oh yes...

My body achieved Sark... but my breakfast did not (that's quite enough detail on that I think...)

We were looked after very well (and very carefully) by Jane & Sarah, and had a great time... especially as the longer we stayed the better the weather got... till it was actually Summer this AM!

Above are some of the models representing the initial settlers on Sark in the 17th Century... (there is one real person... can you spot them!?)

The island is celebrating the 450th anniversary of its Royal Charter with many events & fun is being had by all who live on the island...

Excellent again to be welcomed into this small community, tho' its being Summer, there were also some tourists in the audience... and another surprise:- Carole (with her two friends, Christian & Ulrike) were also there... on holiday!

...and we saw a Perseid meteor (yes ONE, we did not want to overdo it... it was enough!); we might have seen more before, but the cloud did not lift till last night!

...and gardens were visited this AM too...

...and thank you for inviting us!

So our CI tour has been as splendid and eventful as ever was... and we look forward to Jersey tonight... we have already had a (very serene) boat crossing from Sark to Guernsey and now await the flight to Jersey...

Hooray!

Brilliant a cappella nacht

Three groups, a beautiful setting, a lovely summer evening... all glorious!

Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau was looking terrific; both castle:

& gardens (with moat & art too!):

Great to see our old Dutch friends - iNtrmzzo - and to meet some guys from Berlin... YeoMen

A wonderful mix of a cappella... the audience were gracious enough to welcome us all!

Thanks to Bruno for organising the day... lovely to get the invitation... a very delightful evening was had by all.

YeoMen:

iNtrmzzo (moving to avoid moths!):

Special thanks to iNtrmezzo for doing the last third, meaning that they were the group who had to deal with the (enormous) moths who were drawn to the stage lights... and even into their mouths.... gloriously funny; they dealt with it excellently!

As ever on a cappella nachts we were looked after very well, and enjoyed our trip to NW Germany... we were just up the road from Kleve... which we have subsequently found was, as some of us suspected, where Henry VIII's wife, Anne of Cleves came from!

...and it is very near The Netherlands...

... therefore lovely to see our very loyal friend and fan Gertie, who came to say goodbye to Steve at one of his last gigs! (Steve's last on the European mainland.)

Here is Steve (miraculously blurred) with the other speakers of that Low Countries' language... Dutch / Flemish (*delete as applicable):-

Well, we're off on Wednesday to 'finish Steve off' on four of the Channel Islands...

Island hopping off we go...

Wine and Voices Festival, Chateau Roubine

An evening in the sun in a vineyard in the South of France...
How marvellous!

Our stage beyond the dinner alfresco...

Delightful to be invited via our old friend Jean-Marie Gardon, to Chateau Roubine, Lorgues/Draguignan.... a splendid vineyard - excellent rosé wines, natch - half the audience were a large group from AccorHotels & the rest, members of the public & friends of the vineyard from all over Europe... Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands etc...

...and what a terrific evening; could be said it was a mite hot in white tuxedo/dress gear... but all was well... Thank goodness the show began at 9.00PM, so it was cooler by the end!

We premièred our tea-instruction song in French... and it went very well!  Now we can lecture people in English, French & German on the way to make tea!

We were all given a feast too... all the fun of the fair!

Thank you to La Chatelaine, Valérie Rousselle and George too; wonderful hosts you were.

There was a great deal of lovely art around the place including this fine metallic swordsman!

En Gardon!

Dinner by the Tower

We were honoured to be invited by Sir Tim Rice to entertain him & his colleagues at their summer dinner for the Society of Distinguished Songwriters...

This year the man himself is 'King Sod' as they put it in 'SODS'... and so this evening was all his fault! (Naturally it was sublime.)

View arriving at Friday night's venue... (no-one was sent to the Tower)!

We were performing here (below)... & as you can see, it has quite a history!

I am afraid I cannot tell you who else was there (Apart from Sir TR) otherwise we might have to kill you...

...but suffice to say, it was remarkable to be singing Penny Lane to such a room of celebrated muzos and have them singalong!

The assembled company were gracious in their appreciation.

Delightful evening in the glorious heat of a London Summer (8 days long, as you all know!)

Onwards to the South of France...