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.

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...

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!

Vienna joy

Splendid - another full house tonight... and this lot would not stop clapping... which was nice!
...and the weather has improved, a wee bit of rain, but mainly sun.
Bob went on the Prater ferris wheel this am with TLQ friends Regula and Lotti... where they made a film noir on a telephone - that will be interesting!! The Third Woman perhaps?
I'll tell you what it's like when I've seen it!

Wonderful three days - hoping we may be able to squeeze in a Christmas visit... we shall see

PS: I did, it seems, put the mockers on England at cricket, South Africa are romping away...

This is ridiculous

Can this please be sorted out; we came here for a lovely three days of central European sun and some splendid gigs in the Theater am Spittelberg, and then it rains ALL THE TIME!
Another flood on the way back to the hotel.
This is not what we were promised.

Well the second half of what we came for is splendid - A full house very much enjoyed being out of the rain and indeed our show....
...can we see some sky tomorrow please...

Ah, Vienna

Well waddya know?
I tell of the glorious sunshine when lo and behold, the most biblical flood arrives for a few hours... many of our audience (and our employer!) were soaked to the skin as they entered the theatre.
Biblical it was - and we were told later that in the offices just over the road from our hotel, there is a copy of the Bible in every translation as yet created (it is quite a big office!)

Now the weather has settled down to English slightly dank, so that's nice.

I could say at least we are doing well in the cricket against South Africa, but I don't want that to go wrong too.

As to the show, we had a splendid time, and the audience were damp but excellent!  They seemed to enjoy the HeeBeeGeeBees song we sang for them... and the wigs too... and of course Steve in his lederhosen.
Our Flanders and Swann Song of the Weather with German lyrics by Maggie Forsythe went down especially well!

Two more nights of the same at Theater am Spittelberg - hopefully minus Noah's influence.

Tuttlingen Summer Festival

Another splendid German a cappella nacht organised by Peter Martin Jakob and Magenta - three groups, as ever; last night we were joined by the delightful sonic suite & the hilarious KaiRo  - all together in the Summer Festival at Tuttlingen.  The crammed-full tent was thoroughly noisily happy with each of us - tremendous all round...

Now we are in Vienna, awaiting three nights at the Theater am Spittelberg - splendid... and in glorious sunshine, which after the summer so far, is a bit of a shock to the system.