St George's Day glory & Swiss beauty

For St George's Day, We share a lovely meal with the Spectacle-makers Livery Company, in Haberdasher's Hall in the City of London.
Marvellous.
As Sarah-Ann pointed out, it all sounds quite Terry Pratchett (RIP)

For those who wish to know more - look at Livery Companies

It was a wonderful spread... fine flowers too!

Clearly we followed our brief and sang many songs on the two most important subjects for the evening:
Eyes
&
Drinking!!

Eyes:  Weep O Mine Eyes, Jeepers Creepers

Drinking:  Brindisi, Beer-drinking Britons, The Anacreontic Song (we did the last two on the TV last year!)

Both:  Drink to me Only With Thine Eyes !

I put my lenses in for the evening... perhaps I should have kept my glasses!

Then off to CH:
...the beautiful view just by our hotel/restaurant.... at Pfäffikon, Switzerland

An a cappella gig as part of the a/c festival, which we shared with three other groups...

The first two prize-winners in the Fest...

A group of young people - Get Loud - a mixed group full of youthful joy...

...then Vocabular - slightly older all-male group; lovely mix of pop and classical...

...ending with the madcap The Glue - who were splendidly fun!

Inbetween these Swiss groups we were the British element... and everyone was in a fine mood... a grand night for singing indeed...

Lots of lovely harmony during The Lion Sleeps Tonight... & of course we introduced them to the Laws of Cricket (as you do)...

A lovely evening... & good to see our old friend, Silvan!

...and now we prepare ourselves for California...

Ventura Music Festival at Ventura Beach CA... 8PM on Friday May 1st...

See you there (don't forget your sunnies)!

An evening of indulgence!

To Spencer House on Green Park, a magnificent 18th-century Palace for an evening hosted by Credit Agricole...

Here's the room in which they dined, and we performed:

Amidst a sea of wonderful paintings and sculptures, we sang for the bank and their guests - the London editors of the French media - after their having watched the Rugby at Twickenham...
Delightfully everyone stayed in a good mood & we only crowed a little bit about the wonderful 55-35 scoreline!  ...and only made one comment about then French side missing someone akin to Jonny Wilkinson - gloriously his name fitting in the space of  a lyric from the song Harley Davidson!
Surely you all remember that Brigitte Bardot hit... No??

We were singing songs in honour of the outgoing boss Jean Paul Chifflet... two of his loves being his vines & his Harley!  So we sang a folk-song, Le Vigneron & the bike song!

Everyone at Spencer House was efficiency and politeness itself; a splendid time was had by all.

Fantastic Belgian times...

Excellent three concerts in Belgium at the end of last week... following our CARA award nomination for Best Classical Album last week!

Firstly Hold That Tiger! at Opwijk, where we were last at Christmas 2011.
Lots of vocal groups were paid tribute to, and a great time was had by all...
Splendid singing form the crowd in The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

Excellent view from my hotel window (tho' I did have to lean out a bit!)

More great Lion singing the next morning at St Bavo school in Gent (or Ghent, if you like).... a huge crowd sang along in both that and the flag-waving land of Hope & Glory, as we gave them a shortened version of Best of British (well, they did have to go to some lessons as well that day).
The most enthusiastic joiners-in we have ever had, but there were 500-ish of them and they are full of youthful energy!
Steve marshalled the Flemish speaking with aplomb, of course.

Then it was off to Geel for a full Best of British show... and glorious it was.

.... indeed, another beautiful Belgian city:

For both the B.O.B. shows we were joined by pianist Paul Plummer - lovely to see him again, and great he was free for us amidst his travelling musician life!

Three wonderful concerts with Sarah-Ann... great times are ahead!

It was raining, so we went to The Arc...

Lovely evening at Skinny Bananas Piano bar at The Arc in Caterham.

Thanks to all who looked after us... especially Nicky, Chris & Beth, but all were very friendly and helpful.

Many old friends (mostly mine as I am a South London boy) and new came to see us here, and despite the terrible weather created a delightful atmosphere...
Excellent joining in in The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and there was full use of audience space, especially from Sarah-Ann Cromwell!

So the Arc's mini a cappella fest... just us and the Canadians Countermeasure was a great success... Hope this small corner of the SE enjoyed its vocal music!

Off to more rehearsal now... and a Belgian tour later in the month...

Countermeasure & TLQ at The Arc

Two a cappella concerts for you (if you are prepared to come to the very south of London!)...
...at The Arc in Caterham in its Skinny Bananas piano bar... come & see:

The wonderful Canadian group Countermeasure, who we met last year... are on Friday 30th January...
...and we follow on Friday 13th February...
Don't miss The Arc's mini a cappella festival!

PS: You can also catch Countermeasure at Oxford (29th) and the London a cappella Festival (31st) - which of course has other joys!!

2015 - a fresh start!

Well if you have to start somewhere with The London Quartet, there might as well be a
two-Michelin-star chef there to cook!
Marvellous meal was had by all at BMW Weld in Munich, where we entertained a select crowd in the Rolls Royce lounge.

First in a list of ways in which Sarah-Ann is just the same as Richard who she replaced....
* a penchant for chocolate mousse!
...(this of course takes 'singing beautifully' as read...)

The audience seemed unaware of the new ground being broken as they listened to Cantabile  ̶  The London Quartet... with a woman on the topline...
...and very good it was too!
Sarah-Ann's natural aplomb helped her take it all (including the last minute excitements which so often happen at corporate events) in her capable stride.

We were introduced by the delightful Antonia Niederländer, who has two passengers onboard (she is expecting twins)... and were made to feel very welcome by her, as well as Martine Rapp & Danielle Buse... Thank you to Herr Schmidt & everyone at BMW.
...& thank you to the gentleman from McDonalds (management, natch) who serenaded us with Joe Cocker songs (RIP) ...

BMW Weld had a British feel about it with the Mini on display as well as the Rolls...

We took the opportunity of seeing our old friend Rainer Wallraf; apart form being a radio presenter, show writer, translator and narrator, he has supplied many of our most splendid funny songs in German... and he lives in Munich... here he is communing with Mike, in his excellent apartment...

...and we met a new friend at the airport, on the way home, whilst we waited for the inbound (late) plane the next AM...

Someday, I'll fly away...

Happy New Year (with sad bit too!)

Happy New Year indeed...
...have a wonderful 2015!

Just in time for New Year, we had snowy scenes in Switzerland at the delightful Kloster Fischingen... once again a lovely evening: our 4th visit, and a splendid setting for a New Year's Eve concert....
Thank you to Silvan, Andrea and Michel for looking after us so well!
Fireworks at midnight were spectacular (and entirely from members of the public!)

Then we drove down to Luxembourg (the snow had stopped falling luckily) & arrived in time to celebrate a Best-of-British New Year... (altho' we did a wee bit of Strauss, natch!)
Once again we marvel at the happiness people have to wave Union flags and sing Land of Hope and Glory (albeit with Maggie & Julian Forsyth's comic additions)...
Thank you to Charles and everybody at Esch... a fantastic theatre!

This was, of course, Richard Bryan's last performance with us.... a very sad moment.  As we have said before, his influence on the group will never cease...even when he is physically gone...
It didn't affect the gig itself, but I am sure we all were feeling the weight of it as we sang.

Good luck, Richard with all that you do in the future...

...and so to steal a phrase, "The King is dead, long live the Queen".... er...
Sarah-Ann comes into the fray... onwards we go...
...do come and see us when you can!