Heart is Best

Yippee, more athletics this week end. It is the European Championships, and I have been glued to the TV.

I heard such a good maxim during the interview with the amazing, and pint sized Jessica Ennis who is doing so well in the Heptathlon. It was concerning her Long Jump competition. The general conversation was becoming more and more tangled and complex whilst discussing her technique, and what could she do to alter this and that and the other.......when someone said (sadly I can't remember who!) 'Hang on here, remember 'Analysis means Paralysis'.

I felt a small electric current zoom through my 'singing persona'. So many singers are so bound up in this technique, or that technique, or too busy dissecting a song for all it's worth, they seem to forget why they are actually doing it.

More than often a highly intelligent singer will cause themselves so much angst, confusion, and even fear from the constant inner argument. Thinking about what you are singing is of course, vital for a complete performance, but when the brain gets in the way it is very detrimental, and leaves no space for singing from the heart.

I looked at the word 'Analysis' in the dictionary and it has some interesting definitions - 'study', 'examination', 'investigate' and 'breakdown' ! Interesting indeed, because each one has a value, but all need to come with a warning on the tin. Do all of the above to some degree but then take a step back, wonder if the composer analysed his composition, then stop thinking and sing with your whole heart, and love the song. That way the musical whole will be free and relaxed and never paralysed.

I spend much of my adjudicating life talking about a free and open tone. Sometimes the simple truth says, 'More is Less'.

...and I mean brain!


Well Done Jessica - she just won the Gold. Strength, Courage, Talent and Training!

Happy Birthday and Thanks

Today is my daughter's birthday. She is on holiday with my lovely grandchildren at the moment, camping in France! I hope the rain stayed away !

She is also a singing teacher, who started in school, went on to perform in her teens and early twenties, then moved over to the dark side and chose to sing in a Soul and Blues Band. Aaaggh!

She is a fine singing teacher, and although she did not pursue her classical career, I often cite her as an example when I am faced with 25 tiny stage school starettes who shout as if their life depended upon it. She has sung in her belt voice but on the foundation of a great classical technique, and now will not let any of her under 18's use this dangerous area of a young voice.

It is a Godsend to me, and in my armoury of teaching weapons her 'story' comes in at number 1. I can honestly tell a hall full of blinkered but well meaning mothers and teachers that I have first hand experience of this most touchy element of 'child performing', and it normally stems the tidal wave of derisary comments along the line of 'she has no idea of what she is talking about - stupid woman' ! I am sure audiences think I am out to kill dead their darling daughter's stellar career.

If only they realised that I am trying to save it. Young vocal folds are not ready in any way to sing in their chest register, they cannot hold the weight of the force. So all that happens is above a fairly middle range note the poor old voice just gives up, cracks, and dies an ignominious death. A very good guide for a listener to make a slightly informed guess is:

' Does my throat feel uncomfortable when the singer tries to sing higher ?'

If the answer to that is yes, then it is NOT Belt voice, just shouting and imitating pop singing. I bow to the knowledge of teachers who specialise in Belt singing, they do it properly and at the right age, and it is very exciting.

Eternal thanks to my daughter for giving me the words to silence the 'poor' stage school crowd.

Well done to the 'good' stage school crowd who do it so well it blows your socks off!


Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you.............

Musical Flowers

I was given the most exotic and fragrant bouquet of flowers by the cast of the show, and as I write the scent is wafting across the room. They are a lovely mix of lilies, roses, carnations, and others not so common and I know not the names!

Flowers after a performance is one of the really happy moments in a singers life. Over the years I have built up a collection of vases big enough to hold the magnificently enormous bunches which kind Choral Societies, Opera Companies and Music Societies see fit to spend their hard won cash upon - and very nice it is too.

There are so many songs based upon flowers, that when one starts to think about it, the brain fills with pictures of musical bouquets. The Rose is a supreme favourite, and off the top of my head I can think of 'Rose Softly Blooming' by Louis Spohr, a delightful, highly romantic and extremely pretty song for a youthful soprano. Then 'List and Learn ye dainty roses', the opening chorus from The Gondoliers, which describes red and white roses being twined into posies and we find roses in Schuberts' 'Heiden Roslein', where the thorn becomes an analogy for the sting in the tail in something so outwardly beautiful.

Flowers are so wonderfully inspirational, so gently peaceful and give so much pleasure, it is hardly surprising that so many composers have either used the muse of the poet who writes about them, or simply found their own inspiration in their purity and profusion.

The 'Flower Duet' from Madam Butterfly is one flower inspired ensemble which I sang many times with my lovely duet partner from eons ago ! I loved it, even though I did not really ever possess what you might term a 'Puccini' voice. My soprano buddy was a much more perfect voice type, and she could soar up to the B flats with all the ease of a well played flute, whilst my rather more well schooled, and clean Handel timbre was swept along by the general swell, and greatly enjoying the moment.


It is such a wonderful and hopeful moment in the opera. Cio Cio San (Butterfly) is asking Suzuki her maid to help her spread 'roses, violets and sprays of sweet verbena' over the house to welcome home her Lt Pinkerton, the US Naval officer who has to all intents and purposes, abandoned her.

Listen to it with your eyes closed inhale a big breath and let me know what you think!


(PS There is a particularly sublime recording of Butterfly
"Madame Butterfly" with Chinese soprano Ying Huang as Cio-Cio San and Richard Troxell as Lieutenant Pinkerton. This is the 1995 film.)

Giving Your All

Dame Janet Baker - a moment of musical and physical transcendance

I hope you enjoyed looking at a few pictures from our show. It was such a good production, and even from the few photos I posted there is such concentration and hard work happening.

People often tell me how easy singing looks, and 'is'nt it just natural?' Well, no actually. Of course to be a really good singer there must be a potential filled raw instrument - which many of us have - but, after that it is sweat and muscles, and a soupcon of magic. Singing is so internal that it becomes super difficult to see which muscles are actually working and which are not. Learning to control vocal folds, diaphragm and abdominal wall support muscles is a refined and complicated science, and that is before one adds in languages, memory, tuning, interpretation etc...............

The best analogy I can find when teaching my students is that of the ballet dancer. The view from the audience must be one of effortless grace, but we all know that the vast amount of physical endeavour behind that grace is enough to compete in a decathlon wearing a fur coat! Singers too, use huge amounts of undiluted energy to make the listener imagine they were simply born to sing for 12 bars, at fff, lying on one's back, and in just one masterly lungful!

I have felt the perspiration run down my arms and form tiny glowing pools of sweat, comprised of liquid droplets gently dribbled from my finger tips.

Lovely.......

Costumes stick as if they are glued to the body, and at each stage exit, a dresser unlaces the bodice and wipes one's torso down, with towels from a pile in the wings.

Lovely......

I often think that 'sweat' is a jolly good gauge for the degree of physical imput a pupil is using! Infact one of my favourite, and most encouraging teaching truism is 'Sweat a bit!'

One of the least known of Einstein's formulae is :

90% Sweat + 8% Intelligence + 2% Magic = 100% Singer (We take the musicianship for granted don't you know)

Many years ago when I was teaching A Level Music in school there was commonly a question on the written essay paper.

'Singing is a Sport' Discuss.

Sport indeed, and there are always winners and always 'also rans'.
It's a tough old game, so give your all: Every time.

Pictures

Some pictures for your delight!

Enjoy!

The Shepherd's Song

Sir Edward Elgar


Housework, grocery shopping and washing today! This blog is supposed to be about teaching singing, but even creative types have to do the daily living stuff!

Whilst doing the shopping however, I saw one of my principals, who is working her gap time, or maybe in singing terms I should say, her development time in the local supermarket, and she told me just how much feedback, and compliments she had received since the show finished. I was so pleased, as she is an extraordinarily talented young Mezzo Contralto, with a burgeoning talent, and a massive voice. She has a common problem among aspirant professionals - she finds the waiting agonising!

It is possible to be a Doctorate level in violin or flute at any age, infact I have witnessed young 'geniuses' at Junior Conservetoire play a sublime concerto with the orchestra, and not be old enough for high school, but singers...............ahhhh. It is so utterly physical, and such a long wait for the muscular development to happen, patience is the most valuable, and most the elusive of weapons in their musical armoury.

This young lady is of the mould whereby the voice is bigger than she is, it is vibrant and alive, akin to an organic lifeform which has a will of it's own. She has developed so much, and just when it seems that the 'voice' and 'technique' have equalised Mother Nature springs another surprise and 20,000 more decibels appear as if by magic!

She sang at the festival in June, and sent goosebumps shooting through me with her English Art Song. It was the wonderful 'Shepherd's Song' by Edward Elgar, which races along like the crashing waves it describes, and then comes to a broad stop when describing the 'bright red poppies', and comes home with 'in the dreamtime, answer answer me....'.

It needs passion and a real sense of poetry, and even when a voice is not entirely under control, or not yet settled, and has the odd overshoot of tuning, you are completely swept along by the 'what there is to come!' One day, in time, she will make a superb Angel in 'The Dream of Gerontious'. I hope I am still around to listen to it.



She also made a mighty good Buttercup!

The Final Prize

My first full day of freedom! There is always that feeling of being let out of jail the day after a show finishes. I did wake up this morning with every melody from HMS Pinafore zooming around my brain altogether, like a great symphony of Gilbert and Sullivan ! It was a bit all consuming so I had to put the TV on to help flick the show 'off switch'.

The final venue was cleared this morning, so I had a visit from the set van bringing me some large wooden backdrops, which are now residing in my barn on a slow journey to complete rot down! The final timbers of the ship may end up heating my house next winter - a jolly fine resting place for them I say!

The after show party was a great hit. It was in a local hotel, and after the usual thanks and flowers the younger and stronger element of the crew got down to the serious business of beer, which they managed to sustain until around 7am this morning. Thank the Lord that I no longer have to join that particular party, and sparkle til dawn - actually from what I understand there was a bit of snoozy respite between pints !

Singing in a show, whether chorus or principal is such a bonding thing. I mentioned in an earlier post that to work successfully, complete trust has to build amongst the team. I love the fact that many of my past pupils who shared so many shows over the last 20 years, still feel that bond when they meet up, and thus have an affection for one another, which has grown from those close up and personal moments. That does not mean that they are bosom friends, or may have even chosen each other as mates in another life, but it says, that warts and all, we were in something together, which in small but important ways, changed all our lives. I feel just the same. My life is just as entwined - or maybe entangled with theirs.

I hope the newer members of that family feel they are just as important part of that history, and are equally as important. A thread of song from the first youngsters who were thrown together in around 1980, up to those of all ages who are still being musically jettisoned into each other's performing orbit in 2010.

Some of those past shows are ;

The Mikado
Iolanthe
Dido and Aeneas
The Marriage of Figaro
Let's Make an Opera
The Gondoliers
Albert Herring
The Pirates of Penzance
The Rape of Lucretia
Trial by Jury
and on and on and on............

I have tried to cover all styles and genre in my teaching and production, well all those styles suitable for young voices!

Any particular favourites in the list ?

Last Night

The ambiance of the professional theatre had it's expected magnificent result! The whole company raised their game, and the show took off like a rocket! It is astonishing how altered the cast's perceptions are when faced with a stage the size of a small West End Revue theatre, a professional crew who use all the right jargon, preset lights, sound check and amplify, and use their own haze machine !

The smell of the backstage is so evocotive, it hurls me back in a trillionth of a second to all the multitude and various backstages I have been in during my life. Some, where, if you pin back you ears you can almost hear the mice cavorting around the dressing rooms, and others where technology determines everything including making the tea!

There is such a feel and smell, which is not easy to pinpoint, but the ether is hung heavy with fear and exhileration, and the atmospheric dust rises in front of the lights so there is a permanent impressionistic blur.

It is the last night tonight, and then some sleep!

What Ho 'Inner Sound', you did the job; you did me proud!

Now some posts can be Post Pinafore, Yippee !

Theatre Magic

One Touch Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness
Tomorrow's Venue




I am now all 'showed out'. Another excellent performance this evening, and now I really know that they do not need me any more! I can relax and enjoy the fun!

I am so honoured, I realised when I got home after the end of show tonight that my 'work place' had been featured on the wonderful blog
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com
which I read with great admiration and enjoyment. Thank you so much Rhonda!

I came home tonight and shared a very late supper with two of my cast members. We laughed so much about what had gone perfectly, and what had been disasterous I began to wonder if I would miss the annual life disruption that is 'the show'. So many folk were pressurizing me when it was over, jokingly telling me that they were booking us for next year, or 'how could I possibly stop doing it'.

I suppose that folk who only ever enjoy the final product never really understand what a long and tiring journey it is until opening night. In a perverse way the very LAST thing one would want an audince to see was the hard graft - to them it is one night of fun, tears, escapism and freedom from the daily grind, the magic of the theatre. For the performer, musical director, and producer it is the end of much physical effort combined with the ever present panic of the dreadful possibility that one might conceivably run out of ideas. A very real kind of theatrical writers block.

I felt that this year, more strongly than ever, an I am absolutely sure that it must be the time to quit, whilst one is ahead, and go out with a roaring success.

I have sung in, or produced 37 shows in the last 25 years of my professional life. That has got to be a long enough sentence for anyone!

I am ahead.
I must quit.
It's been marvelous.

Well Done

It was a great success, and as good an opening night as one could ever hope for. The the venue this evening is an excellent small professional theatre. It has however, the distinct disadvantage of being almost without acoustic for singers, the chunky, airline type seats are heavily textured, and the walls are covered in draped curtains. The theatre manager kindly drew back the said curtains to allow for a little more 'bounce', but even so every crotchet has to be worked for twice over, else the sound dies at ones feet!

This is tough, but not terminal for the bigger and more professional voices, but the younger and more delicate instruments struggle with feeling any feedback at all. In many ways it is rather like a recording studio! However, after a short 'team talk' before hand, simply reminding them that it was muscular support that was needed not pushing from the throat until the point of vocal death, they coped admirably and paced themselves beautifully.

It was a stroke of fate that the toughest call was the opening night. The result being that the usual first night wobbles were tempered with the need to sing more technically. Minds were less occupied with butterflies than usual!

The house was full, and I understand that every venue is now 'sold out' ! I am so thrilled, the show will really rollick along with bursting audiences, and maybe even 'standing room only'! Actually I stand all the time! Sitting is not an option for me. I bob about and breathe vicariously and watch for any blips that need mentioning in the interval or at the end.

I had a bit of cum uppance last night. I was standing doing my usual 'bob' at the back of the stalls, behind the audience, completely engrossed in the goings on when a rather strait laced lady of 'a certain age' hopped out of her seat. She approached me with an ominous demeanour, pushed herself into my personal space - never a person's most endearing characteristic - and said in a stage whisper, 'You are in my peripheral vision and you are very distracting' to which I replied quite calmly, under the circumstances, 'I am the producer, and need to be here', to which she retorted 'I know! Please can you go away!'........I was a bit non plussed, so left with the loudest (and I have to say) most childish bang on the theatre doors, in the hopes I might further ruin her evening!

In truth, I was NOT that distracting, and anyhow, after all the work, the least a producer can do is to be able to watch the opener with fear, trepidation, relief and a certain amount of 'bob' ! I simply went up into the gallery and watched from the behind the cheap seats! They were much less demanding !

It flowed beautifully, the humour was almost all there, they left out the things they did not like from my producing - and I imagine they don't think I notice! Ha Ha!

But, once out there the theatrical world is their 'prima donna' oyster.

A hearty well done !

Onwards and Upwards!

Job done

Opening night.

The white faces and tense jaws are in great profusion, but when the first few notes have drifted into the ether of the auditorium the cloud of fear will lift and the magic will happen.

Well that is the theory!

I have sung many first nights in my life, and felt the impotence of the redundant producer on many also. Once the singers are out there, all your carefully planned moments will morph and turn into whatever the performers want, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it, except watch and admire (mostly!). The production midwife, who hands the 'baby' on and allows it run it's own life!

Job done.

Over to you now gang.

Tabs Up

You Rotter!


Well here we are, the day of the dress rehearsal. We have had 2 long days of repeating, repeating, repeating dance numbers, dialogue moments and 'business'. The 'business' being the seemingly spontaneous humour and body language shifts which are final touches to add bite and professionalism to all the the stage palaver, and which of course, the audience assumes are 'of the moment', when infact they are planned to the last nanosecond, with all the precision of a top secret commando invasion !

The energy is lifting with each day, and now when most of the cast feel as though they have actually got to grips with the moves, they will allow some small measure of enjoyment to creep in! The costume accessories, ie naval caps, flapper hats, cigarettes holders, lacrosse stick etc. are growing with each hour of rehearsal, and singers are sliding under the skin of their role with more and more ease.

Our Captain Corcoran, quite apart from the glorious vocal acrobatics, has become a somewhat worrisome clone of Bertie Wooster, and I feel sure he will be spending his post show summer greeting all with a cheery 'What Ho'. He has developed the bashful grin and the tongue-tied ineptitude of the 'dim but nice' uppercrust idiot. I love him!

The bounce off play between the 'main men' is like a fast moving tennis match, the comedy flicks nicely between players, with much eye contact and slightly Blackadder lunacy.

The girls are brilliant, our saucy and flirtacious Buttercup who, incidentally, has a voice the size of Bournemouth, is causing havoc with the male chorus hormones, and she works so well with the guys. It is not so common to find a young lady with such a talent, who can also 'do' funny - but when her rehearsal 'gauche' has gone she will most definitely squeeze many a guffaw from all but the most straightlaced of audiences.

Sir Joseph is wonderfully camp, the extra, and growing in number as we speak, added adlib lines which are mostly along the lines of ' Mama do'snt like me saying What Ho' are understatedly hysterical. He is a man who relish's the character roles as if they were a particularly buttery bacon sandwich, and he makes all around him raise their game !

The spoilt and brattish Josephine, is a beautiful 1920's 'heartless', night club loving character, and our immensely talented young soprano is positively awash with high pitched indignation at the position she has been put in. Her duet with the endearingly brainless Ralph, whose tenor voice soars up to the top G's and A's with breathtaking pp tone, is very moving - and very real. As a couple they are powerful and fiery, which makes for edge of the seat precipitous balancing!

The stage is set.

Tabs up.

....................................Small moment of vicarious butterflies!

The Aroma of Mozart

We have our pianist, safe and sound and ready to embark on the long Sunday journey from 'almost there' to 'we've got a show' !

I am going to be a few folk down as from today. One of our stalwart family groups will have to pull out at the last minute. A dreadful family bereavement has meant a sudden trip down south to, what will be a very sad funeral. That constitutes a very good and an utterly sad reason not to be at rehearsals.

There are still some last minute costume issues to sort out, a waitress apron for our 'Lyons Corner House' nippy Buttercup! I tried all over the town today - when I say 'town', I mean the capital of the Highlands which is 84 miles away - to buy a 'pinny' to no avail, so I may have to retrieve a needle and thread from my school sewing box and attempt a construction job!

My lovely 1920's Baden Powell Cub Scout however, now has his socks and lace up boots, so he looks like 'Just William Goes Camping', for those who remember the Richmal Crompton boy's novels about a naughty little school boy!



My little cub would make a perfect William, blond curls, angelic face, wicked streak and lots of fun. ''Crompton's best known books are the William stories, about a mischievous 11-year-old schoolboy and his band of friends, known as the Outlaws''
Our paradise William would give his right arm to belong to a a band called the Outlaws!!

On a summertime note, I picked the first bunch of my ancient climbing roses today. I have no idea what they are called, but the colour is an iridescent ice cream pink and white, and the perfume is like fragrant Mozart, which diffuses into every corner of the house and lifts the lowest spirits.

Tomorrow is the final 'everlasting Sunday' show rehearsal in my career to date. The show party poppers and streamers will be a perfect way to finish the 'production' side of my musical life.

Balloons, poppers, streamers ! What a way to bow out!

Lets party!

'Turn the damn page'

Oh No ! It's in 5 flats!


Tonight's excellent rehearsal was the last for which I have to play! Yay! On saturday I will pick up the superb professional young woman who is playing for the entire run of shows, the Tech and Dress rehearsals as well. The cast will be thrilled when she arrives for two reasons -

a) They will hear all the notes Sullivan actually wrote.


b) The music can zip along at the speed of lightening making the dance routines even more perilous to all but the youngest and most gazelle like cast member, and thus greatly more enjoyable.


Gilbert and Sullivan is really tricky stuff to play in parts, and wonderfully 'um ching' chords in other places. I have a Doctorate in busking accompaniments.

I have always had an extremely useful and utterly priceless ability to reduce the most complex and wonderful music to a series of chord sequences around which I can wriggle and scriggle rhythms which make it sound totally complete.

If however you ask me to play 'notes' I become as a Grade 2 beginner with fingers like large and overripe bananas. Notes mean technique, notes mean you practised your scales in your youth, and notes mean 'notes'! The tiny black animated, and slightly enebriated, spiders which dash around the 5 lines of the stave, just always out of reach.........

I was fortunate enough to be blessed with a page turner this evening. I say 'blessed' with some sense of reserve as the father of one of my teenaged Flappers volunteered for the job. He is a brilliant reader, so that was no problem. He plays the piano really quite well, so another problem solved, but he was enjoying what was happening on stage so much, all sense of responsibility for the indifferent pianist went out of the window, and I had to shout more than once or twice ' turn the damn page over'. He reminded at the end of the long rehearsal, and with marked solemnity, what a compliment it was to the quality of the show, that he was so riveted to the business on the stage he quite forgot about me!

Page turners make or break a performance - it seems such an easy thing to do, but making sure the correct black dots are visible at the right moment is the only way of ensuring that the music actually happens! This lovely man has volunteered his services for the next wee while, brave chap ! And presumably once he has witnessed the, in fairness, extremely funny and borderline lunatic antics on stage a few times more, he will be able to focus his brain on the score, without feeling as though he is missing out on the fun.

A good one people.

I think we may have a show.

Refrain audacious Tar

The passionate Ralph.....


The best duet for me in all Gilbert and Sullivan operas is the one between Josephine and Ralph in HMS Pinafore. It is so dramatic, and unlike the Mabel/Frederic duet in Pirates it is shorter and much more to the point!

I simply love the 'spit' in the fast sections, it sounds and feels angry, which drives it and the drama along with such passion. Then the soft section is full of dejection and love all at the same time.

It is based on the mistaken thought that Josephine does not love Ralph, the lowest sailor of the low, when infact she does. In this duet, as in Jane Austen's 'Emma', where Austen wrote ''I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like'' we really do not warm to Josephine as much as the other leading ladies, or heroines, and when she rails at Ralph with her first line of 'Refrain audacious tar your suit from pressing, Remember who you are and whom addressing'....she is a real minx! But when Ralph returns the fireworks he speaks from the heart with 'Proud lady have your way, unfeeling beauty, You speak and I obey, it is my duty', the strongest line in the show,

People in the business can be so snobbish about G&S, but when it is sung really well and with precision and passion it is wonderful, as well as surprisingly tricky, and full of vocal and technical pitfalls. It is a little like Novello and Offenbach. Less good performers can sing it, but the best singers make it sound delicious, and worthy of the finest voice and the most superlative musicianship.

Of course the rest of the story is largely absurd moments combined with lovely tunes, and the usual 'swapped babies' endgame, which we have come to know and love.

Swapped babies - I ask you, do you think it was to do with NHS cuts ?!

The End of Fantastic Era

Well it came and went!

Shows are great, but hard work, and although my young co-workers have tried hard whilst I was away - there is still a great deal of work to do, and the first night is a week today. I was a little panicked to see how 'rough and ready' some of it still is.

This is our 8th show, and the company has come a long way, and done so well, but the time has come for me to bow out. I have never had a year when I was not producing one or even two shows in a 12 month period over the last 20 years, and to be honest, I am all out of 'show'. It gets so hard to try to keep everyone 'up' and to pander to all the problems, real or fantasy that folk have, that I want a rest from all that expending of sympathy, bouying up, coaxing and yelling. If we were doing it professionally then one has the whip hand of 'you are being paid, get on with it!', but that is not the case with my lovely and volunteer cast! So that is it, and I have to say, the thought of a summer when I don't have to worry about it is beginning to feel attractive!

Don't get me wrong, they are a wonderful group of people, and they do work very hard, and the shows are really professional. The truth is simple - it's me that is worn out - sorry guys!

So onwards, and now I hope, upwards for a firework filled and brilliant show bursting with energy and fun.

To be continued

Well, I am awake, upright and smiling. That has got to be a plus - especially for the brave souls who will have me back at rehearsal tonight. I was updated on last weeks' affair, and informed by one of my cool young co-producers that after a bit of a telling off over knowledge (or lack of it) of words and music, that '' my telling off would pale into significance alongside Ann's when she gets home''.

I like that, a bit of healthy fear. It is the exclusion zone now, when I am supposed to have a whole and entire cast for 2 weeks. However I have already had a call from a mother who 'forgot', so oh dear, and another about a small person with rampant chickenpox, which is excusable on the grounds of having no cast next week due to an outbreak of shingles, chickenpox or worse, and one more about a family bereavement - which is A ok.

Forgetting is'nt. So 4 cast members down - everyone else better be GOOD, or maybe even DAMN GOOD !

This is a little late, but at Bournemouth the venue for the singing week is in a most interesting building, the Bournmouth Natural Science Museum, a truly Victorian fairycake affair with towers! At 'sandwich time' we sat in a room completely surrounded with glass cases full of stuffed birds of prey, and the odd, hopefully dead spider, caught in a grisly battle with an unknown to me, but slightly startled furry animal, who looked as if it had bitten off more than it could gnaw. It made for interesting conversations over the Battenburg.

This post will update after the rehearsal - gird your loins Ann.......

Home

I'm home.

Finally.

And only 2 weeks until HMS Pinafore.

Did I hear the word 'masochist' shouted from the rooftops?

I think it was me.

Paradise Church

Paradise Church


I heard the wonderous Lachrymosa from the Mozart Requiem on BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs' today. It made me think about the reason I was racing so fast along the M40.

I am trying to make it home to a funeral on Monday morning at 10.30pm, but I have driven as far as I possibly can today, andd I think the possibility of being there in one piece is fading into the distance. The husband of a very good friend of mine in Paradise passed away unexpectedly last weekend, and as I was mostly tied down with work, and was too tired to open my laptop for a couple of days, I missed the emails giving me the news. I will be so sorry not to be with everyone in church tomorrow. He was an energetic and passionate church organist, and I know he will be sadly missed by all in the village and the church. We did disagree on the glories of Gilbert and Sullivan, so he was no saint, if you see what I mean, but I let him off that a number of years ago !

Some of the Paradise singers will perform the Schubert Sanctus at the funeral, and with any luck the hymns will be sung with all the gusto of an extremely refined, yet enthusiastic rugby crowd. If the singing is lousy I will ask searching questions!

A rousing goodbye to Jimmy.

If you please!

Green

Well what a day. There were another 9 hours of festival - this really is the marathon of marathons, but I said at the beginning of the week that it would be arduous and exhilerating and it surely is! In equal amounts of both.

It is a long time since I adjudicated so many duets as I have this week. Duet singing is such fun - all the pleasure and only half the responsibility, and today we had around 8 operatic duets. They ranged from the usual La ci Darem la Mano from Don Giovanni through to an absolutely lovely Hansel and Gretel duet from the opera of the same name. When I was about 25 I played the witch in the Humperdink opera Hansel and Gretel, which is more like Wagner than Wagner, and my costume consisted of a huge green full length billowing frock, a green wig, green nail extensions and I was painted green on every part of my anatomy which showed.

We went through all the rehearsals, then finally got to the moment where they brought in the small children who were to play the Gingerbread Children. There were about 20 of them all aged between 6 and 8. All went swimmingly for the few blocking rehearsals and the Tech and then we got to the Dress. I was holed up for hours being painted, nailed and generally greened up, and finally after around 2 hours I stepped triumphantly out of wardrobe and make up to be met by a corridor of screaming and sobbing small lederhosened children who were mortally terrified of me, and the more I tried to tell them I was just the lady they knew in a green costume the more they screamed.

Mothers appeared from every door and window in the building, children hurled themselves at the indignant mama's and I felt like an overdressed and decidedly bilious child molester. I was then informed by front of house that under no circumstances was I to 'wander unattended' in the region of said small screamers' dressing areas ! I asked rather indignantly, what am I supposed to do on stage, to which the director replied, that was fine because the children knew it was'nt real!? Off stage however, clearly I was quite real, in my alter emerald ego, 'the wickedly green witch of the opera touring regions'. Small children - the tyranny of the tiny.

To resume, the H&G duet was so good, 2 young adult females playing a small girl and boy ? Clever! They were great, and peeped out from behind a screen to make their entry, then proceeded to captivate us with their childlike impressions, but never once tipping over into caricature. The music from H&G is majestic and thrilling, the orchestration requires a brass section the size of a small town, and singing over that is like riding on the crest of a huge wave of sublime noise. It's even better if you sing it wearing green accessories. Believe me.

Did I suddenly develop a green aura today, especially to scare them?

Nah ! They just got on with the job.

Zzzzzzz again...............

It has been an incredibly long couple of days and I have been too brain exhausted to write anything! Another whole day tomorrow, and I don't finish until 8pm, or later if I write slowly! One of the stewards did a bit of maths and told me that by the end of competitions tonight I have adjudicated for 54 hours since the beginning of the festival and still 2 days to go...................................

St Matthew Passion

The man himself!



It's been a long old day today, but a very satisfying one. The adult classes began at 9am this morning with the Novice class, through to the final Oratorio section with 'eleventy one' singers all performing for around 6 minutes.

Oratorio, or sacred music from large works most often, in festivals, by the 'greats', Bach, Handel, Mozart etc, is the class more than any other which sorts 'em out. I am not a formal church going woman, but I do consider myself to be a Christian. I have sung Oratorio for most of my adult life as chorus, soloist and more recently as conductor. It is challenging and tough music, but boy does it bring it's own rewards.

I wonder sometimes as I teach and adjudicate what it must be like to perform this scripture based music if one is a non believer. It must, I suppose become more role play than real. Then, of course there is the thorny problem of, 'is it the music which moves, or the spiritual message', and then the even pricklier problem of 'if it was inspired by belief, how can it be performed without that underlying inspiration' ? Too many questions for me at this hour after a veritable vocal marathon. Indeed I don't think I have any answers, so all in all, I am glad that I do believe, that neatly solves it for me.


I heard a most beautiful 'Erbarme dich', or 'Have Mercy Lord' from Bach's St Matthew Passion. A young lady with the creamiest voice embarked upon this difficult aria with such focus, and such commitment I found it altogether completely satisfying, quite apart from the sheer beauty of her performance of the vocal line which entwines with the violin obligato like a great heavenly duet.

I sang the alto solos in the Matthew Passion many times in my life and always felt humbled and very small in the face of the journey of this work, which above all others is bigger than we are, by about half a world. To sing Bach well we need a combination of excellent muscle support for the enormous and mostly impossibly long phrases, a highly astute musical ear to navigate the key changes and tricky intervals, and guts to have the cheek to even think we can do it any justice !

My desert island disc selection would be littered with Bach vocal works, in the hopes that if I was marooned long enough, I might have the time to conquer them !

To be honest, I am not convinced. I would have starved or gone bonkers before I felt as if I was even close!

Bach 1 - Ann 0



The picture is the one I like the best. He looks like a man who was human, and smiled. He had 22 children - he must have had a smile on his face a couple of times!

The Heat of the Sun

The Heat of the Sun


It has been another sunny and warm day in the South, and so, once again I asked for all the doors in the hall to be opened simply to avoid melting. I listened to the weather forecast tonight and - horror of horrors - the voice of the Met Office is predicting up to 30 degrees in this neck of the woods by the end of the week.

God help the singers who will have to grapple with my complete hate of the heat. I promise to try and not vent my frustration on them. To 'try' you understand. 'Oh for North Wind' - which is a song close to my heart by Michael Head! Hang on it is 'Oh for March Wind'! It was a Freudian slip !

There has been a downside of the open doors, ie the poor accompanists have had to put up with the music either gently rippling in the summer breeze, or being blown away by the first tornado in Bournemouth this year. They have been stoical to a man, and helped each other out by holding the fluttering sheets down with tightly clenched fingers so the competitions could keep going, and all the while suffering these indignities so I did not fall faint with the rising temperature. What mortification they have suffered at the hands of a sun hating adjudicator!

It was the Bournemouth Young Singer of the Year class today, and there were well over a dozen youngsters from 12 - 20 who each performed around 12 minutes worth of music. I was blown away ( unfortunately not in reality you understand!) by the standard of these young singers. At this age none could give a 'perfect' recital, they are all at the experimental early stages of performance with their own personal set of strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. How wonderful it is to be in the place where we have that choice! When we become the old pro, we sing what we are asked, largely when we are asked, simply so the mortgage gets paid!

There were some startling performances including a 13 year old soprano singing a delicious Bach aria with such aplomb I assumed she was about 17, and a charming young man with a smile to melt the heart of Jean Brodie, who serenaded all the ladies present with a Spanish song, like a benign Don Giovanni. I could go on, and on, but you get the idea. The standard was extremely high, and it is a privilege to judge these sort of classes - even if I often wish that the final word was NOT mine, and someone else could take the rap for making such decisions!

It was a very enjoyable day, culminating in this bevy of youth showing what is possible when they are inspired and well taught. It is often not the public or media's view of today's young people, and yet I have known these fully paid up members of the 'shining youth gang' all my working life, and everywhere I go there they are there, in flocks.

Paradise has them, the UK has them and, I assume the world has them. Why do we not see more of them ? Why the doom and gloom about 'the youth of today' ?

I love 'em !

There's something in the water

I heard some really first rate performances today. It was a day of teenagers, from about 12 to 20, the age, if I am honest, I love the most. Many were gauche, some were brimming with confidence, but all were at that stage where they change every week, and each lesson brings new sounds and new excitements.

There are no set pieces at this festival, so the field is wide open for own choice repertoire. As a teacher I know that this means we can choose what works for each individual, and as an adjudicator I know this means some pretty difficult judgements. When each competitor sings the same song certain elements of the piece become the benchmarks, therefore almost straight away some are excluded from the top placings. When dealing with a plethora of repertoire from all genre's, styles and voice types I have to really think! How do I compare a Lloyd Webber song, sung in a semi belt voice, with little or no regard paid to head register singing, with a performance of Amarylli mia Bella by Caccini, written in 1600 and something, and needing the lightest touch and the most carefully placed tone quality?

Well I take a deep breath and listen to each performance as an individual moment, then look at each one and decide who came nearest to a complete whole. Well that is the theory, but sometimes maybe I just go with what touched my heart and chance the consequences!

There is never a performer, however inexperienced or timid who has not got something to offer us. Each person who is brave enough to stand and deliver deserves the best of my ears, and the best of the few moments of time I can devote entirely to them. That is the least I can do.

I heard many fine voices today, but in particular, at the end of what was a long session we had a boys class for broken voices 17 and Under. It was a revelation. 8 or 9 young men performed, and one by one another fantastic voice appeared before me, from a 15 year old Bass who sang a noble Sarastro aria from the Magic Flute, to a wonderfully entertaining and controlled 'It aint Necessarily So', via a Vaughan Williams 'The Turtle Dove' sung with the warmth of a baby John Shirley Quirk, to the aforementioned Amarylli, sung with a delicious lightness by a budding young tenor.

What is in Bournemouth water - where do so many young men with gorgeous voices come from! It is so unusual to get more than 3 or 4 entries, never mind great voices.

One young man whom I had heard during the day positively melted my heart with a silky performance of Silent Worship by Handel - if you read back you may remember I was charmed at Aberdeen by a retired Minister of the Kirk singing the exact same song. Music is truly universal, and embraces all ages, stages and wages !

So many fine young men - so many highly talented girls, but today the boys just win on the 'twisting me around their little finger' front!

Twas ever thus!

Dear Ivor....


I have no idea what, if any, connections there are between Ivor Novello and the city of Bournemouth, but I do know that this week I will judge the Ivor Novello Award at the Musical Festival here. It seems a perfect place for this competition to take place. The old town and more especially the area where my utterly charming hotel is situated is humming with gentility, and brimming over with 1930's charm.

Bournemouth is also the definitive English seaside resort, looking to the future with it's business, sparkling glass walled skyscrapers, yet retaining the air of a time when folk were resevedly quiet, polite and beautifully mannered. The sentiment of all those gorgeous Novello songs positively hangs in the air. My personal favourite Novello song is 'Love is my Reason for Living', which I have on a CD of my first singing teacher Betty Middleton, recorded when she was about 75, and which has the same gloriously stylized and vaguely old fashioned manner as walking down the villa clad road from my hotel to the festival venue. We really could gather Lilacs along this road, in any given spring.

I ate in a hushed dining room, on a single table set with silver and starched napkins, whilst other somewhat elderly couples almost silently ate their meal, only speaking to congratulate the chef, via the discreet waiter. There was not a 'foreign' dish on the menu. It was a choice of fine, plain British cuisine, which included my perfectly cooked Plaice, green beans and tiny new potatoes.

My coffee was served in the parlour, whilst sitting on immensley comfortable Chesterfield furniture, and displayed on a doillied tray with a delicate blue and white china cup and saucer. It is positively fragrant with the life and ambience of Ivor Novello, Agatha Christie and Noel Coward.

I take my time in describing this too you simply because it is such a pleasure to be residing in such civilised surroundings. Don't get me wrong, most festivals accommodate we adjudicators in perfectly good hotels, but this is extra special, and so conducive to quiet relaxation after a long, long day of listening, writing and entertaining the troops so to speak.

Sometimes I feel real regret at the passing of common civility, a little gentility, and beautiful manners. Sadly I guess this is one area where the circle will not become 'full'.

So, therefore, we must make our own quietness in which ever way we can, and let go of the life we don't like or want, and fulfil our own circle.




'Every blessed one of you feels better for that burst of laughter' Ivor Novello

Thank God

I finished my journey today, arriving in the south by about 7.30pm. The last 50 miles are across the familiar downs country in the vicinity of West Sussex where I lived for over 30 years.

As I passed through one of the rather pretty, and amazingly expensive places to live, saturated with rose entwined cottages and thatched roofs, I drove deliberately slowly by the railway station. The time on my clock was 7.55pm, and the station door was disgorging a hundred worn out, heavily sweating youngish business men who were just arriving home. They looked haggard, lack lustre, frazzled and altogether heart weary with the endless life of the London commuter.

I thanked God a dozen times that the station, so familiar to me from 18 years of travel, was no longer part of my life.

It serves as such a salutory, and maybe needed at times lesson, and gentle reminder why I stopped all of that. My heart went out to them. The pay may be great but the quality of life is minimal.

I get to my hotel tomorrow, and start working at 9am on Sunday morning, so tonight I am able to stay with family, and see the grandchildren for a few hours. We sang some songs, listened to some cello playing - which was marvelous, and clearly in line for the next Jacqueline du Pre Award - small exaggeration here (but not much!!). Had dinner at a nearby Harvester, where they wolfed a half rack of ribs and trimmings, then back home to wash off that huge amount of BBQ sauce carefully and evenly distributed over trousers, shirts and cheeks before story and bed!

It is so good to have a day without serious singing, without having to think in a judgemental way, and relax. My 6 days of adjudicating will be enjoyable and arduous. Exhausting and hopefully exhilerating, and quite definitely the last for 2010 !

Oh joy.

The Splendour Falls

The Splendour Falls - composed 1943
Music by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs
Words by Alfred Lord Tennyson


The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long [light]1 shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory:
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
[Blow, bugle;]2 answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
[Blow, bugle;]2 answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.



Here I am at another Travelodge Motel - somewhere in Lancashire, and on the never ending, and all too familiar M6 Motorway. The M6 is the spine of my travelling body, it gets me from the furthest north to the furthest south in the shortest possible time. I suppose I ought to be grateful, but it is tough to feel anything other than mentally resigned to the well known and fairly boring 300 miles of straight road!

For the first time in ages I was listening in the car to a new CD which I recently purchased for about 2p on Amazon. It is a re-print of a Dame Janet Baker recording of English Art Song. I had the same on LP about 123 years ago, infact I think I revised for my A Levels to it and one other LP of a little known opera called La Calisto by Cavalli. I did infact pass quite well, so they can't have been too detrimental to academic progress!

Anyhow there were a couple of songs I had forotten, they had receded into the mists of my brain, and it was like suddenly being thrust back to my desk and bedroom (which was dark purple and rather 'nylonesque' I recall, and very late 1960's retro!)in a small seaside town on the North East coast of England.

Quite apart from Baker's sublime technique and totally focused tone, combined with scintillatingly crystal words, the heart she puts into these long fogotten songs such as 'The Estuary' by Michael Head, 'The Call' by Vaughan Williams and 'The Splendour Falls' by Armstrong Gibbs is so poignant, and warmingly redolent of rolling green pastures on hot summer days. The Splendour Falls is actually about a visit to the highlands of Scotland, and is both dramatic and lyrical at one and the same tme - just, infact, like the vista I see out of my kitchen window! I sang it in the Mezzo solo class at Blackpool Festival in 1970, and loved the text as well as the music. I bet the then carefree 20 year old never dreamt she would be living in that very Paradise!

And so to bed, says Andy Pandy to Teddy.

( Andy Pandy was from a toddlers TV series called Watch With Mother, when I was about 5, for the info of any reader friends too young to remember, or not from these shores!)

Blimey my nostalgia hormone has gone slightly beserk, I must need to sleep!