Up and Away to Marylebone Road....

The old stamping ground........Not quite Paradise, and the 'local' coffee is £6 per cup !


I finish my teaching week on a wednesday night - which sounds like a very short week as far as you fulltimers out there are concerned, but it leaves me the rest of the week for other work !
This friday I fly off to London once more, in much the same way as I did for all those years I commuted up to the RAM. For a short 3 days in town, and then back on Sunday ready to teach on Monday!

This time however it will be a much more pleasurable trip! I have been invited back to the RAM to judge the Intermediate and Senior Singing Prizes ! I will meet up with a very long time pupil for lunch on Saturday, then the competitions start at 3.30pm, both age groups taking around 3 hours in total, then I will be dining with 3 old students who are now teachers in the same establishment! How pleasing is that! I am fully expecting a great standard of singing, and a raft of sensitive and musical performances combined with an assured technique.

I also hope to see some unique individuals, hungry for a vocal future, eager for knowledge and bright eyed and bushy tailed into the bargain. I am also hoping to see young performers who know how to dress for the business of performing and how to present themselves confidently, but with no affectation or artifice. No pressure then!

I am so proud of the legacy I left and which was taken up with such drive and excitement by my successor, and her fine young staff of singing teachers. I am only sorry that one of them will not be there. Inconveniently, her baby boy chose to make his debut on monday of this week ! I think that is a fair excuse for absence..................

Each singer in the Senior Prize has to perform three items of a contrasting nature, and designed to show off their strengths. A good programme is the very essence of the thing. At student level safe, yet exciting choices which light up the young singer can often lead to a winning performance. Sometimes a really great programme can even outweigh a few vocal imperfections, if the overall performance sparkles and engages the listener. It is amazing what our ears 'forget' if we are entranced by the personality and bubble of the singer. The Intermediate Prize is just two pieces, and I feel certain that the less advanced students will sing out of their socks !

I can't wait.

That monarch of the road,
Observer of the Highway Code,
That big six-wheeler
Scarlet painted
London Transport
Diesel engined
Ninety seven horse power
Omnibus.