Day of the Concert

Mon Tip: Think of a giant rhododendron opening up for the Amen molto cresc.

We had a runthrough with the organist, Gareth Perkins. He played very well (in spite of a poorly wrist), but it's a big Edwardian sort of organ and rather ponderous, which unsettled me a little in the Purcell, being not at all the Right Sort of Sound.

The nice old lady who had requested the Hallelujah Chorus phoned up to ask "They are going to sing the Hallelujah Chorus, aren't they?" to which the church adminperson replied "They will if you clap enthusiastically".

Some of the audience looked rather unmoved by the first few pieces, but the Sandstrom not only woke them up but elicited an "mmmm" sound, surprised but appreciative. They loved the Shakespeare set, and we really swung the dreaded Rutter. And then of course the encore... Handel at full blast :)

When Gareth took his bow, he acknowledged the organ. Nice touch!

And then the post-gig party. Amazing how rowdy a group of musos can get on a successful gig and a dozen bottles of wine (between about 30 people including groupies and guests and not including Kit and me, who were drinking some very very good M&S organic pressed apple juice). We sang most of the programme again - and the clearly pissed basses even started up the Sandstrom, but we all ended up in different bars and fell about laughing, so Hans and Sebastian sang I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside instead. With a little dance.
George Humphrey came to the party and met Jenny the local organiser, who has a collection of >200 teddy bears. She was most impressed with him.

I cried during Blei Bei Uns and so did Manfred, although he says that one always makes him cry - for me, it was the realisation that we'd come to the end and it was time to say goodbye to a wonderful group of people and a week full of music.

Day Five of the Torquay singing-week

The postie arrived to deliver mail as we were warming up, and said hello.

Mon gave us an exercise to practise singing legato for Elgar's Ave Maria - choose a partner of about the same weight (cause of much hilarity), stand facing, grip the other's left wrist in left hand (right hand holds the dots), lean back as far as you can, and sing. Apparently it's very difficult not to sing legato in this position. About half-way through, Jim the caretaker walked in to pick up some decorating gear, looked at us for a few moments, and disappeared hurriedly without saying anything.

We went to the museum for lunch again, and this time achieved my wish to sing in the hall. Luuuuvly acoustics. We got some prospective ticket sales out of it, and compliments from the staff, so all good. Small world syndrome - also having lunch in the museum cafe was a tourist from Switzerland whose daughter sang in one of Mon's choirs.

All of us (29 including groupies) had dinner in Simius the new Italian restaurant. Excellent food. We sang odd snatches quietly, but nothing loud or complete. As we left the manager said he wished we had sung a few pieces - missed opportunity! He'll come to the concert though.

Mon's Tip #nother: Support repeated notes by thinking of how a speedboat's bow is raised so it hits each wave at a level (visual demonstration of hand stretched horizontally palm-down with fingers curved up). "Tenors - pull your front end up"

Mon's musical direction #thinkofsomething: "completely luxurious, as if you were covered in peacock feathers"

And finally, though the Sandstrom is sounding pretty good now...
Mon's Tip #urr: If you go wrong, just make sure you don't appear worried - turn the look of anxiety into one of emoting.

Day Four of the Torquay singing-week

People have been asking how long I've known Mon and been going to the singing weekends/weeks, so I checked with Elissa. She reckons Birmingham (the first Mon singing weekend) was in spring 1994, and Kintbury was the following year. That long!

One of the nice old ladies of St John's asked Mon if we'd be singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Mon told us amid amusement, but also said there are copies in the church library so we tried it and it works! 24-voice Messiah, heh.

Looks like we may be able to perform the Sandstrom (the o needs a wossname; it's Swedish). It sounds weird, but we get through it without stopping and finish together - the most important things of a performance ;).

Mon's Tip #whatever: To raise the soft palate for high notes, imagine it's a jellyfish doing that jellyfish swimming thing (demonstrated with hand rising, fingers opening and closing).

Day Three of the Torquay singing-week

I'm too tired for much reportage!

Rehearsals are going well. Ann is singing solo in the Mendelssohn, and beautifully. The Purcell verses are two-to-a-part, so no stress at all :)

Seems the late Proms aren't on TV, and I so wanted to see the newly-found Striggio as well as hear it.

Day Two of the Torquay singing-week

We began rehearsal at 9:45. I can't even remember how much we sang. The afternoon was spent in Cockington, a very pretty village next to Torquay, which has a lovely old church. Singing there was irresistible. The acoustics are perfect for a small group - open but fairly dry - and so the top notes were smooth and easy. It's curious how feeling closed-in by a venue will make the high notes strained. We started with some of the sacred half of the programme, but Monica had a great urge to do the Rutter It Was A Lover; most inappropriate for a twelfth-century church, but great fun even though it is Rutter.
Back to St John's for another hour-and-a-half, including more work on the Sandstrom. Sven-David Sandstrom took Purcell's Hear My Prayer, O Lord and added some very strange things to the end. Most of the notes are found in the Purcell - well, all of the notes which are written on the stave (though not always in the same octave - first sops have top C!), but there are also some notated by a downward-pointing triangle: this means make an open vowel sound very quietly at the lowest pitch you possibly can ("lowest" as in "below your range of musical sound"). The other odd notation is a Z below a written note, on an M sound. This is "hum with vibrato". Apart from that, it's random interlaced bits of Hear My Prayer producing even crunchier chords than Purcell deemed necesssary, sung more and more slowly to produce first unease, then detachment, and finally trance.

From the rehearsal of Full Fathom Five (dingdong dingdong etc):"Basses, make sure you don't end up with a large dong."

Day One of the Torquay singing-week

I signed up for another Monica Singing Weekend, though this one is a week and it's also not in Switzerland.
The first rehearsal was in the bar of the hotel because St John's was busy, and afterwards we went to check it out by attending mass. Amazing place - a Victorian neo-classical building which has been perfectly restored using the huge loadsamoney A. Lloyd Webber paid for a couple of paintings found in the church. Mass was very long, as it's higher-than-Roman, and afterwards we were welcomed at parish coffee n bickies, and read the posters and flyers advertising our gig on Friday. Mon had told us not to think about the concert and to concentrate on enjoying, learning and making music, but the posters kind of wrecked that plan.
After the congregation and helpers had cleared out, we had the hall to ourselves and got down to serious work.
There are some solo parts to be allocated. I wondered whether to volunteer for O For the Wings of a Dove on the grounds that every singer ought to do it at least once; on the other hand, a bit of Purcell might be preferable.
Torquay is very very hilly, and Broomstick is broken. owww.

sometimes it's one and sometimes the other

Cumin and pistachio chocolate is very weird.