Report: St. John's Passion / Johannespassion - Wiesbaden

Man am I behind! I sang the soprano solos in the St. John Passion at the Bergkirche (Hill Church) in Wiesbaden over a month ago! In my defense, you might remember that when I returned I was still in the midst of my enforced (by our ISP) internet-less period. Then, Magnus and I took off for our Easter visit to the In-laws in Italy. I had about 24 hours at home before I left for Frankfurt where Carol Baggott-Forte was teaching for a week. I'll write about that in a subsequent post.

Anyway. Overall, my experience was a good one. I had an easy trip to Wiesbaden, arriving quite early. The other soloists were very nice, which is always a plus and I had a chance to chat with the Alto soloist (who actually lives in Hannover too) and the Bass soloist. I was a little nervous for the rehearsal, which I attribute to wondering so much whether I was prepared enough and concerned that it had been so long since I sang in such a production. My singing wasn't stellar in the rehearsal, but it wasn't horrible either.

I stayed with my good friend and colleague, Bastian Baumann, who played the portative organ for the Passion. That was a stroke of luck because we were able to run through my arias at his house on the day of the concert. Bastian has a lovely way of getting the best out of me, giving clear suggestion as to how to improve things. He does this in such an encouraging way and that helped to calm my nerves.

The church was full to the brim and there were several of my former pupils from Frankfurt as well as my friend Caroline in the audience. We soloists were able to sit with our backs to the audience when we weren't singing, which for me was a God-send. The soprano soloist has but two arias to sing in this oratorio and Bach was so kind as to put one within the first 15 minutes and the 2nd (more difficult one) within the last 15 minutes. If that doesn't sound like a bad thing to you, then picture sitting in a cold church for an hour and a half between arias while your voice and your body falls asleep. Sitting facing the orchestra and choir meant that I could discreetly sing along with the choir and thereby keep my voice alive. It worked beautifully and I was even more satisfied with the 2nd aria (Zerfliesse mein Herze) that I was with the first (Ich folge dir gleichfalls).

Overall, I'd say the quality of this production was extremely high. The choir was, as usual, excellent and Christian Pfeifer (the Music Director and conductor) put together a fantastic baroque orchestra. I can't wait to hear the recording. When I get it I'll post my arias for your listening pleasure either here or at MySpace (providing the link, of course) or both.

The one review that appeared in the local paper after the concert was quite favorable all in all. The critic was slightly less impressed with my performance that with the other soloists, writing "Diane Severson proved to be very discreet and agile, she could, however, gain a bit more aplomb." I actually felt rather calm during the concert and could concentrate well on singing the music and being in the moment, but I guess I can't be surprised or wonder much about the critique.

Upcoming events

A flurry of activity is marking my days lately. Well, relatively speaking anyway. Aside from teaching and recording for the StarShipSofa (and not much of that actually), I haven't done much the past few months. That has changed to a certain extent (I'm still not what a lot of people would call busy, and stress isn't really a part of my life at the moment, but, you know, it's all relative).

I will be singing for a wedding on March 21st. Weddings are small, low-key affairs for me. I usually sing 2 or 3 songs (in this case it's 2) and they are usually songs that are familiar to me and not too difficult technically. I'll be singing Amazing Grace and Climb Ev'ry Mountain (from Sound of Music) for this one. Had a bit of a hiccup when 2 days ago the organist called and said she is bowing out of playing these songs for the wedding. Huh? She said, the arrangements were not suited for the organ (well, I told her *that*) and she didn't want to play them. I think she thought that I had chosen the music I was to sing. I said to her, I have a hymn accompaniment for Amazing Grace which is certainly more suited to the organ, if that would help, but as for Climb Ev'ry Mountain, there is simply no other arrangement that I could find and I had hoped she would be able to cope. I was wrong. She simply flatly refused (2 weeks before the wedding I might add) and said she'd already spoken to another accompanist, one that had an electric piano that he could use. Fine with me, but is it fine with the Bride, I asked. Well, she hadn't spoken with her yet, but she would. So I called the new accompanist to arrange a rehearsal and discuss things with him. He asked me about his payment. What do I know? That's something he and the Bride and possibly the organist are going to have to work out. He told me the organist said I'd arrange that! Sheesh! She seems to live in la-la-land, this one! So, to make a short story even longer - it's all worked out now and I'm sure I'll prefer working with the pianist more than I would have the organist!

A couple of weeks ago I got a call, out of the blue, from a church musician in Wiesbaden, Germany for whom I've sung before. He wanted to know if I was free on April 4 to sing Bach's St. John Passion? I tried to remain calm, but in my mind I was saying, "Duh! I would be over-joyed, I would kiss your feet for giving me this opportunity, Thank God I'll get to sing a real concert again!" I told him, "Yes, I'm free and I'll be glad to sing for you again." Yippee! It's been about 2 years since I sang solo in an oratorio, and I tell ya, I've missed it.

So now, I've got my work cut out for me. I'll keep you posted.

I've recently finished recording a couple of stories for the StarShipSofa, which will be airing eventually. One was a story I've been working on for months. The Green Calling, by Storm Constantine. It's not that long, about 45 minutes total, but for some reason, I was have a really hard time with this one. I recorded most of it, got distracted and when I came back to it, I realized that it sucked. The accents were horrible and my narration was flat. I realized also that just recording the rest would not cut it either, because there'd be no way I could match the beginning to the end. So, I just re-recorded the whole thing. Then came the editing. Because I'd played with accents on this one (and the still suck, but not as much as before) I had a lot of flubbers to edit out. I can't say how many hours I spent on this one, but it was far and away the most of any story I've done so far.

Another story is Vinegar Peace - or the Wrong-Way, Used-Adult Orphanage by Michael Bishop. This is a great story. Mr. Bishop was motivated to write this story as a way of processing the grief over the death of his son in the shooting incident at Virginia Tech a few years ago. This is an event that was actually covered on the news here and I remember it distinctly. I corresponded with Mike a few times to work out some of the details and clear some things with him. He's a very gracious man and I enjoyed our exchanges. I had two songs to sing in this one and it's a powerful story. He also wrote a short commentary, which will follow the story when it airs on StarShipSofa.

Upcoming recordings are: 26 Monkeys by Kij Johnson - a Nebula Nominee! I'm really looking forward to this one; Poetry by Bruce Boston; Daughter of Botu by Eugie Foster - this one will be fun too, it's for PodCastle; Silence in Florence by Ian Creasey; and Project Mastodon a novel by Clifford Simak that I'm doing for SFAudio.


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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Greetings from Switzerland!

I just wanted to let anyone who doesn`t already know that I have a little story narration (Robowassailing) and a Christmas song (a super-kitschy version of Silent Night) on StarShipSofa's Christmas Show. It aired on 24 December. I hope you aren't yet tired of Christmas stories and songs. If not, head over to http://www.starshipsofa.com and check out my offerings for Christmas Cheer!

Happy New Year!

Bleh

I'm having a Charlie Brown kind of day. Maybe it's been exacerbated by the repeated listenings to A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, but I got two bits of not-happy news in the last two days. It's not exactly bad news but, you know, just not good. Am I taking it too personally? I'll let you be the judge:

1) I blogged last week about the story I narrated coming out on PodCastle. Yesterday I went to Escape Artist's (they produce the podcast) forums online and read the responses to the story. People there say what they want and are not inhibited because I'm not a presence there, like they might be at StarShipSofa. They didn't like my narration. At all. They also didn't much like the story, but that's beside the point. They thought I sounded bored, or simply not emotionally involved. Maybe I wasn't, although I did like the story. One poster thought my accents were inconsistent, and there I'd have to concede the point. I'm not great with accents. I shouldn't try to do them, but in this narration I did - a light southern accent and a pseudo-Asian one. Bad.

2) The other not-happy news is that I didn't make the short list for the First Annual Sofanaught Awards. I can be a bit blasé about this one, because the folks that did make the short list deserve to be on there. But I wanted to be. More than I think I let myself believe.

Now I'm thinking - "Do I suck as a narrator?" I really enjoy doing it and have no delusions that I'm a great one, I can recognize that I need to improve. But you know, it's hard to hear the criticism - expressed outright or not.

That is all.

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Report: Silly Christmas Songs

It's kinda old news now, but the performance of the silly Christmas songs went off quite well. Mrs. Hooligan's Christmas Cake and Tom Lehrer's A Christmas Carol were big hits, garnering laughter in all the right places. Only mumbled a few times and had a lot of fun hamming it up! W00t! For your entertainment:



Checked out the space where I'll give a song recital next year. It's my neighbor's office. It's spacious with a high ceiling, mostly concrete and brick walls, so the acoustics aren't too bad. A violin professor who lives in the building on the street (my neighbors's building is back behind the main one) asked if he could use the space for his student's recitals and put a piano in there. Roger asked if he could use the piano for other concerts as well. The piano is just an upright (too bad it's not a baby grand or something more concert-esque), but I think it will be adequate, but then I know nothing about what makes a good piano. As far as I'm concerned if it works and makes a decent sound, then that's a good piano. The finer points are (as yet) lost on me (maybe I could learn...). Anyway, I think it would be nice place to have a little recital.

I had the "ladies" over for Caroling last Friday. I had to play the piano. Ugh. I'm not a pianist - there's some screw loose which makes me play wrong notes in different places on every repeat, it doesn't matter if I practice or not. But this was a very informal thing. There were about 7 of us and we just went through our favorite ones. Ursula brought her Reader's Digest Christmas Carols book, which had arrangements that I could actually play for the most part. Afterwards we drank Glühwein and Eggnog and munched on the things the guests had brought along. Nom!

I baked my first German Stollen! Ursula came over early for the Caroling and walked me through it. We'll see if it turned out OK in a couple of weeks. It's supposed to sit in a cool place for about 2 weeks to develop the flavors.

Schlocky Christmas Song for the Sofa

So, yesterday I had fun geeking out recording a song for StarShipSofa's Christmas special. I thought I would just record one of the silly songs I'm doing with Anne tomorrow, but Tony, the old softie, actually requested Silent Night. Now this is actually a really hard song to sing well. I thought it might be kind of excruciating if I just sang it all by myself, because he asked me if I could get it to him sooner or later, so I looked in my collections of Christmas Carols and found an easy accompaniment, one that I could actually play without any mistakes. I chose the cheesy vibraphone sound on my electric Pai-anna and used the record function on it as well. Yah-ta! I did it! Then because I realized I didn't have the proper cables to attach the piano to my computer I just let the piano play the accompaniment and recorded it using Audacity. It gives it a nice "live music" feel, but makes for a pretty crappy recording. Oh well. Then I recorded myself singing the melody in English and then German. And then I worked out a harmony and proceeded to record myself singing the 2nd voice. Then Audacity crashed. And I lost everything I'd done because I was stupid enough not to save the whole time. But recording it all the 2nd time went quite quickly and Voila! I have an all-Diane version of Silent Night, which isn't half bad. It's amazing how well I sing with myself. I think I might upload it to My MySpace Space, if you'd like to hear it now. Otherwise, do Tony the favor and on Dec. 24th or after download his Christmas Special. I've also narrated a Christmas story for that show, so it'll be worth the wait!


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Silly Christmas Songs

Next week I'll be singing (some) silly Christmas songs at the Annual General Meeting of the International Women's Association of Hannover. Anne Pehrisch, an American and local pianist/piano teacher, will be accompanying me. It was her idea to do fun Christmas Songs, rather than the tired, old, staid Christmas songs. I was all for it. Actually, it will be a mix of things, and the program isn't long. Here's the run-down:

*Music for a While, Henry Purcell (the one serious song)
*A Christmas Carol, Tom Lehrer (go here for a great recording of Lehrer doing this one)
*Mrs Hooligan's Christmas Cake, trad. Irish
*The Gloucester Wassail, trad. English carol - but a drinking song!

If we get the chance we'll do an encore of Aaron Copland's Simple Gifts. Which is just a gorgeous song.

I'm looking forward to it, and I hope that it'll perhaps garner me a few more, more lucrative gigs.

Working with Anne has been a joy and we are planning to do a song recital in the Spring. I'm excited, and a little nervous. I haven't done a recital per se since my exit recital in Bremen in 1996! But they don't make you much money. It'll be great because there are so many great songs, that you never get to do after you graduate from conservatory!

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In Memoriam - Concert for Barbara Thornton

What a rare experience this concert in Berlin was. The music was fabulous, except for copious amounts of annoying pflegm under my vocal chords my voice was in good form, the group of singers worked well and efficiently together and sounded amazing, the acoustics in the church were astounding and the occasion for the concert was very meaningful to me and a few of us singing.

This was the program:

*Alma Redemptoris Mater - Antiphon, anonymous (10th cent.)
*Motet- Anima mea liquefacta est/Deschendit in ortum meum/Alma - Montpellier Codex
*Eya, mater fidelium - Codex Las Huelgas
*O frondens virga - Hildegard von Bingen
*Motet- Ex illustri - Codex Las Huelgas
*O quam magnum miraculum - Hildegard von Bingen (with solos by yours truly)
*Ave, generosa - Hildegard von Bingen
*O vos imitatores - Hildegard von Bingen
*Motet- Ave,regina/Alma redemptoris mater/Alma - Codex Las Huelgas
*Eterni numinis - Codex Las Huelgas
*Spiritus sanctus - Hildegard von Bingen
*In exitu Israel - Psalm 113
*Quis dabit capiti meo - Codex Las Huelgas
*O monialis concio - Codex Las Huelgas
*Motet- Ave, virgo/Ave, gloriosa/Domino - Codex Las Huelgas
*Nunc gaudeant - Hildegard von Bingen
*O viridissima virga - Hildegard von Bingen (with solos by me)
*Motet- O Maria maris stella/O maria virgo davitica/Et veritate - Codex Las Huelgas

The singers were:
Amy Green (Student of Barbara Thornton's 1996-98/Elysium/Vox Nostra/Diadema),
Susanne Hammer (Diadema/Vox Nostra),
Ellen Hünigen (Vox Nostra),
Lucia Reichelt-Pahn (Sequentia 1996 - 1998),
Diane Severson (Sequentia 1997-99/Elysium),
Allegra Silbiger (Sequentia 1997-99/Elysium/Diadema/Vox Nostra),
Anja Simon (Diadema/Vox Nostra),
Susanne Wilsdorf (Vox Nostra/Diadema).

We had 4 rehearsals before the concert and there was no rehearsal where all 8 of us were present. In fact, I think the most we ever were at one rehearsal was 5. Allegra and I were the unifying factor. That said, as you can see from the list above Allegra, Amy and I have sung a lot together, and the others, save Lucia, also sing together a lot. I know Susanne from conservatory in Bremen and Allegra, Lucia, Amy and I all have extensive experience in the oral tradition that is borne of having worked with Barbara. (If you are wondering who Barbara Thornton is, see my previous post "Concert in Berlin" or google her!) So, even though we had never sung together as a group before, we all had extensive experience singing this type of music and singing together in part. Everything just fell into place and we created this powerful, lovely, unified sound. It was an amazing experience to feel Barbara's legacy live through us as singers. What a gift. I wish we had a recording of it.

The church was St.-Johannes-Evangelist in Berlin-Mitte. It's stuck on a little street off Oranienburger Strasse (Auguststrasse) with buildings plastered to each side. The interior is huge and cavernous and empty (they have exhibitions and concerts there only), built in a neo-romanesque style. The reverb lasted a full six seconds, but unlike the Speyer Cathedral the sound remains pure and doesn't swim. The text and the musical line remain pure and understandable. Incredible. We sang from various points in the church - mostly from in front of the altar, but also from the side and the rear balconies as well as from both sides at once (for the antiphonal psalm).

There were possible 40 people at the concert. Not a lot, but it was a very attentive audience (even the 10 year old was rapt!) and I'm just happy when the audience numbers more than the musicians on stage! It's a shame, but then we did it to honor Barbara's life and work. I think we achieved that and then some.

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Berlin

I arrived in Berlin early this morning. Man, I hate getting up so early. My train left at 7:21 so I left home at about 6:45. I'm not convinced it's a good thing, but there was a bus immediately and the connection to the subway was also fast, so I made it to the train station by 7:00, way more than enough time to get coffee. I had a reserved seat, so I was able to relax and read a bit (The Final Key, Catherine Asaro) and listen to my iPod. Listened to GeekAcres, Christiana's Shallow Thoughts (I'm finding this short daily podcast hugely entertaining), Metamor City, and StarShipSofa Aural Delights #48 and the rest of #49. I arrived in Berlin about an hour before rehearsal started so I made my way toward the church in a leisurely fashion. I was nearing the church and still had half and hour to spare, so I nipped into a cafe and had a second breakfast (ciabatta with cheese and a cappuccino).

Rehearsal was long, but we got through everything went over logistics (we'll be singing some things from the balconies) and tested the acoustics. I'm really pleased with the way the group sounds so far. Allegra, Amy and I have tons of experience singing together in Elysium and Allegra, Amy and the other singers sing together often in Vox Nostra and Diadema. Unfortunately though, we haven't had everyone at the rehearsals at once. But in the various constellations sofar the group has a lovely full sound. The church is completely empty (I guess it has no congregation and just hosts art exhibitions and concerts) and has a full resonant acoustic. The reverb lasts a full 6 seconds! Perfect for Hildegard's music.

Amy, Allegra and I went to an Indian restaurant afterwards for lunch (at 3pm!) and to catch up. Oh my God, there was a lot of food. It's amazing how cheap things still are in Berlin. I paid about €10 for soup+bread, salad, main course, bottled water and a mango lassi! That's about $13 these days! There was so much food that we had them box it up to take home. I think it will feed two more people at some point!

We'll have our last rehearsal tomorrow morning at 11. We won't have everyone assembled until just prior to the concert so there will be plenty of exciting new stuff for the concert! :-)

Next post: concert report

Concert in Berlin

On 8 November 2008 I'll be participating in a benefit/memorial concert in honor of Barbara Thornton, founder of Sequentia, ensemble for medieval music, and director of the women's vocal ensemble, Vox Femina (of which I was a member), who died 10 years ago of a brain tumor, while Vox Femina/Sequentia was touring doing Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen.  The concert proceeds will go to the German Brain Tumor Fund (die Deutsche Hirntumor Hilfe).

8 November 2008 8pm / 20:00
St. Johannes Evangelist Church
Auguststr. 90
Berlin, Germany


The concert is organized by my fellow Elysia, Allegra Silbiger, who had a close pupil/mentor relationship with Barbara. Several of the performers in the concert worked with Barbara at one time or another.

I can't believe that it has been 10 years already. It seems like yesterday, somehow. Her death, while we were all on tour, was hard to take. We all knew it was coming and we had all suffered through trying periods (the first tour half a year earlier), while Barbara was still working with us.  But she was a brilliant musician, a real work-horse and inspirational in many ways. She brought the world the music of Hildegard of Bingen in a way that made it immediate, not 900 years old. It was an honor to work with her and I hope that in some way she lives on through me.

Audition!

Sorry, this post is very late. I forgot I never finished it or posted it!

So, I had my first audition in years the other day. I sang for 5 or 6 church musicians around Hannover. It was the strangest audition.

When I first arrived in Hannover I heard that there had just been one of these Audition-for-everyone-at-once sort of events, and that I'd missed it.  I called the office that organizes it to get the names of the musicians so I could contact them and audition for them personally. But no, the woman wouldn't give me that info! It's a German thing - Data privacy, dontcha know? Anyway, she put me on the list for the next one, which was on Tuesday.

I got a letter and a form to fill out about 6 weeks ago. In the letter it stated that they had had so many applicants that they could only allot each of us 6 minutes. Six Minutes?!? The next requirement was that we should sing 2 pieces. One from the standard baroque sacred music repertoire (ie an aria from a Bach Cantata or Oratorio). I'm sorry, but there isn't a single aria that is less than 5 minutes! That leaves 1 minute for the 2nd song. At best. Sigh.

In the end I chose to sing "Ich will Dir mein Herze schenken" from the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, which is a da capo aria, meaning I could skip the repeat of the A section, making it about 3 minutes long. It's relatively fast, has lots of sixteenth notes, shows a good range and has a few endless phrases which Bach is famous for, which I can do well. As my second piece I chose something contrasting, slow with long lilting phrases: Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell. The song is very long, but I figured if they didn't want to hear the rest they could stop me.

They didn't. Which I'm glad of. They were pretty stone-faced throughout my singing, but then when I thanked them and offered them my Curriculum Vitae or resume, they all smiled and seemed interested.

I was the first one on for the day, and I think they were still pretty unorganized (one of the musicians was late and came in during the Bach), so I didn't get any information as to when or if I might hear anything official.

I'm still waiting. I hope that's not a bad sign.  They've probably got singers lined up through Easter at least and so I don't really expect to hear about specific jobs until after Christmas, but it would be nice to get feed back.

We'll see!

Romantic Garden Festival Performances

So, now that the first phase of work in our new place is finished I have space in my brain to think about other things!

A couple of weeks ago I had my first performances in the Hannover area: I sang Lute Songs and Jazz Ballads with Gero Parmentier on Lute and Guitar at the Romantic Garden Festival at Rittergut Remeringhausen. 

It's an annual event which involves much retail, food and music in a lovely setting. Gero and I were the headline musical attraction and we performed 4 times for about 20-25 minutes on Saturday and Sunday afternoon respectively. For our own sanity we decided to alternate 2 programs: Songs by Renaissance composers Dowland and Campion and Jazz Ballads. The run-down:

Lute Songs - 
*Come Again (Dowland)
*Fine Knacks for Ladies (Dowland - very appropriate!)
*Wilt Thou, Unkind
*Never Weather-beaten Sail
*Now, oh Now, I Needs Must Part
*A Shepherd in a Shade
*Come Cheerful Day

Jazz Ballads - 
*The Nearness of You (Hoagy Charmichael)
*Misty (Garner/Burke)
*Skylark (Hoagy Charmichael)
*Black Coffee (Webster/Burke)
*At Last (Warren)

We performed under a little pavillion, which was at a slightly unfortunate angle, but people could still sit on the grass or at tables and listen, if not necessarily see us. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny - even if slighty too warm for us!

I really enjoyed working with Gero, who I hadn't known previously. He's a wonderful player and a great accompanist. I hope we'll have a chance to perform together again. Thanks Tobias for the recommendation!

Many friends, pupils came and even my In-laws were there from Italy. Thank you everyone who came especially those I saw and spoke to: Magnus, Franca and Luigino, Dilara and parents, Claudia and family, John and family, Rene, and various colleagues of Magnus' from E.On. I'm quite sure I'm forgetting someone, so please feel my gratitude for your support.

Also, a huge thank you to Thilo and Petra for getting me this gig and to Tania v. Schöning for hiring me to perform at such a lovely event!

Nothing much

Frustratingly, I have nothing much exciting to write about here. Haven't been doing much singing here, unfortunately. However, I have been busy trying to get Elysium concerts and our recordings out to the public and things like that. There is, of course, a huge lag time involved in securing a concert in a series or at a festival. If I manage to get us performances here in the UK it won't be until 2009 most likely! Ugh! But look for our recordings to be available on OnClassical.com, an online distribution service similar to Magnatune. I'm still waiting to hear from those guys!

Good news is that I have a concert on the horizon! I'll most likely be performing Sad Hotel again in Heidelberg in November. Hopefully, we'll get a good recording out of it and I'll be able to put us up on MySpace. That might help things along on that front!

Also, I'm planning on attending Carol Baggott-Forte's voice seminar in Paris: www.lavoixliberee.org

Chester

Poscimur sang in Chester on August 10/11.  
M came along, and we took the train up on Friday evening.  We had a nice meal at a pub along a canal and had a stroll through the center of town.  The town is full of cute half-timbered houses and they have the most fantastic shopping streets.  The shops are on two tiers, one is street level and another up a short flight of stairs to a covered gallery walkway, great for rainy England I'm sure!  We had fantastic weather though.  On Saturday we took a walk along the medieval walls, which go right around the center of town.  Beautiful vistas all around. I had to rehearse and sing in the afternoon, so Magnus went on a 2-hour guided walking tour of Secret Chester.  They were shown places which your average Joe doesn't have access to. The choir was singing wonderful music this weekend - Faire is the Heaven, by Harris; The Te Deum by Stanford; The Tomkins Responses; Mags and Nuncs by John Ireland and Stanford; the Mass setting by Harwood; Cantate Domino by Pitoni; My soul, There is a Country by Parry; Never weather beaten sail by Campion; Turn thy face from my sin by Attwood and A Litany by William Walton.  After the Evensong on Saturday we ate at a fantastic Grill restaurant and had an early night.  Sunday morning I was busy singing, but we met for lunch and went to a new Italian shop and restaurant. The food was good and Magnus stocked up on some pasta, wine and cheese!  Then more singing and off back to London...

Floods and Church Music

So, this was an interesting weekend. It didn't turn out at all like I thought it would. The choir Poscimur was meant to sing at Tewkesbury Abbey on Saturday and Sunday, so M and I made plans to travel to Gloucester (nearby), do some sight-seeing and meet some friends who live nearby. We rented a car from 6pm. The first inkling of trouble was when it took us 2 hours to get out of London. The traffic was horrific! Then we decided to stop at the first service area once we got on the motorway and it was closed due to flooding! Continuing on our merry way, we ran into more traffic on the way to Gloucester because of flooding. It had rained buckets earlier in the day, but wasn't raining any longer. A few weeks ago there was flooding in Northern England and there had been a lot of rain the last 2 weeks, but I didn't realize it was so bad! M was incredulous, he just couldn't believe it. After more than 6 hours on the road, we finally arrived at our hotel only to realize that we'd left our suitcase standing in front of the car rental office! Luckily I had my robes for the choir, but no music! oops!

The next morning, we were having breakfast, and I get a call from a choir member saying that due to the flooding the choir wouldn't be singing in Tewkesbury. Gracious! The Abbey was surrounded by water, but largely not flooded. The whole town was cut off from civilization! There is a photo

It's really too bad, I was supposed to sing a duet with one of the veteran members because the other soprano who normally sings the part couldn't make it.

So, we decided to stay in the area and do more sight-seeing than we'd anticipated, have dinner with those friends. We went shopping for supplies, some clothes and toiletries and some other stuff we needed(we got the shopping bug and they were having sales!). We had lunch (Gloucestershire Chicken - chicken topped with bacon and smothered in cheese and baked in the oven -mmmm) in the Dick Wittington pub. We went to the tourist office to find out what we could do, but it really wasn't much! The area is very beautiful (the Cotswolds are nearby) and anything outdoorsy really wasn't an option. Unfortunately, we saw just about everything there was to see in Gloucester by late afternoon. The historic docks were nice and the cathedral is gorgeous, but that's about it.

We drove to Cheltenham and thought about staying there overnight, but it sort of reminded us of Baden Baden, kind of a rich and boring spa town. I got a text message from a church music director in London asking if I could sing for him on Sunday (the next day) and that prompted us to head home!

All went well until shortly before Oxford, at Eynsham, where the road was flooded out. We tried an alternate route, but everything around the village was flooded. We tried a more significant detour only to discover that the bridge over the river was under water. So we turned around and were considering an even larger detour when we found ourselves in Witney, which was just experiencing major flooding. So we talked to a policewoman, who gave us a number to call, so we could find out if there were any roads NOT flooded that would take us back to London. They told us the road by Eynsham was no longer listed as closed, so we decided to check it out. Indeed, the traffic was no longer backed up, but the road was still covered in water! The crazy thing is that there were vehicles crossing the road, driving very slowly, but crossing! And not just trucks and 4x4's! So we decided to risk it. It was pretty scary - the water was flowing across the road at a good clip. I could feel the car lift a bit, when cars passed us going to the opposite way. It was pretty freaky.

We got home around 23:00 and went straight to bed. I had to get up kind of early to go to that church to sing. It went well. I was augmenting the sopranos because they were singing a motet by a Mexican renaissance composer which had 3 soprano parts. The organist asked me to sing again next week. They're doing the Howells Mass and an Anthem by Parry. Should be fun! Thank goodness there is now some movement on the performing front. It's just choral, church stuff at the moment, but better than nothing! And now I'm meeting more people. Exactly what I need!

Poscimur

So, I joined a choir here in the UK. It's quite a unique choir in that they subsitute for cathedral choirs all over the country. Only a small group of people in London rehearse on a regular basis and the full choir only rehearses together at the venue on the day of the event. My "debut" was this past weekend (the bank holiday weekend) at Ely Cathedral. Magnus and I went together, but I'm afraid it was a bit of a bore for Magnus. The weather was dreadful (cold and rainy) and I was either in rehearsal or singing in a service most of Saturday and Sunday. But the cathedral is gorgeous and the singing was good. The town of Ely is also quite cute, but I didn't get to see much of it. We had a great meal at the Boathouse along the river but due to the weather we couldn't sit outside which would've been much nicer. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time outside of rehearsal and singing to get to know the other choristers. But that will come with time. The one exception was Paul, who sings alto, who was great fun and knows a ton about Early Music. In fact, he studied Medieval Latin with Peter Dronke at Cambridge, who was one of Sequentia's foremost consultants and translator.

The choir sang Evensong on Saturday, Eucharist and another Evensong on Sunday, so it was quite a marathon. Good for me though! We sang a number of things unfamiliar to me. Only the Gibbons Short service was something I had sung before.

My next gig with them will be in Tewkesbury (in Gloucestershire) and I'll be singing the duet from Mendelssohn's "I waited for the Lord" with one of the other sopranos and the choir.

Elysium in Berlin

Elysium just finished its second performance stint in Berlin. We sang the program "Know Thyself" to great success. We performed at the Domäne Dahlem, which is a farm/museum actually. We performed in the Herrenhaus, the museum part of the complex. We were surrounded by ancient coffee makers and portable cook sets and the like. We were able to use the furniture from the cafe to create a living room-like atmosphere next to a fireplace. it was really cute! On Sunday we sang in the Osterkirche (Easter Church) in Wedding. Also, an interesting atmosphere with the fabulous accoustics of a romanesque church. The Osterkirche had requested an intermission, which we weren't accustomed to doing in this program, so we rearranged the sets, added some material and generally tweaked the program. It turned out to be a blessing, as the program really benefitted from the changes. It gets better every time we do it! We made a recording and a video, so hopefully there will be some material from that we can use for promotions.

Elysium in High Gear

As per usual, a month before our performance in Oregon, we are moving into high gear and I'm getting upwards of 20 emails a day sometimes!! We've had a slight hiccup, but a good one. After Anna and I both booked our flights, we found out that Medford wants us to perform there after all! Anna had given up on them last summer when they didn't reply again after she proposed our fee. But she got an email asking if we were still planning on coming! They've accepted our fees and terms and although it's a little tight with rehearsals, we're going perform in Medford, Oregon, on Friday, March 2 giving a Question and Answer session afterwards. Now we just have to figure out how we are going to get there in good time and maximize the time we have for rehearsal.

More on that later!

Drat! I *did* get ahead of myself!

I'm really disappointed about this, but I'm trying to stay positive! The gig in Scotland singing the premier of Paul Moxon's piece "Endurance" has fallen through. Apparently, one of the sponsors back out and now there are not enough funds to put it on. Sigh. The plight of classical music.

Paul is still confident that it will be performed some day. His agent is trying to place it and is also looking at getting it used for a television piece by the BBC on Shackleton's expedition on the Endurance. That would mean recording it. Paul has assured me that he will hire me to sing the soprano part if and when it is performed or recorded. So there's that.

On My Way!

This was a really good week for me! I saw Neil Mackie on Tuesday at the Royal College of Music. I was a little nervous, but not too bad, really! But none-the-less I don't think I really put my best foot forward. My mistake was wanting to see him sooner rather than later, and so I didn't really have much time to prepare. My voice has been a little cranky since I got home, so I was careful instead of just laying it on the line. Sigh. When will I learn? But I am happy I wasn't shaking - that helps! But Neil is a very vibrant, little Scotsman and we worked for a good hour after I sang him my first two pieces. It was fun, different than what I've gotten used to over the years, and certainly more aggressive than Paul (which is good!). He was pretty completmentary, saying that my voice is very fresh and has a beautiful, clear tone, which just needs a bit more depth. There are some things I felt like I had to translate into Cornelius terminology, but I think I can get past that. At any rate, I believe that he can really whip me into shape. He gave me several good tips and encouragement too. He said that getting an agent in London is very difficult. Agents generally show up at college concerts or other concerts, but don't hold auditions. He said I should just contact the directors of choral societies and ask if I could come and sing for them some time. He also said I should contact the BBC Singers and the Monteverdi Choir (John Elliot Gardiner, conductor) to find out when they hold auditions for vacancies. He said he thought I would have no problem getting a job in a school, with my experience teaching. I don't know if I really want to do that, but it's good to know that it's an option, especially since I have no certification.

He also told me about a concert by Andrew Lawrence King at Southwark Cathedral. Andrew was one of my teachers in Bremen and we had actually done the Play of Daniel, which is what he was doing here in London, while I was there! I decided it would be a very good idea to go to the concert and reintroduce myself to him afterwards. To my surprise there were some other people in the production that I knew - Susanne Ansorg on medieval Fiddle, Ian Harrison on Fiddle, shawm and tenor and Michael Metzler on percussion. I know them all from Germany, so it was nice to see them here. I hope that they will put in a good word for me, after all, Andrew only knows me as a student!

Susanne asked us if we would join them in the pub afterwards and so we followed some of the singers to a pub, had a lovely conversation with them only to discover that Susanne and the rest were at a different pub! So we went over there. I had a chance to chat with Andrew, catching up on what he's been up to over the past 10 years since I left Bremen (Omigod! has it been that long?!?).

So, the very next day, I wrote Andrew an email, and sent him the important bits of my CV. I also contacted the BBC Singers and the Monteverdi Choir about auditioning.

Today I have a cold. Ugh.