On Eagle's Wing

As i type, the curtain is about to rise at the Grand Opera House for the show's second run here in Belfast.

Grosvenor Chorale were lucky enough to be involved in this production, recording demo and choral backing tracks, and sang onstage when the original shows played to sell out audiences at Belfast's Odyssey Arena back in 2004.

And as he's been such a great supporter of Grosvenor, we especially wish the show's writer and composer John Anderson, all the best for the coming weeks as the tour begins!

We're losing them already ...

Three weeks in and we've lost two already!!!

Nope, it's not quite that bad, but two of the men, er boys (...well, barely out of nappies really) are off to start and continue university careers.

Mark's off to Granada in northern spain to teach English, but then again, my memories of language assistants in school didn't see them actually do much work :) I'm jealous though - it's 31 degrees at the moment according to google weather, but i'm reliably informed by our spanish correspondant in the soprano section, that it can get suitably cold in the winter there too!

And Ashton's off to work on his golf at St Andrews - another nice cold and windy place too. Just wait and see - our Indian Summer is still just around the corner here in sunny N'orn Ireland - they'll soon be wanting back.

Best of luck guys and keep looking at that music for Liverpool!

p.s. if any south american correspondants see Paddy wandering around, tell him to get back here to the tenor section asap ...

We're back !!!

Enough of other choirs - Grosvenor is back!!

The weeks are starting to tick down towards Liverpool. Great to see such a good turnout tonight and a few new faces too ...

So just two question remains - just what shade of purple do Cadbury's use? and just what will clothes shop staff be thinking when they see people walking in carrying Dairy Milk or Fruit and Nut bars???


Hhhmmmm ... ...

"Last Choir ... - how about "Strictly Choral Singing" on a Saturday night?

The Beeb's 'Last Choir Standing' did pass the Saturday evenings, but it could be hardly called a choir competition, in my humble opinion... i'm just glad our 'MD' didn't send away the entry form!

Don't get me wrong - there were some great choir groups in the last stages, but stick a big backing track, lights and mics on any reasonable choir and you can do wonders. Throw in the choreography that some went for and you've got a great ensemble cast for any stage musical - but as i said - should it still be classed as a choral competition??

You don't get a safety track to fall back on when you're standing in a competition venue and judges' feedback is normally a little more technical and informative than that of the relatively random comments that were being thrown about each week at television centre...!!!

Anyway - i digress - the last choir standing - Only Men Aloud! I thought put on some really entertaining performances and i look forward to hopefully hearing runners-up, Ysgol Glanaethwy when they compete in the Youth Section of BBC 3 Choir of the Year in Liverpool ...