... we have however managed to avoid such other words as 'Peng' and 'Neee-wom' as they tend not to lend themselves to neither Christmas nor competition choral pieces - hard to believe i know, but shrubbery should be kept to hand, none the less!
For those of you who are absolutely lost, the above has a little to do with diction and pronunciation ... and maybe a little to do with Monty Python ... but just a little...
Back to rehearsals tonight after a week off - only two official rehearsals to go! The committee has spent a knight round a table to the wee small hours and flight and hotel bookings have commenced, as does the fundraising!
Prior to the full onslaught of Grosvenor on London, the director and myself took it upon ourselves to conduct a reccie of the Royal Festival Hall and surrounding area on London's South Bank at the weekend and can therefore now tell you with no word of a lie that it's BIG! Therein concludes our findings.
Time ticks on (... but we're not dead yet!)
N.b. ...the fact that we ventured towards the west end and may have seen a show at the Palace Theatre may have possibly influenced some of these ramblings tonight ... possibly ... normal service will resume shortly ...
Monday, 17 November 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
.. and the night after ...
I ended my last entry "... now - onto the next one ..."
No sooner do i upload and then i find out that the judges have only gone and nominated us to go through to the Grand Final in London next month!!!
I think i'm too tired to be emotional now at this point...
Fantastic!
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ... !
No sooner do i upload and then i find out that the judges have only gone and nominated us to go through to the Grand Final in London next month!!!
I think i'm too tired to be emotional now at this point...
Fantastic!
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ... !
The day after ...
What a weekend!
Arriving in Liverpool and finding out that the arranger of one of your competition pieces is going to be judging you ... (erk) well, it made it interesting i guess, but Mr Goodall seemed to like our interpretation at the end of the day!
Saturday was indeed a long day - rehearsals, soundchecks, Quickchef, rehearsals, Quickchef, rehearsals, Philharmonic - performance, work-shopping (while GC nips to the bar...), results, Philharmonic (bar this time ...)anchor, pizza ... bumper ....
It was a long wait til we got on that stage - even throwing in a 20 minute interval to add to the agony, but the performance ...
That performance is one thing that i'll remember for a long, long time. For eight minutes, we had the ears of the entire audience of Philharmonic Hall and the ears of four highly respected judges ... and for me, to a point, at the end of those eight minutes, i didn't really care what the judges were going to say - all i knew, was that i had just taken part in something very, very special.
It's hard sometimes, not to get carried away with the emotion of the moment, but the crowd's reaction and the feeling of acheivement while smiling and looking round at your fellow grosvenorites was something to savour and take in - indeed for some, last night was their first ever performance with the choir, but you wouldn't have known it.
To all who were involved in that performance ... thank you.
Now - onto the next one!
DT
Arriving in Liverpool and finding out that the arranger of one of your competition pieces is going to be judging you ... (erk) well, it made it interesting i guess, but Mr Goodall seemed to like our interpretation at the end of the day!
Saturday was indeed a long day - rehearsals, soundchecks, Quickchef, rehearsals, Quickchef, rehearsals, Philharmonic - performance, work-shopping (while GC nips to the bar...), results, Philharmonic (bar this time ...)anchor, pizza ... bumper ....
It was a long wait til we got on that stage - even throwing in a 20 minute interval to add to the agony, but the performance ...
That performance is one thing that i'll remember for a long, long time. For eight minutes, we had the ears of the entire audience of Philharmonic Hall and the ears of four highly respected judges ... and for me, to a point, at the end of those eight minutes, i didn't really care what the judges were going to say - all i knew, was that i had just taken part in something very, very special.
It's hard sometimes, not to get carried away with the emotion of the moment, but the crowd's reaction and the feeling of acheivement while smiling and looking round at your fellow grosvenorites was something to savour and take in - indeed for some, last night was their first ever performance with the choir, but you wouldn't have known it.
To all who were involved in that performance ... thank you.
Now - onto the next one!
DT
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Choir of the Year ...
It's here ... crikey!
Back in June it was ok ... it's months away, sure ...
Ah well, this coming Saturday morning and we board the flight for Liverpool under the guidance of our spanish correspondant and hoping that the piano tuner has booked enough rooms!
How stressful do you reckon 8 minutes of performance can be? I'll tell you - quite a bit! But, in fairness to all - there's been a lot of work done already and perhaps, still a bit to do individually if we're all honest ... yes, even a dodgy tenor like me, and thanks must go to the MD (ed) for all the hard work so far, and for the rest that's still to come in next week...
So fingers crossed ...
Back in June it was ok ... it's months away, sure ...
Ah well, this coming Saturday morning and we board the flight for Liverpool under the guidance of our spanish correspondant and hoping that the piano tuner has booked enough rooms!
How stressful do you reckon 8 minutes of performance can be? I'll tell you - quite a bit! But, in fairness to all - there's been a lot of work done already and perhaps, still a bit to do individually if we're all honest ... yes, even a dodgy tenor like me, and thanks must go to the MD (ed) for all the hard work so far, and for the rest that's still to come in next week...
So fingers crossed ...
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