Hampton Hill Playhouse

Sang a concert, entitled Morning, Noon and Night, with Cantanti Camerati (of Richmond) choir to a full house at the Hampton Hill Playhouse last night. The inimitable, 74-year-old Geoffrey Bowyer arranged and conducted some lovely part-songs, madrigals, barbershop quartets and solos - all non-secular, for a change. 

My favourites included:
Sweet day so cool - Sir Edward German 
The birds that sing on autumn eves - Robin Milford
The Prince of Sleep - Sir Edward Elgar
Softly fall the shades of evening - J L Hatton
Night of stars and night of love (duet, from The Tales of Hoffmann) - Jacques Offenbach
A brown bird singing (soprano solo) - Haydn Wood
Hail, smiling morn (mens' voices only) - Reginald Spofforth
When at night I go to sleep (women's voices only, from Hansel and Gretel) - Engelbert Humperdinck
Draw on sweet night - John Wilbye
The Long day closes - Sir Arthur Sullivan
Good night, good night, beloved - Ciro Pinsutti

Grove Park Music Festival

Sang the Bach B minor Mass at St Paul's Church in Grove Park, Chiswick, London last night.

Such a glorious piece, with a large Festival Chorus and period-instrument Canzona orchestra. The concert was the climax of the biannual Grove Park Music Festival and inspiringly conducted by former King's Singers member Brian Kay.

Evensong at Charterhouse

Sang choral evensong at The Chapel in Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse on the 18th Sunday after Trinity. More of us in the Fever Pitch choir than in the congregation, as seems usual these days, but it was a great opportunity to see the inside of Sutton's Hospital and take some pics (here) of this wonderful part of old, hidden London.

Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery in London, to the north of what is now Charterhouse Square. The building is formally known as Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse, and is a registered charity. Since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the house has served as private mansion, a boys' school and an almshouse, which it remains to this day.

Hear my Prayer - Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Preces - Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis - Short Service by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

Anthem: O Clap Your Hands - Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

Mississippi McDowell's wise words

The lyrics to You Got To Move, a McDowell song covered by the Rolling Stones on their Sticky Fingers album in 1971 (here they are playing it live), are inscribed on the headstone of Mississippi Fred's grave in Panola County, Mississippi. McDowell was highly influential blues player and is considered the father of hill country blues.


Photo by 'joseph a' from Flickr.

Fever Pitch in Fairlight

To Fairlight in East Sussex with Fever Pitch for a charity fund-raising choral concert. Right next to Hastings, the walk beforehand along the Firehills footpath overlooking the sea and the bay over to Dungeness marshes, wind farm and power station were glorious on this fine late summer afternoon. 

We came across an unusual wedding in a tiny chapel right by Pett Level seafront, where a bagpiper played in a Tam-o'-Shantered and bewhiskered groom and his glamorous wife.

After a trip up St Andrew's church tower, from where there are unexpectedly wonderful views, we sang a mixed programme of Bach to Beatles. The usual Fever Pitch eclectic mix included a Bach motet and English traditional folk song arrangements. 


Sadly, we missed the chance to celebrate Richard D'Oyly Carte (founder of the Savoy Theatre, Savoy Hotel, and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which produced the Gilbert and Sullivan light operas) and Anglican choral composer Thomas Attwood Walmisley, who are both buried in the churchyard.

Google homepage

Loved Google's interactive balls on their homepage today. Also love the idea of Google giving Apple a run for their money on the music front.

Edington Festival

Attended the final service of 2010 Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy last week, in Wiltshire. It was the last performance from Andrew Carwood, retiring musical director of the Schola Cantorum choir for many years.

Zena James @ SMITF

To St Martin-in-the-Fields Cafe in the Crypt, Trafalgar Square to hear Zena James and her jazz backing quartet.


Zena's new album, Captivated, is due out before Christmas and she previewed a few songs along with tunes from her first album, Tell Me More, and other jazz-pop standards.


Michael Jackson's Human Nature was a great choice for a crossover jazz singer and alto saxophonist Simon Allen's lyrical solos lifted it above pure copycatism.




* More details at www.zenajames.com and Splash Point Digital.
* Jazz listings and other concerts at St Martin-in-the-Fields at www.smitf.org.

Pomaceous presentation

Cool design for invitations to Apple's yearly end-of-summer hype-up...
 

Cantanti Camerati @ Sunbury

Sang my first concert with Cantanti Camerati choir @ Sunbury Parish Church in Sunbury-on-Thames last night. Conducted by the eccentric yet redoubtable Geoffrey Bowyer, the Spring Concert performance went a good way to raising the £800 needed to complete the restoration of organ pipes damaged by water over recent years. The organ is surely one of the best in the west of London and it was shown off well by Geoffrey in Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine and Frank's Panis Angelicus. The unusual programme also included a selection of motets, madrigals, airs, partsongs a glee and solos from the versatile choir members:

William Byrd - Non Nobis Domine

William Byrd - Ave Verum Corpus

Alessandro Scarlati - Exsultate Deo

Thomas Weelkes - In pride of May

John Dowland - Come again! Sweet love doth now invite

Ellis Gibbons - Long Live fair Oriana

Roger Quilter - The pretty birds do sing

arr Arthur Warrell - Roving in the dew

Charles Wood - Music when soft voices die

Sir Edward Elgar - As torrents in summer

Thomas Arne - Which is the properest day to sing 

Anton Bruckner - Locus Iste

Franz Schubert - Hail to the Chief 

Franz Schubert - The Lord is my Shepherd

Peter Rose arr Hugh Frey - Deep purple

Emile Waldteufel - The scent of roses

Sir Charles Stanford - Diaphenia

Solos:

Samuel Liddle - Abide with me

Sir Edward German - She had a letter from her love

Mozart - Bassoon Concert (Andante, Adagio)

Robert Schumann - Du Ring an meinem Finger

Roger Quilter - O mistress mine

Franz Lehar - Vilia (from The Merry Widow)

80s' Synth Pop YouTube playlist

16 tracks in sequence - just let it run (or select arrow at bottom right to select tracks)...

Singing at Twickenham

Sung on the pitch at Twickenham Stadium for St George's Day match on Sat 24 April, with the Royal Marines Band. Then watched Wasps lose to Bath 35-19. Got the T-shirt, sung the patriotic songs: Rule, Britannia!, Land of Hope and Glory, I Vow to Thee, My Country and Jerusalem. In England's green and pleasant land...

Isle of Wight Festival 1970

2010 is the 40th anniversary of the Isle of Wight Festival. It was great to be there as a 16-year-old. I've just booked tickets for my own 16-yr-old daughter to go to her first festival: Latitude (Florence and the Machine, Belle and Sebastian, Vampire Weekend, Mumford & Sons (let's hear it for west London). Fair's fair!


* Great shots here on Flickr.
* Facebook group here.
* ...and more: IOW1970 here.

Ronnie Wood, 'Renoir of Rock'

Ronnie Wood's autobiography, Ronnie, is a great (well, for £3.49 in paperback, it is) tour around his west London beginnings from a long family history of water gypsies, through the 60s' London band scene to his rise to fame with the Faces and on the Rolling Stones' worldwide tours. 

Fascinating read, with enough detail to keep the interest going, not least his ability to wade through money like it was water (training race horses in Ireland doesn't help, neither did the booze, drugs or bad business deals). 

His art is always interesting, in a naive way, because of the subject matter and is an integral part of his creative life (and clearly lucrative, since it's got him out of financial trouble a few times).

Former model Jo Wood was his 'rock'n'roll chick' wife, by his side for 23 years until she pocketed a reported £6.5m in their quickie divorce settlement last year - but the story runs out before then... 

However, Jo's dedication to all things organic (after being 'mis-diagnosed' with Crohn's disease) vested itself in a cleaner-living Ronnie (well, at least for part of the time they were together - how clean is clean when you've lived a rock'n'roll lifestyle like he has?) and her own organic line of skin care, Jo Wood's Organics. 

"Don't fuck with nature", she says - nicely put, dear...

Joe Stilgoe @ Ronnie Scott's

Enjoyed Joe's Valentine weekend at Ronnie Scott's, with a trio and white-soul singer Natalie Williams. Joe deserves a wider audience, but his quick-witted humour (an integral part of his performance) may well unfortunately lighten the seriousness with which he is taken in some quarters. As an entertainer he's spot-on.  


Joe included a lovely, melancholic tribute to British jazz stalwart, altoist Johnny Dankworth, who passed away last week.

The delightfully under-hyped Ronnie Scott's AllStars (yes, for it is they!) supported with a few good straight-up jazzy tunes and more humour, much in the vein of the long-gone Ronnie himself. Surprisingly good food, as well. 


Founded in 1959, the jazz club is clearly thriving - it's been a long time since I saw Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Pass and George Melly there in the 1970s. 

Messiah @ St Paul's Cathedral

Sang Messiah on Thursday, in St Paul's Cathedral. Difficult for the listening audience, but singing from the stage is a different experience - awesome.

Boymongoose - 12 Days of Christmas

www.boymongoose.com

John Peel - legendary DJ

Broadcasting legend John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, otherwise known as veteran Radio 1 DJ John Peel, OBE (awarded in 1998 for services to music). 

His eclectic taste and honest, subjective approach to new music attracted a warm-hearted audience since he started to grace the Radio 1 airwaves in 1967. He was very influential in his own, unique way, however he was usually too 'indie' for me, being more of a Bob Harris man.

John Peel - Margrave of the Marshes, the second half of which was completed by his wife, Sheila, is a love story masquerading as the part-autobiograpgy of a gentle philosopher who always threw in a salty dose of reality to his broadcasts and the way he lived his life. His belief in the primacy of Liverpool FC, the love of his wife and their Suffolk home (Peel Towers - actually, a thatched cottage, from where he broadcast in later years) and an intrepid drive to be different on Radio 1 are constant themes throughout the book. His favoured Radio 1 'rhythm pals' included Johnnie Walker, Kid Jensen, producer John Walters and Andy Kershaw.

His public-school ('imperfect') education at Shrewsbury belies him, but he also belittles it beautifully in the book by writing that his children would say that it provided him only with 'the sort of education that enables you to talk for about twenty seconds on almost any topic, although there is no one thing thing about which you know a great deal'.

Peel was a Private-Eye loving maverick with the gift of the gab, whose style and bravado I much admired and - curiously - have something in common with. Both he and I attended the Martin Luther King memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral; he was outside with the crowds, while I was inside, singing as a 13-year-old chorister.


The best £3.25 I've spent on a hardback book in ages, courtesy of a charity shop in Canterbury last summer.


* Grauniad: A Life in Pictures
* BBC1 Tribute site 
* Hear the voice of the legend and the sweet-eating game (courtesy of www.planetbods.org)
* Pics from the annual John Peel Day celebrated around the country


Human rights campaigner Martin Luther King preached at St Paul's Cathedral on his way to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr King preached to a full Cathedral at Evensong on 6 December 1964 (four years before he was assassinated), where he spoke of signs of a rapidly growing problem of race relations in Britain. 'We must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, substituting injustice of one type for that of another,' he said. 'God is not interested in the freedom of white, black or yellow men, but in the freedom of the whole human race.'

These cats "can't sing"?

The Telegraph Online seems to have worked out that lists of 'interesting' facts draw site traffic from around the world.

According to their list here, Bob Dylan, among others, 'can't sing'. Wrong. 

Don't shoot the messenger...
How about a list of people who can sing, but shouldn't? Top of my list would be Mariah Carey and Celine Dion.

Trumpet Crumpet

Winner of the Female Artist of the Year Brit Award 2009, Alison Balsom make the trumpet more attractive than ever before. Her jazzy interpretation of a Gershwin song on the Last Night of the Proms in September won me over, showing that she's potentially as versatile as Nigel Kennedy. 


Crossover often gets a bad name, but I see nothing wrong in reinterpreting Vivaldi violin and oboe concertos (her new album of Italian baroque concertos should be out before Christmas). She's a cool 'trumpetress', who even includes Dizzy's Tin Tin Deo on YouTube as part of her inspiration: