Berberis' World

Tuesday, 14th February 2012.

This turned up in my inbox at work today.

All staff: exciting opportunity to sing in new Gareth Malone BBC series

Do you love singing? Have you ever wanted to be in a choir? Whether you just sing in the shower or in public, here’s a chance for you to show off your singing talent and get to know your work colleagues better too, in a new BBC documentary series…

Gareth Malone from the hit series The Choir: Military Wives is filming a new documentary series for BBC2 about choirs in the workplace. We are excited that Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust is one of four organisations who will feature in the series, being made by Twenty Twenty Television.

The idea is to bring a bit of fun to the work place, give you a chance to get to know colleagues from different parts of the organisation and improve your singing too…

Gareth will be creating a choir from scratch inside Lewisham Healthcare over the next few months and he’s looking for anyone who enjoys singing. You don’t have to have any previous experience; you just need a voice and a love of singing. So, whether you’ve been on stage or just sing in the shower; whether you’re a natural performer or have always felt too shy to perform on your own, Gareth wants to hear from you.

To be considered, all you have to do is fill in the attached application form and send it via email/fax to Twenty Twenty Television no later than Monday 20^th February 2012. If you don’t have access to email or fax, feel free to contact the Trust’s Communications team for help. All the information you provide on this form will be strictly confidential and will not be shared with Lewisham Healthcare without your consent.

Gareth Malone / Twenty Twenty Television will notify all those who have been selected for an audition. Auditions will take place on Monday 27^th February or Tuesday 28^th February. These will take about an hour each.

The formation, rehearsals and performances of the choir will be filmed over the next 3-4 months. You would need to be available for each and every session of a weekly choir rehearsal from around the end of February through to July. (Please note that there will be two rehearsals during the Easter holidays – on 12^th and 13^th April). And, if you’re selected for the choir, you will end up representing Lewisham Healthcare in a contest against three other company choirs from all over Britain, to find out which is the best choir.

The Trust will support all staff who wish to audition and will provide flexible working arrangements to allow all those selected to take part.

We have agreed not to publicise this externally, and it is very important that we keep this information confidential. Please don’t forward this application form internally or externally. No information regarding this series can be made public. This includes chat rooms, online postings, blogs, forums, internal networks and social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Good luck!”

Monday, 16th January 2012, Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019.

Karl Jenkins: The Peacemakers (World Premier)

Soprano: Antoni Mendezona
Violin: Jorge Avila
Flutes: Kara Deraad Derke

NY Jazz
Soprano Saxophone: Rob Derke
Electric Bass: Carlo de Rosa

Uillenn Pipes: Joseph Mulvanerty

Conductor: Karl Jenkins

The Joke has its own page.

I never imagined, when I was perched on the edge of the stage at the Broadway Theatre in Catford, that – one day – I’d be singing at Carnegie Hall. I’d heard the joke, and the story of Florence Foster Jenkins, but performing there was as likely as having a Xmas No1.

And, to be honest, it was less practice, practice, practice than an unhappy event providing the resources for a happy one.

There was a bit of a nervous moment when, at the airport, I was asked the reason for my trip. I said holiday, and then mentioned that I’d be singing at Carnegie Hall whilst I was there. Did I have a work visa for that?

Um…

New York in winter is cold. Not the sort of cold we get in the UK, which is greatly ameliorated by the Jet Stream. It’s face-numbingly, mouth-freezingly, eye-wateringly cold. It’s buying a woolly hat from the street vendor because you are convinced the skin over your skull will shrivel so much, and so quickly, that your hair will pop out. It’s also – where you can – walking with your back to the wind that blasts you down the street. And coffee in Astro Restaurant on 6th Avenue at every available opportunity.

This was the trip where I first had proper false nails done. I’d always bought the sets from the supermarket/chemist before: the glue was never strong enough, the nails were never the right size/shape, and the end result was short-lasting and unsatisfactory. We found a salon along one of the streets and I decided to take the plunge. One set of crimson talons later, we resumed our wander around the city that never sleeps.

Perhaps this isn’t the place to admit that, apart from The Peacemakers, I’ve not heard any of Karl Jenkins’s music before. For me, it’s in the same genre as David Fanshawe, and the latter’s African Sanctus has made me not want to listen to anything else in that genre. However, even if I don’t really like a particular piece, I will still sing as if it’s the most wonderful music ever written because that’s what I’m on stage for – to look as though I’m enjoying it.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that an experience is better than any possession. How I was able to be in New York may not have been how I would have wished, but I owed it to myself to get something happy from what had been a miserable few months.

A world premiere – World, mind you – in Carnegie Hall! If you’re not enjoying it just for that, you’re doing something wrong.

Tuesday, 19th July 2011.

The time has come, the walrus said…

There are many, many quotes about failure to be found on the exponentially increasing fount of all knowledge good and bad and ugly, this being but one. This post’s title comes from one of Churchill’s.

I have to admit to more than a slight loss regarding something I’ve resisted writing about since it happened. However, time is indeed a great healer. New readers start here…

I joined the London Philharmonic Choir on 23rd July 2008, following a somewhat hurried audition by Matthew Rowe. Choir rules are that you must reaudition either every year or every three years, so I should have reaudtioned in 2010. At that time, the committee were way behind on their scheduling and each time I found out someone had been called to reaudition I breathed a sigh a relief for this… and began to panic anew. Inevitably, though, the committee finally got up to speed. Following a failed first attempt (when I didn’t get the summons until after a joint performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana) on February 21st, following a rehearsal of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, I steeled myself to (literally) face the music that was my reaudition.

Short story shorter: I failed. I was told afterwards, by genuinely sympathetic choir members that Neville let those who didn’t get through reaudition perform whichever piece was currently being rehearsed and, for a while, I did consider doing this. In the end, other commitments and a great deal of horribly wounded pride prevented me from doing so.

(Ironically, Dream of Gerontius is the piece I didn’t get to sing with LCS as I left before they started work on it. My score remains, as yet, unmarked.)

It was about a week before the realisation fully sank in. One evening, with the rest of the family out at the cinema (I hadn’t wanted to go to what was a techo-noise fest) I settled down with a bottle of wine to watch ‘Anchorman’. I had a good laugh before repairing to the study to listen to some music. Having the house to myself for the first time in ages, I intended to listen to some VERY LOUD music (or is that some music VERY LOUD?) probably to try to convince myself that, whatever I’d been told, I could still belt out a tune. Everything was going fine until I tried to get my PC to play music through the main speakers (via some little gizmo currently hanging innocently over the radiator). However, no matter what I did, this bloody thing would not work. After about an hour or so of changing settings, unplugging and replugging, rebooting and rebooting, I had had enough. A week’s worth of anger and embarrasment and frustration and, yes, grief at the loss boiled up and over and I retreated to bed to howl and cry like a wounded animal for what seemed like forever.

Immediately after this, I lost all interest in singing as well as all confidence in my ability. Even remembering the words of a much respected singing teacher didn’t help me, and I don’t think I sang anything (not one note) for about a month. Singing had been a major emotional outlet for almost 7 years and its loss was nothing less than a bereavement.

To be truthful, what hurt most is that I felt – still feel – that I simply capitulated. Whenever I think about what happened during that reaudition, there is a HUGE temptation to start every sentence with either ‘if only…’ or ‘what if…’

If only I’d said I had a sore throat… what if I’d actually read that book on sight singing?… if only I’d taken singing lessons… what if I’d done what I was supposed to do and wait to be invited in?… etc etc etc etc… The fact was that I hadn’t, I hadn’t, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t. The only person I can blame – if blame if the right word – is myself. I was responsible for what happened, and it hurt like hell. It still hurts, but less and less.

So, that’s it. I’m no longer a member of the London Philharmonic Choir. This means I will miss the Proms again. I’d been otherwise engaged previously – ironically, not this time – and was really looking forward to singing Verdi’s Requiem, as well as the Xmas performance of Beethoven’s 9th. (I may try to find a way to do the latter…)

I’ve not been completely idle, though. I recently sang in the 1000 voice choir for Karl Jenkins Peacemakers at Abbey Road, performed Carmina as part of the Really Big Chorus at the Royal Albert Hall and have (provisionally) joined another choir.

Nevertheless, I miss the challenge of working with a world class choir. Although it wasn’t the same after Steph left, I really do think I was up to the task; I practised at home, knew a lot of the pieces from memory but, on the day – when it really mattered – this obviously wasn’t enough. Maybe there’s a hidden agenda. Maybe whoever makes the decisions just want the choir to be the best it can be… I don’t know. I can’t know. And, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter now. I sang Brahm’s Deutsches Requiem on stage at the Royal Festival Hall under Yannick Nezet-Seguin, one of the most inspiring conductors I will ever work with. And it’s on CD. I’ll take that… with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Wednesday, 29th December 2010, Barbican Hall.

For a concert venue – at least from the performer’s perspective – the Barbican Hall is tiny. With the majority of the 1900+ seats filled, putting 120 singers (members of both the London Philharmonic Choir and the Royal Choral Society) behind a large orchestra (the Royal Philharmonic), the place soon becomes almost uncomfortably hot. As we sat listening to the first 4 movements, I occasionally felt a waft of cool air coming from somewhere above me, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

I only managed to get to the rehearsal on time due to a chance meeting on the escalator at Moorgate, and was hot and bothered by the time I reached the dressing room. The Barbican Centre is perhaps the most magnificent example of why every single building that is erected these days is 99% glass. A thousand psychotic rabbits on crack could not construct anything quite so ridiculously dark and complicatedly un-navigable.

Once we’d worked out the seating arrangements (always a nightmare) and the RPO had tuned up, Christopher Warren-Green came on stage with 3 of the 4 soloists (the bass soloist was missing, having probably taken a wrong staircase and found himself in the Library vault or the boiler room) and proceeded to conduct like a man possessed. Even the soloists had difficulty keeping up with him. He wanted it louder! nastier! uglier! sharper! and I just sat there and looked at him as his hair grew wilder and his arms threatened to fall off.

He was also wildly effusive in his praise of the music – at about 3′ 23″ (timings may vary) into the 4th movement, he demanded that the orchestra quieten down so that the bassoon could be heard playing (I paraphrase here) ‘the most perfect piece of contrapuntal music ever written’. I didn’t care that he might well say the same about every piece he conducts… at that moment, in the face of such passion, I believed him utterly.

In the 2 hours or so thumb-twiddling time before the concert (we weren’t allowed on stage for the first half) I had a long conversation with a couple of choir members about the vagaries of life, the therapeutic nature of singing, the unrelenting pressure of work, and the nightmare of re-auditions; discussion of all but the latter made me feel better. However, I subsumed my fears, ate my ham salad and put on the required ‘long and black’ as well as some not-required make up.

When I auditioned for the LPC, one of my goals – if not my only goal at that point – was to sing Brahms’s Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall. Well, I’ve done that. Everything else has been a wonderful and extremely enjoyable bonus. Having said that, I would definitely miss singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony every Xmas. For anyone who wants to know why it’s performed at this particular time of year, given that it;s not particularly seasonal, please go here. For anyone who wants to understand anything else about Beethoven, please go here.

However, I doubt that anything I could point you to on the internet would do justice to Maestro Warren-Green’s performance. I don’t think we’ve been directed with such ferocity since the closing moments of Dvorak’s ‘Stabat Mater’ in October. What was truly exhilarating was that Warren-Green sustained his fevered pitch for the entire symphony. It was certainly the quickest last movement I’ve ever sung. Indeed, as the final ‘GOOO-tter-FUNken’ was blasted off stage by an orchestra playing like the place was on fire, an alto in the front row fainted. Luckily, she fell backwards, and not into the horn section. To be honest, even if she had, I don’t think it would have stopped them.

Saturday, 30th October 2010, Royal Albert Hall.

Brace your lungs! Clear your throats! Lock your knees! Batten down your hatches! It’s Carmina Burana! BUT! Where are the Welsh Guards and their splendidly shiny horns? Where are the Fruit Pastilles? Why the hell am I sitting here?

In the midst of Westminster we are again in the Royal Albert Hall, with its crowded dressing rooms (‘Ladies of the LPC’ were in 9 instead of our usual 8: it’s the wrong way round, there’s no CCTV, the majority of the lockers don’t work, but they have more shower space) and its bizarrely hot basement corridors. Carl Orff’s musical weird-fest was (this time) performed by ‘400 voices in Monumental Harmony’ (in democratically alphabetical order) the English Concert Chorus, the London Philharmonic Choir, the Royal Choral Society, and the Southend Boys’ Choir.

I’ve sung this at least twice before (in November 2005 with Lewisham Choral Society and, in 2009, with the LPC) but it’s such an easy piece that I could almost sing it sans score, a là Beet9. My main problem? My eyes. I have reached that stage in life when my eyes no longer want to focus on anything either close to/somewhat removed/very far away from me. Contacts and reading glasses are no good, because the reading glasses are too narrow to allow me to look at both score and conductor simultaneously; I head-bob like a rabid pigeon. So I wear my normal specs and hope that repeated blinking doesn’t deposit too much mascara on the inside of the lens and render me blind.

(It’s 1.15am and, whilst I don’t have to be up especially early tomorrow, there are limits when you get to my age).

It took a dog’s age for everyone to line up in the right order. It’s not rocket science, chaps; you only have to remember who is sitting to one side of you. If we made everyone hold hands with the person on their right it would solve the problem instantly. Hmm. Somehow, I can’t see that happening…

My OU course started today. Having started (and abandoned, from lack of both time and money) a 10 point Arts course many years ago, I decided to have another go. I chose another 10 point course which is done almost entirely online, without the residential school requirement, called ‘Start listening to music’. Now, in common with arguably the entire world’s hearing population, I have been listening to music since I realised I could hear anything, so I had to admit that studying listening to music did seem fairly pointless. However, it has not escaped me – in writing this blog – that I occasionally have difficulty explaining why I like certain pieces of music and dislike others.

For instance, you may recall that I have – in earlier posts – expressed a dislike for Vivaldi’s Gloria and Cecilia McDowall’s Magnificat. Conversely, I love Bach’s B minor Mass and Eric Whitacre’s Lux Arumque. Presumably, this is because there is something in my brain which finds the former disagreeable to listen to but not the latter. If I had to explain it more thoroughly, I’d struggle. That much is abundantly clear.

And yes, there is a difference between listening and hearing. It sounds obvious when you say it like that, but it’s perhaps not so when you’re actually doing them. Hearing is what you do when the radio is on in the background at work, or in a shop, or driving a car. Listening is what you do when know you are not going to be interrupted, and you can turn the lights down low, relax in a comfy chair with maybe a glass of your favourite tipple.

I’ve also realised that listening to music is also going to require me to be more open-minded. I find it easy to dismiss, without much thought, not only just single bands (Kings of Leon, Florence and the Machine, Stereophonics) but also whole genres like jazz, rap and reggae. I could argue that I find the voices of the lead singers of the named bands particularly grating, and that the genres I’ve singled out produce nothing but the same tune (with or without words) time after time. This is patently untrue. You only have to go to Wikipedia to find that the entry for ‘Jazz’ includes Scott Joplin and Herbie Hancock, ‘Reggae’ names The Maytals (Toot-less and Toot-ed) and UB40, whilst that for ‘Rap’ is so peppered with names it’s impossible to single anyone out.

When (to be honest, it’s not a question of ‘if’) I’m accused of being narrow-minded, I counter with the argument that it’s not particular bands or genres that I like or dislike, it’s particular songs or melodies that move me. Perhaps it’s the ‘Desert Island Discs’ conundrum; in the unlikely event that I was asked to appear on that programme now, my 8 tracks would include ‘Hysteria’ by Muse, ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’ from Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, ‘It Is Well With My Soul’ by Four Voices (a stunningly good barbershop quartet I literally stumbled upon on the intertubes), ‘Champagne Supernova’ by Oasis (reminds me of moving to Newcastle), something by Sting (‘Dream of the Blue Turtles’, ‘Mercury Falling’, ‘The Soul Cages’ and ‘Summoner’s Tales’ being but four from which it would be very difficult to pick only one song) and Stevie Wonder (and where to start with this man?). The last two would be difficult. ‘She Makes My Day’ by Robert Palmer, ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’ by Ella Fitzgerald, the 3^rd Movement of Rachmaninov’s 2^nd Piano Concerto… the list is very long and (I’d like to think) very diverse. Well, quite diverse. Still, as I’m not going to get Kirsty calling me up any time soon (any time at all, actually) I don’t have to worry about it.

Still, I am straying from the subject somewhat: yesterday’s Carmina Burana. Normally, I would take the bus (436, then the 9 or 10) but, as my other half decided (against type) to come and see the show, we drove into South Ken, finding a parking spot behind the RAH for £2.20 per hour. Sounds a lot, but… actually, it’s a lot. And they only took cards… Waylaid for only a moment by two cops on bikes, who reminded us of the dangers of leaving visible trinkets to tempt ne’er-do-wells we made our way to the not-so-round-as-you-might-think Albert Hall to enjoy Berlioz’s ‘Radetzky March’ and Saint-Saëns ‘Symphony No. 3 in C minor (Organ)’ before the epic Orff-ness in the 2^nd half.

And the wheel went round, and I felt that although we were louder than at the rehearsal, we traded something of the accuracy in places. The soprano was good, the baritone was very good, but tenor was superb, and played his part brilliantly, getting many laughs as he ended up prostrate in front of the organ seat until the end of the concert.

I hadn’t expected the Hall to be as full as it was – apparently, the concert was a sell-out – and the audience response was extremely enthusiastic. I felt quite emotional at the end, and (I’m told) that the biggest cheer of the night was for the combined adult choirs. I thought it was for the Southend Boys, but perhaps that’s just me.

I found out today (1^st November) that I should have done my re-audition at 12.20pm on Saturday. I have heard some nightmare stories about these – people I knew, and who I thought were good singers, have been rejected – and I’m not looking forward to having to go through the process at all. In the meanwhile, I have my copy of ‘Improve Your Sight Singing’  and I really should be reading that instead of writing this.