Culture Vulture

I have really been enjoying myself lately, and have seen a rather wide variety of live performances (aside from the ones I’ve been playing in).  In the last few of weeks I have been to see:

• Monteverdi ‘Vespers‘ performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at King’s Place
• ‘The Lying Down Concert – Earthrise‘ performed by the Ex Cathedra Choir, Joanna Macgregor and Kiku Day at the Royal Opera House (In the Floating Forest erected in the Paul Hamlyn Hall)
• ‘Bedlam’ written by Nell Leyshon, directed by Jessica Swale, performed at The Globe
• Berlioz ‘Grand Messe des Morts’ – a large collaboration of performers from the UK and Poland, performed in the Mary Magdalene Church in Wroclaw, Poland

The Monteverdi Vespers concert was wonderful – I went with my mum, who had heard it performed once before in Westminster Cathedral.  I myself had never heard it performed live, and King’s Place is such a wonderful venue for a work like that because it’s so intimate.  Both the choir and the orchestra were superb. Being a trumpet player I was naturally impressed by the stunning cornet playing, but I’d never heard the OAE perform before and the sound created with the period instruments and voices in plainsong was truly divine.  The concert was recorded and I’m very much looking forward to hearing the recording when it is available.

The Lying Down Concert was an interesting concept.  It was the London Premier of Earthrise composed by Alec Roth as a commission for Ex Cathedra to celebrate their 40th year.  This coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, and of the famous picture of the Earth rising above the surface of the Moon.  Roth writes “the music of Earthrise is a meditation on this icon and falls into three sections:
Part I – Man’s constant drive for exploration and exploitation
Part II – A contemplation of the Earth seen from space
Part III – a plea for true wisdom and understanding
The text is set in the Latin of the Vulgate, and the whole is topped and tailed by two of the Great Advent Antiphons.”
Well, I’m not too sure about the deeper meanings of some of that, but I can assure you that the concert was a unique experience for me.  Never have I been to a concert (in the Royal Opera House no less) and been invited to lie down on the floor, beneath a Floating Forest, and listen to a mixture of traditional and contemporary Japanese music (Takemitsu) alongside Messiaen, Tallis and the new Roth piece, all whilst watching the light show dance on the ‘trees’ and whilst an aerialist spins above me.  I came out of the concert feeling as though I had meditated for just over an hour – what a wonderful way to enjoy some very earthly music.

Next up was a new play, Bedlam, at The Globe.  I’d never been to The Globe before and that in itself is an experience – a rebuild of Shakespeare’s Globe which transports us back to Elizabethan London, and that includes paying extra to sit down and even more for a cushion!  But back to Bedlam, an extravaganza that is set in a fictionalised version of Bethlem Hospital, London’s infamous insane asylum, in the middle of the 18th century.  This is the first play ever written by a woman to be staged at The Globe so it was good to see history in the making, and although there were mixed reviews from the press, I thoroughly enjoyed the play and the whole Globe experience (including my friend Jim being dragged up on stage as part of the audience participation and the free bar afterwards, since we went on press night and Jessica Swale, the director, is a friend of mine).

The trip to Poland was exciting for me as I’d never visited the country before and didn’t really know what to expect.  I found out that the people are very friendly, everything is pretty cheap, and since the weather was nice I spent 4 days wandering around Wroclaw thoroughly enjoying myself.  The language is hard though – I learnt how to thank people in Polish and that was about it unfortunately, but I did see the hotel that Hitler used to stay in – pointed out to me by a taxi driver to which I replied “oh, wow, that’s…very interesting” as I wasn’t really sure how else to respond.  I was actually in Poland to tag along with my boyfriend Sam, who was performing and recording the gargantuan Berlioz work ‘Grand Messe des Morts’ in the Mary Magdalene Church in Wroclaw.  This huge piece of music required a choir of 200-odd singers, a full orchestra, with an additional 4 ‘brass bands’ and drums stationed in the corners of the stage and adjacent alcoves – 400 performers in total, including:

• Gabrieli Consort and Players
• The Chetham’s Symphonic Brass Ensemble
• Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir
• Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra
• Wroclaw Festival Choir
• Wroclaw Festival Orchestra

I sat in the church for some of the rehearsals and recording, but hearing the piece performed in full during the concert, with the sun setting through the huge window behind the stage, was incredible – the wall of sound that hit you when the full ensemble was performing was contrasted perfectly with the sections of quiet a cappella singing by the semi-chorus; a truly beautiful sound.  I was so pleased I was able to see this concert – I knew quite a few of the guys that had been booked in the brass section and it was great to hear such an epic piece with those big brass moments, but the rest of the orchestra and the choir were wonderful too, and this work is performed so rarely because of the sheer scale of it and the amount of personnel needed to do it justice.  I just hope I get booked to play it one day!

Birthday Blog ~ featuring My First Twitter Gig!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post but today is my birthday and I’m officially taking a day off from all things work-related so I actually have time to write one!

It’s been a busy month, which is always a good sign, and a good mix of work on.  I played another Verdi Requiem with the Canterbury Choral Society – this was the gig that was tied to the one in Snape Maltings so it also meant I finally got paid for both gigs.  Then of course there’s the usual function band gigs for the summer season weddings.  I particularly enjoyed a gig I did on 18^th July with new function band RubberSoul (they’re new to me, not to each other; they’ve been playing together for about 10 years).  Not only were the guys and gal in the band really friendly and welcoming to me as a dep, they’re an excellent band (very well organised which made a nice change!) and the sets we played were full of energy.  And the best bit about all of this is that this was my first Twitter gig!  I got chatting to Tony from RubberSoul months ago on Twitter about various horn arrangements we were each doing for our function bands, and when they needed a dep he got in touch via Twitter and voila, a new working relationship was formed!  So, he took a bit of a punt in booking me without ever having met me, without hearing me play and without any recommendation, but the gig was a roaring success (despite me falling over on the steps up to the marquee for the first set!) and thus the miracle of Twitter as an effective networking tool becomes a reality.  We even managed to convince the band’s drummer of the benefits of Twitter (and iPhones) in the dressing room that night between sets, and he has recently got an iPhone and joined Twitter – so gradually the word is spreading!

And other work has been going well.  July brought with it more graduation ceremonies than you could shake a stick at (never really understood that phrase, but what the hey, let’s roll with it).  I spent a week and two days in Lancashire playing fanfares (four trumpets and organ) to open and close ceremonies at UCLAN and Edge Hill Universities and to accompany the processionals and recessionals.  We had an unfortunate incident in the first Edge Hill ceremony where one of our trumpet players collapsed and was taken to hospital; she’s ok and feeling much better now, and if you want to see her being carried out of the ceremony check out the first 5 mins of this video!  Please excuse the very unfortunate placing of a microphone directly infront of us, the sound on the video is distorted as a result.

I’m still waiting to hear about the extra teaching I’m trying to secure from September – I’ve played assemblies at two schools and have a meeting about a third, so fingers crossed for getting some more ‘bread-and-butter’ work as I like to think of it.  If I could up my teaching to one full day a week that would be enough for me.  It’s a tricky thing trying to balance the ratio of teaching to other work; teaching is great as it provides a regular income, but take on too much teaching and you have to turn down gigs.  You can see the dilemma I’m sure.

And thus far the birthday celebrations are going well – they started on Friday night with a T.Mandrake gig at The Troubadour followed by trips to Mango Lounge and Bungalow 8 (where Quentin Tarantino was partying following the London premier of his latest film Inglourious Basterds), and have continued through the weekend to tonight when I’m going to Ladies’ Night at Windsor Racecourse with some friends – lucky me (I hope!)

Melancholy London

By my troth London is a melancholy place. Last night, after a meeting with Mark “Monty” Garfield about all things T.Mandrake, I met up with the girls (my sister, our mum and her friend) and went to the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. The play of choice was Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and very enjoyable it was indeed! Forsooth, the cast were fantastic (although I didn’t think Hero’s father was convincing enough at being full of rage – even when he said he wanted to tear her apart with his bare hands, the emotions were portrayed in his movements, but they never reached his voice or his eyes – the way a fake smile never does either).

After the play, my sister and I went for drinks at Molton House courtesy of my friend Will – check out his blog here. While enjoying our free drinks and mingling with London’s ‘cool crowd’ we noticed what a melancholy bunch they were. Perhaps we were inspired by our injection of Shakespeare comedy earlier that evening (and all the wine/gin/vodka we’d been drinking), but this lot seemed to have trouble smiling, saying excuse me to get past you or even making eye contact in some cases! Now, of course I’m generalising here – not everybody in Molton House was secluded in their clique, but we were surprised by the surliness of some of the clientele.

So on the way home I had a little experiment. I smiled at people. Yes, on the bus and on the train. Actually made eye contact and smiled at people. The results were interesting; one girl smiled back, two guys smiled back but only once they were safely outside the bus and I was leaving on it, one guy asked for my phone number, and everybody else looked either surprised, suspicious or sometimes downright terrified!

Anon, I bid thee all a fair weekend, and beseech the people of London – please smile at each other more!