Singing, writing, and ballet

It’s raining again.  It occurs to me that I’ve probably been rained on, either coming in to, or going home from, work (or both) about 40% of this year.  That is way too much rain.  My brother Steve, down in Bath, has seen the river Avon flood his garden three times in as many days this month.  It’s cold and wet and it seems to be dark all the time, and it depresses me.

We had another choir rehearsal today for Kew's Christmas carol Service; Nigel has rejoined the choir and is alternately playing the piano and booming away richly from the back, while a chap called Tim with Burne-Jones hair, has taken over the conducting.  I am now in my regular annual state of nerves regarding my singing, coupled this year with a vague desire to throw something at John Rutter.  He cannot leave a tune alone!  Why can’t we all just sing parts and harmonise in a normal way?  I have enough trouble with that, after all.  But no, Mr Rutter wants us altos to do a syncopated descant with massive intervals and lots of sharps and flats.  I know it isn’t in the Christmas spirit of me at all, but drat the man! 

I’ve been looking at my notes for “Gold Hawk; the nameless sequel” and trying to be realistic about them; there are some fun ideas there, but it isn’t cooked yet and it’s silly to pretend it is.  I want to spend more time with Thorn and Anna, but I’ll lose them if I try to force them into a story they’re not ready for.  So my next projects, when I get back from my week in Cyprus (can’t wait can’t wait), will be a) start typing “Gold Hawk” up, and revising as I go, and b) go back to either “Midnight in the Café Tana” or “Fortitude” and finish one or both of them.  Probably starting with “Café Tana”, since that’s the most coherent.  I’ve left Mel, David and Yaz in rather a ticklish situation, and things are due to get worse before they get better.

I sent “Gabriel Yeats” to the last agent on the initial shortlist 2 months ago, and have heard nothing back.  Sigh.  I wish I were getting somewhere with this agent business.  The idea of dispensing with one altogether and trying to do my own thing lurks in the back of my mind, tempting me.  My relative lack of computer skills holds me back (I have never figured out how to drive eBay, after all, so the idea of me producing a properly formatted e-book is frankly asinine).  And I know that for 99.9% of electronic publishing, this is the quickest way to sink your work without trace.  The odds are worse than the odds for keeping going as an artist (apparently an average 96% of Fine Art graduates – that’s me, folks - give up practising as artists within two years of leaving art school). 

The first thing, the foremost thing, the thing that drives me, is the writing itself.  If I can keep going with that, then at least I am generating new work.  Hopefully the more I write the more fluent I get as a writer; hopefully...  Meanwhile I guess I need to find another agent to try.

What else is going on?  I had an evening at the ballet last week; a triple bill, and the second cast, so a chance to see several young hopefuls in action.  Much though I love Marianela Nuñez, in “Concerto” she gets partnered by that sweet-faced blank Rupert Pennefather, and I find his gently void expression distracting (at least in the second movement of “Concerto” the chap is meant to be blank).  Besides, when Melissa Hamilton is on stage my eyes always slide towards her; she is completely electrifying whenever and wherever she turns up.  The final movement brought another bright spark in Claire Calvert, one of those dancers who make everything look easy.  I am quite certain it isn’t! – but there is a casualness in her grace that conveys almost luxurious confidence.  

The second item on the bill was “Las Hermanas”, featuring plenty of MacMillan’s signature ballet sex-and-violence.  It’s based on “La casa de Bernada Alba”.  Mysteriously the sisters have lost their names  - Angustias, Martirio and Adela have become simply The Eldest Sister, The Jealous sister and The Youngest Sister, which feels odd when you know the play – I kept thinking of them as Angustias etc.  No matter; it was still a striking distillation, though the introduction of Pepe as an on-stage figure weakens the sense of bottled-up tension Lorca creates.  But of course, one couldn’t have the aforesaid signature sex/violence without a male character on stage, and Thomas Whitehead overcame his very unpleasant wig to make a striking icon of machismo.  It’s lovely to see Alina Cojocaru get to sink her teeth into something dramatic occasionally – she embraced Angustias’ repression and agony with poignant force. 

The final item was “Requiem”, heart-breakingly sad with its dying Everyman and floating consoling angels, led by the luminous Yuhui Choe.  Not much one can say about “Requiem”; at the risk of sounding facetious, it does what you’d expect.  And at the risk of sounding kinky, it’s always great to see Edward Watson suffering (blimey, yes, that does sound kinky; oh dear, what a pity, never mind).

I haven’t much else to report.  Off to “Carmen” tonight; possibly to a talk tomorrow night; probably to another talk Thursday night; packing Friday night; off to Cyprus at crack of dawn Saturday.

Trop-Ex takes shape!

There’s a time-lapse film of one of the big displays for this year’s Kew Tropical Extravaganza on YouTube now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AXpaltkdTg

I like these things; they give one a taste of the display and an idea of how much work is involved; and when they’re filmed at Kew I can play is-that-so-and-so? guessing games as well, as the figures flicker into sight and out again.

We also had a staff talk from the Director today – as ever, well-worth attending, but oh what a soporific room the Jodrell Lab’s big lecture theatre is! It’s a warm, unventilated space to begin with, and with 250-odd staff packed in it rapidly becomes seriously stuffy and humid. Prof Hopper is an interesting bloke and he had plenty to talk about, but I was having to scratch the palms of my hands to stay awake. At one point I was looking surreptitiously around for people I recognised, only to find myself watching my favourite choirmaster in the row in front as he fought to keep his eyes open, too… It’s one thing to nod off in a boring lecture, but really maddening when one isn’t bored and does want to hear everything.

Carol service - success

The carol service went really well. I got the Berlioz almost right. Everyone else sang wonderfully. Nigel turned up and sang with us, which was nice. Tall Woman did a fantastic job. It all went off just fine. And I only wobbled once,one tiny bit, reading "In the beginning was the Word". I had been afraid I'd get choked up; but someone had brought a little child, about eighteen months old at a guess, to the service, and he/she was chortling and babbling away happily in the background, so that instead of getting a lump in my throat I was fighting not to giggle as I read "...children born not of natural descent..." etc. No easier to deal with, vocally-speaking, but at least funny rather than emotional!

Wintertime nighs...

But no birds fainting in dread, etc, yet (& thank goodness for that).

What we do have, though, is snow – lots of it, too, and settling fast – and Christmas carols. It felt quite strange to be rehearsing “In the Deep Midwinter” today with heavy snow falling outside the windows. But rehearsing for the Kew staff carol service is another of those things, like baking my Christmas cake, that makes it feel Christmas is on its way.

This year we are doing “In the Bleak Midwinter” (unfortunately in what I think of as the “dirge” setting, not the folk-song-like one we used at school), “The Shepherds’ Farewell” (aargh! – I hate singing Berlioz; all those sharps and flats and key changes…) and “Unto us is born a Son” and the “Sussex Carol”, both of which are lovely.

Our regular choirmaster, Nigel, has sadly had to step back this year following a bereavement. My prayers are with him; I know how it feels to lose a parent, I know how it feels to find yourself absolutely wrenched apart by pieces of music you have never before thought of as emotional, and – well, my thoughts and prayers are with him. Standing in for him is the very capable Tall Woman from IT (taller than me! Yay!). She’s doing a fine job, though I miss Nigel’s unique capacity to be boundlessly encouraging in the face of the most disheartening choral noises. Tall Woman is managing okay with the conducting despite never having done it before, and she has a sense of humour, and I think we’re going to pull it all together and do her credit in the end.

The snow is still settling. Rats! Home through the snow, brrr...

Choir practice...

Yes, it's that time of year again. I am a trembling wreck after an hour and a quarter of trying to pretend I can read music - and that is with Margaret Ramsey, a "proper" choral singer who has a good voice and can sight read, standing directly behind me so that I can hang onto her voice as to a life-preserver. Why is something so nerve-wracking enjoyable? I must be crackers.

This year we're doing a French carol I learned at school - I have to keep a stern grip or I start singing it in french - plus "Unto us a son is born", The Somerset Carol, and a sweet one with a tune by Praetorius and lyrics about the virgin Mary being "a rose e'er blooming". Plus a chunk of "Messiah", which is a real buzz, but also scary - it's "And the Glory of the Lord", so the contraltos kick off. Help.

Lucky Nigel, our choir master, is his usual patient & encouraging self, though occasionally even he is daunted by the ineptitude of the noises we make - at one point today the only thing he could think of to say was "Well, you all got the words right"... Bless him, he must be crackers, to take this job on in the first place; never mind me for thinking I am qualified to take part!

Wednesday...

Things are hectic at the moment and I am pie-eyed with tiredness after a very late night last night. Overslept horribly and wasn't in to work until nearly ten. I'm too sleepy to function properly and too sleepy to work or write coherently.
A pity, as the last week has been good in many respects. I went to a wonderful performance of "The Messiah" at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday - period instruments and a smallish choir, very clear bright sound (though they did still manage to sing "Oh we like sheep" instead of "ALL we like sheep" - enunciating l into w clearly, and on a rising note as well, seems to defeat pretty much everyone). I didn't like the soprano soloist, a plump blonde with a very wobbly, vibrato-heavy voice; but the tenor was good, and the mezzo and bass both were excellent. The bass was built like the proverbial brick outbuilding, but with a lovely, rich, dark, 80% cocoa solids kind of a voice. The mezzo was the New Zealander Wendy Dawn Thompson, with whom I once briefly corresponded (in before-she-was-famous days). I remember her performance of "Musik ist eine Heilige Kunst" at the Cardiff Singers competition a few years back as one of those moments when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. She hasn't a huge voice, but it is plangeant and expressive and has a wonderful tone - I'm thinking Highland Park and roasted hazelnuts. Her "He was despised" was heart-rending.
Saturday I met up with my stepmum Jane, had a meal out and a good old talk about everything under the sun, and then came down to Kew for a brisk walk in the rain and a spot of open-air carol singing, also in the rain. According to Jane, who listened with interest to the peculiar sound I produce, my singing voice should be classified as "contra-contralto", whatever that is. Dad was a very deep bass, basso profundo, so maybe it's genetic.
A lot of singing lately - I sing in the Kew Staff choir christmas carol service, and we have been rehearsing quite frequently and then yesterday afternoon were doing our thing in St Anne's church. Our immensely hard-working and supportive choirmaster Nigel turns out annually and with ineradicable good cheer and patience encourages us into giving a performance worth hearing. Every year at the first rehearsal I think "Oh god, we're going to be hopeless!" - every year Nigel calls forth gold from straw, and behold, our nervous pipings and creakings become music. I know he does something involving nuclear magnetic spectroscopy in the Jodrell Laboratory, but I suspect he may also be a bit of an alchemist on the side...
The carol service was followed by the famous (?infamous?) "Pies and Punch", and then full of mulled wine and goodwill to all men I hurtled across Town to meet Helena at Edgeware Road, got out at the wrong exit and stood flabberghasted by the Marylebone Flyover at rush-hour. Hell on earth would look something like this, I think. Managed to connect with Hel and had a lovely meal and a great deal to drink, and again talked our heads off. Got home at about 2 a.m. I am so knackered I am not for real! And in theory tonight I am going to Jill Preston's Christmas drinks and then the Visitor Services Christmas bash at the Kew Inn. I'd hate to miss the latter as it was so pleasing to be invited when I left VS nearly six months ago. But I don't think I'll last very long. It's also Hernàn's leaving do, and I really want to bid him buen viaje y buen suerte.