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Aug. 2nd, 2004 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotherusedpageTwo lots of performance opportunities yesterday that I didn't get. The first was for Big Brother's Little Brother, utterly randomly, where they wanted someone to sing Pie Jesu to compare to one of the housemates doing it. The producer got in touch with my conductor, and he tried to get me, but I wouldn't have been able to get back to London early enough, and anyway they wanted about four people, and the only people who were in London and available point blank refused to do it. Which was probably a good thing, having seen what they did. I haven't seen any of Big Brother, but what they ended up with looked like four people from the over-sixites devision of the Women's Institute choir, and sang even worse than the Big Brother girl did. And it all looked horribly unorganised.
The second one was more of a shame, although I didn't hear about it until long after all the decisions had been made. It was a semi-staged concert performance of Tavener's The Lifted Veil at the proms. The CEFC comittee turned it down, for reasons best known to themselves, but me andopportunemoment went along to see it, and it was absolutely fabulous, I'd've loved to sing. Well worth hearing, even if it was two and a quarter hours with no interval. The music was extremely moving, despite the bit which was basically a bible reading sung to two notes which got kinda boring, and it amused me that the next interesting bit started with the invocation 'Awake all ye sleepers and rejoice'. But they used the space in the Albert Hall and had groups of singers all over the place and all sorts of spatial effects, with the music just rolling around the hall, forty or fifty parts going at once, and almost entirely unaccompanied except for percussion and a drone from the organ. And Tavener's style of discord and harmony, which I love.
In other news, I've been at the sea-side. The house we were staying in belongs to my ex-boyfriend's folks, and I was there with Rosie, which I thought might be a bit strange but wasn't. She was kinda suprised at our family tradition of building historically accurate sand-castles, with a motte and a moat and inner and outer walls and barracks and a chapple outside the keep and a well, and the doors all facing the right ways so you can defend.
I suspect that will be the last time I allow my parents to talk me into going on the family holiday, because the advantage of them paying is kinda cancelled out by the fact that my brother and my dad are in the same house for an entire week with no let up, and the shouting and bickering is just too much.
Other recent news.... hmm, I've seen Spider Man 2, which I loved. The week of teaching I thought I might get with the kid's choir I used to sing with at the end of August has turned into about three days of teaching, which I won't get properly paid for, and it's entirely the fault of someone who I desipise already cos she's impossible to work with, who decided that even though she can't do the entire week, she'd do the first half and take the sodding money. Admittedly she's better qualified to do it than me, but the real reason is that her mother is on the committee than runs the course. I'll do the three days anyway, and they know it, because I'd've gone along for the last three days just to see people and be part of it even if there hadn't been any work going. But it's still annoying.
And I've been asked to do some random singing in a cafe in Barnet, which sounds cool, although me and my singy friends in London kinda don't have any repetoir at all at the moment. So a trip to Chapple's the music shop at some point in the near future.
And I'm supposed to be a lit student. And should therefore be reading things. I've made it all the way through my copy of Utopia, which is a) very short and b) a modern translation and so much easier and technically speaking cheating, and... now I can't be bothered to do any more. My exceedingly long reading list can just go sod itself. I'm currently re-reading the Silmarillion. Before that it was the new Stephen Saylor, and after that it's going to be Jasper Fforde. So there. Machiavelli, Chaucer, Marlowe and Spencer can just... well, I can think of lots of things that they can just, but mostly they can just sit on my bookshelf and rot. Except for Spencer, cos it turns out I don't own a copy.
The second one was more of a shame, although I didn't hear about it until long after all the decisions had been made. It was a semi-staged concert performance of Tavener's The Lifted Veil at the proms. The CEFC comittee turned it down, for reasons best known to themselves, but me and
opportunemoment went along to see it, and it was absolutely fabulous, I'd've loved to sing. Well worth hearing, even if it was two and a quarter hours with no interval. The music was extremely moving, despite the bit which was basically a bible reading sung to two notes which got kinda boring, and it amused me that the next interesting bit started with the invocation 'Awake all ye sleepers and rejoice'. But they used the space in the Albert Hall and had groups of singers all over the place and all sorts of spatial effects, with the music just rolling around the hall, forty or fifty parts going at once, and almost entirely unaccompanied except for percussion and a drone from the organ. And Tavener's style of discord and harmony, which I love. In other news, I've been at the sea-side. The house we were staying in belongs to my ex-boyfriend's folks, and I was there with Rosie, which I thought might be a bit strange but wasn't. She was kinda suprised at our family tradition of building historically accurate sand-castles, with a motte and a moat and inner and outer walls and barracks and a chapple outside the keep and a well, and the doors all facing the right ways so you can defend.
I suspect that will be the last time I allow my parents to talk me into going on the family holiday, because the advantage of them paying is kinda cancelled out by the fact that my brother and my dad are in the same house for an entire week with no let up, and the shouting and bickering is just too much.
Other recent news.... hmm, I've seen Spider Man 2, which I loved. The week of teaching I thought I might get with the kid's choir I used to sing with at the end of August has turned into about three days of teaching, which I won't get properly paid for, and it's entirely the fault of someone who I desipise already cos she's impossible to work with, who decided that even though she can't do the entire week, she'd do the first half and take the sodding money. Admittedly she's better qualified to do it than me, but the real reason is that her mother is on the committee than runs the course. I'll do the three days anyway, and they know it, because I'd've gone along for the last three days just to see people and be part of it even if there hadn't been any work going. But it's still annoying.
And I've been asked to do some random singing in a cafe in Barnet, which sounds cool, although me and my singy friends in London kinda don't have any repetoir at all at the moment. So a trip to Chapple's the music shop at some point in the near future.
And I'm supposed to be a lit student. And should therefore be reading things. I've made it all the way through my copy of Utopia, which is a) very short and b) a modern translation and so much easier and technically speaking cheating, and... now I can't be bothered to do any more. My exceedingly long reading list can just go sod itself. I'm currently re-reading the Silmarillion. Before that it was the new Stephen Saylor, and after that it's going to be Jasper Fforde. So there. Machiavelli, Chaucer, Marlowe and Spencer can just... well, I can think of lots of things that they can just, but mostly they can just sit on my bookshelf and rot. Except for Spencer, cos it turns out I don't own a copy.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:18 pm (UTC)Oooh, cool. It's certainly cool. Me and
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 03:03 am (UTC)got it yet.
And can't you misinterpret 'Utopia' and read the G&S annotated instead?
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Date: 2004-08-04 03:41 am (UTC)