Hi everyone. Last time I posted, I’d just got Covid visiting Bristol. That was back in November. To my shame, it’s 6 months since I posted that. Many of you are interested in my garden, and I have to say that it’s doing really well this spring. However, today it’s raining, so I can’t nip out and take any photos. And there’s scaffolding out the back as we’re having the back of the house painted. But I promise that as soon as the sun shines again, I’ll get out there and update you on what’s blooming. I’m fast approaching a busy performing time and IRead More →

10 days ago, I was the MD for a concert of opera arias, duets and choruses at the Leconfield Hall in Petworth. New Sussex Opera were due to perform Handel’s Acis and Galatea there last year, but that was coronovirused (I’ve just invented a new word there), so a small chorus together with 7 soloists performed there on 24 September. We thought that Love and Death covered most of the themes in opera. The chorus sang from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice; Wagner’s Bridal March; and the Chorus of Wedding Guests from Donizetti: Lucia di Lammamoor. And soloists sang arias from Dvorak: Rusalka (Song to the Moon),Read More →

Komm, Jesu, komm On Saturday we held the final workshop in our Bach Motet series which started back in January. J.S.Bach wrote 6 motets, all with just organ continuo accompaniment. Most were written to be sung at a specific funeral, but that’s not to suggest that they are in any way funereal! Most are bright and exciting. Four are for 8 voices; one is for 5 voices and just Lobet den Herrn is for 4 voices (which is also the only one with an independently written organ part). With workshops every other week in January, Feb and March, we just got Jesu, meine Freude in before lockdown andRead More →

It’s over 3 weeks since my last post. Last week Robin and I were in Ripon, North Yorkshire. Lewes Singers were to have sung the services in the Cathedral over the Bank Holiday weekend, but of course that was cancelled nearly 2 months ago. But we had a holiday cottage booked for the week, so took it as our Summer holiday. While we were up there we visited Ripon Cathedral (obviously); Fountains Abbey, which is a vast but well preserved ruins of a Cistercian Abbey founded in 1120. We spent a day in York, visiting the cathedral and having lunch in the Guy Fawkes InnRead More →

Richard Morrison wrote an excellent article in The Times on 4 June which draws attention very well to the situation facing 2 million choristers in British Choirs. This is the first and only article I’ve come across – so far, but I know that many choirs have linked to this article on their web and facebook pages and it’s prompted a lot of positive discussion about the future for choirs. Last week, friend and local singer Judy Mackerras, drew my attention to some work being done by Jackie Cassell (singer, epidemiologist and Deputy Director of the Brighton & Sussex Medical School) who is researching how andRead More →