Bury Bach Choir concert Saturday 18th May

Well. I know where all the cool kids will be on Saturday 18th May. The Bury Bach Choir will be singing Verdi's Requiem in the Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, as part of this year's small-but-perfectly-formed Bury Festival.

We last sang the Requiem about 5 years ago - it was one of the first Big Choral Works that I'd ever taken part in, and it was unforgettable.

Tickets are available for £23 and £16 (reserved), and £13 and £10 (unreserved)  and are available from the Apex box office or on 01284 758000.

See you there!

Singing makes you happy

I love singing - I always have. My brother and I always sang in the car, and were in choirs as kids...I don't really ever remember NOT singing. There was a period in high school when we were both in band and it was not terribly cool to be in band AND be able to sing...you had to pick one or the other.

Thankfully, college didn't have that restriction. Fairly early on my music theory professor frog-marched several of us to the early music vocal group, assuring us that it wasn't really a choir, more a group of music geeks singing and then going to the pub.

I knew I had to find a choir when I moved here, to give myself a non-work anchor, and I was really lucky that I ended up with the Bury Bach Choir.

We're currently looking for new members, in all voices. Can you sing? Can you read music (sight-reading isn't necessary)? Do you want to come and sing? It's fun - we rehearse once a week (more, the week of the concert), and give 4 concerts a year. There is truly nothing like singing with a choir.

Even Eric Whitacre thinks British choirs are the best...

If you're interested, check out the contact details here, on our website, or email me.

(Picture taken on our last choir outing...Houghton Hall is SO epic that it has its own post box. Srsly.)

Choir trip to North Norfolk

A mini-Bach Choir plus assorted guests went on a day out to the north-Norfolk coast last Sunday. We went to Thornham for a quick rehearsal in the church, then down to Houghton Hall to see the obligatory stately pile. As you can see, my shoes and their fountain were exactly the same colour. They had a very tasty cafe (if rather expensive) in converted part of the stables.

There were also a number of art installations throughout the grounds. This one was a vast circle of piled slate. Um, ok. Made for neat pictures looking back at the house, though.

The Cholmondeley (pronounced CHUM-ley, obviously) family still live in the house, so we went through the 10-or-so staterooms open to the public. There were some extraordinary tapestries with incredibly fine needlework, and an entrance hall that reminded me of the main hall at The Breakers in Newport. You walk in, you gasp, you look up, your mouth drops open, and you look around in disbelief. I imagine Mr Vanderbilt was well aware of Houghton Hall (and would be pleased at the comparison).

I mean, seriously. This is the fruit cage. You know, the little tent with mesh where you grow your raspberries to keep the birds out. I thought the steel walk-in one my father-in-law welded together was intense. It's got NOTHING on this one.

After our dash through the rest of the gardens (which I'd highly recommend), we went back to Thornham for evensong. Most of the village appeared to have turned out for the evensong, which was really nice - the church was reasonably full. The vicar was great - if you look in the encyclopedia under English Country Vicar, he'll be there, waving at you, complete with booming BBC English. Loved it.

We then retired to a well-scouted and extremely delicious supper at the Briarfields Hotel, followed by a surprisingly short coach ride back to Bury. It was a VERY long day but we all really enjoyed ourselves.

And the sun even came out in the evening!

Spring rabbit

A spring rabbit, spotted on a pew-end at the Ladies' Guild day out. I feel like he's probably there year-round, but spotting him in spring feels rather appropriate.

I've come across a few things on the internets that shall require making:

Best Banana Bread Ever from Cup Of Jo

Handmade piping from Noodlehead

Potato Knish from Smitten Kitchen
This adorable Tova top from Film In The Fridge
Millet with mushroom and kale from Oh She Glows

I can't do them all this weekend because I'll be singing in the sold out Messiah concert, with the ever-excellent Bury Bach Choir. WOOT! SOLD OUT!

Bury Bach Choir: Haydn & Mozart

We're singing in the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral on 19th November - it's going to be an excellent concert (as ever)!

Details below. See you there!

Mozart Motets and Haydn Nelson Mass


Mozart: Adagio & Fugue in C minor
Misericordias Domini
Ave verum corpus
Exsultate Jubilate
Haydn: Nelson Mass

Tickets £23, £16, £14 (reserved), £10 (unreserved), are available from the Theatre
Royal box office on 01284 769505 or via www.burybachchoir.co.uk (major credit cards
accepted).
Half-price concessions for under-25s booking by
telephone, at the box office or on the door, subject to availability.

Concert on 11th June: Purcell's King Arthur

HEY EVERYBODY! We're singing Purcell's King Arthur (as far as I can tell, exactly what Monty Python would have been had it been written in the 17th century). We're not doing the whole opera, just the singing parts. It'll be a really enjoyable summer evening concert (it'll still be light out when we finish). You could even visit Mr. Peacock at Kentwell Hall or wander around Melford Hall in the afternoon, and then picnic on the village green before the concert...

Saturday 11 June 2011 at 7.30 pm

Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford

Henry Purcell

King Arthur

Sena Larard soprano
Karina Lucas mezzo-soprano
David Sheppard countertenor
Patrick Mundy tenor
James Gower bass

Bury Bach Choir

Suffolk Baroque Players

Philip Reed conductor

Enter the world of King Arthur in this exuberant portrayal of events long ago. Purcell’s
dramatic opera, with libretto by John Dryden, contains some of the composer’s most lyrical
and evocative music, including the famous Frost Chorus and the patriotic song Fairest Isle. 

The action is pure adventure. It revolves around Arthur’s endeavours to recover his fiancée,
the blind Cornish princess Emmeline, who has been abducted by his arch-enemy the Saxon
King Oswald of Kent. Does he succeed in rescuing her? Come and enjoy this spine
tingling performance… and discover the answer.

There will be one interval, without refreshments – performance ends 9.20pm

Tickets £16 from Theatre Royal Box Office 01284 769505 or the Theatre Royal website.

This weekend: Bach Choir sings Elgar

Ok, English people. We are singing the very English (and very awesome) Dream of Gerontius, by the very English (and very awesome) Edward Elgar this weekend at the Bury St Edmunds cathedral. And my Mom is coming all the way from New York to see us. So you should come, too.

Details at the Bach Choir website. Short version: Saturday 9th April, 7:30pm, St Edmundsbury Cathedral. £23 / £18 / £12. BE THERE!

Look what I can do when I turn my camera to manual mode! ::Happy dance::

Blast from the past

Baby quilt no. 2 is now with momma-to-be, who was announced that it was the best thing ever and was going on the crib tonight all ready for the baby. I nearly caused early labour yesterday by accidentally sneaking up on her at work - she didn't realise I was behind her until I spoke, and she jumped about 6 feet in the air. I figured the quilt might make up for it, so I gave it to her early.

I was inspired by some Take 5 quilts that I found on the interwebs, this one in particular. I dispensed with the sashing, though. The colours look a little washed out here, but the red and blue are picked up across all the fabrics. The cream one was part of my goodies from a few weeks ago from Halfpenny Home. I think the red might be a touch overwhelming, but I was trying not to make it too girly, since I don't know what she's having.

We went with the choir peeps last Saturday up to Burghley House and Stamford to have a day out, give a concert, and have a BBQ. Having been to Burghley quite a bit as a kid, I remembered parts of it, but they've added a lot of garden features and visitor facilities. We missed being able to see the formal garden (not open to the public), but thought the house was interesting. Look at all those chimneys!

Out in the sculpture garden (where there were some very cool and some extremely weird sculptures), I found this glorious rose. It smelled good, too.

Our concert went really well - we sang some Tallis and Byrd along with the obligatory Britten. I somehow was the only person who volunteered for a solo in the Britten Te Deum (in C), so there I was, singing my little socks off and channeling my inner English Choirboy. My parents and I thought it was exceedingly odd that my little brother had been an actual English Choirboy singing a similar solo in a very similar church about 15 miles away, 18 years previously. It was all a blast from the past being in Stamford anyway - the school I used to go to was between the church and the hotel where our BBQ was, so we walked past the front doors several times.

How have I only just discovered Jane Austen?

I was nosing through the "books for sale for 50p" section of the library a few weeks ago, and came across Jane Austen's Emma. Somehow I've come this far in life without having read any Jane Austen, so I decided it was time to remedy that.

I really enjoyed it - there were parts that I found so funny I had to read them out to John (who appreciated it, I'm sure), and scenarios that were as cringeworthy as any reality show or sitcom. I really loved the ramblings of Miss Bates, who appears to stop speaking only to breathe, and even then, only when she's in danger of keeling over.

I also loved Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father, who verbalises the worst possible outcome of every situation. There were two scenes of his that cracked me up. The first is when his elder daughter is bringing her family to visit for two weeks, and he frets endlessly about the fact that two weeks isn't possibly going to be enough time and why would poor Isabella possibly not want to stay with him forever? The second part was when the assembled are discussing their thoughts on a painting that Emma has done, and Mr. Woodhouse says that he quite likes the artistry but could never possibly like the painting because the subject is seated outside, and all sorts of unfortunate things could befall one while outside!!


Too funny.

Speaking of horrible things that can befall one while outside, I was minding my own business putting the compost bin out tonight, and noticed that our gooseberry bush is a shadow of its former self. As in, half the leaves were gone and the branches stripped bare. Um, what? I checked it on Tuesday night and everything was fine. According to the interwebs, it's sawfly - little green caterpillars that nom their way through gooseberry plants. Lovely. As much as I hate spraying chemicals on things, the two suggestions were: pick them all off by hand (um, no) or NUKE the little buggers. One trip to B&Q later, for some food-safe insecticide, and they have been nuked. I felt a little bad, but they were eating MY gooseberries.  Or at least, eating the leaves on my gooseberry plant, preventing me from eating MY gooseberries.

In other news, this foxglove is not infested with anything (yet), and I thought it looked pretty. Agree?

While on my unscheduled trip to B&Q this evening for my bug-killer juice, I tuned into Bob Harris' weekly country music extravaganza on Radio 2. He had Brad Paisley singing songs from his new album, which John and I both really liked (and have now downloaded on iTunes). Between the Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, and Dixie Chicks, I think we now have sufficient country music to keep Stowmarket hoppin' for quite a while.

Quick musical plug: if anyone is anywhere near Stamford, Lincs, this Saturday evening, the Bach Choir is performing at St Martin's Church in Stamford at 6pm. We'll be done by 7, in plenty of time for you to watch the football!

Bach Choir: St John Passion - THIS WEEKEND!

In case any of you are wondering what I'm up to this weekend (you were waiting to plan your lives around mine, obv.), look no further.

Bach Choir. Bach. Jesus. Philip Salmon. What more do you need?

Saturday 27^th March 2010 at 7.30pm (ends approx. 9.45pm)

St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds

Stephen Varcoe - Christus
Philip Salmon - Evangelist
Nicki Kennedy - soprano
James Bowman - counter-tenor
Richard Edgar-Wilson - tenor
Gavin Carr - bass

Bury Bach Choir

Suffolk Baroque Players

Philip Reed - conductor

This performance of Bach’s St John Passion comes at the start of Holy Week, the week before Easter.

It tells the story of this extraordinary week – the Last Supper, Jesus’ trial before Pilate, and finally his crucifixion.  Six vocal soloists, together with the choir and orchestra, dramatize these world-changing events with sensitivity, integrity and often, raw emotion.  As the drama unfolds, prepare for rapid contrasts, for a verbal, spiritual, musical and indeed psychological roller coaster as we are dragged step by step towards the ultimate conclusion.

The soloists tonight are second to none, the orchestra pure baroque, and the choir will be at their best.  This will be a performance to remember.  Don’t miss it!

Reviews: Christmas Music

Having been liberated from a previous colleague's taste in schmaltzy pop Christmas music (Do They Know It's Christmas? How could they miss it? You've played the song 12 times so far today!), my iPod has been keeping things festive in my office. Please note: I'm NOT inflicting this on anyone else.

Kate Rusby: Sweet Bells
The peerless Ms. Rusby (whose songs fit v. nicely within my range) sings traditional Yorkshire folk arrangements of the Christmas carols you know (and some you don't). It always reminds me a little of the Sutton Manor versions of Christmas carols, which must seem very strange to outsiders...

Tori Amos: Midwinter Graces
A bunch of really traditional Christmas songs, Tori-fied. She kicks butt. And pianos. The album does rather over-use chimes to invoke church bells, but I'll forgive her.

Benjamin Britten: Ceremony of Carols
Way funkier than people give him credit for. We're rehearsing this for our concert on the 20th (shameless plug!), and I really love it. We're doing the SATB version with organ or piano (I can't remember which), but the recording I have is of the SSAA version, and I have to say I prefer it. My favorite movement: "This Little Babe". The lyrics start out seemingly harmless, but it's sung in a crazy fugue and comes across as complete chaos.

Sesame Street Christmas
We've been through this. I love it. Everyone else thinks I'm crazy. I'm ok with that.

Inconspicuous

I sang in the Bach Choir concert in Bury last night. (Come to our next one! Saturday 19th December, Christmas Music, Lavenham)

Because we live 20 minutes away (not including parking the car in Bury), the logistics of coming home between the afternoon rehearsal and the evening concert tend to be sort of complicated. We stayed in Bury and went out to supper with some friends. FWIW, it's the third time I've been to La Tasca, which is inevitably empty, and the service and food were just as bad as last time (and the time before). Consider yourselves warned.

Anyway, because we didn't go home after the rehearsal, I needed to change into my concert outfit between dinner and the performance. Mostly it involved taking my jeans off and putting a dress on - not too complicated. There's not really anywhere good to change in the Cathedral, so I decided to get dressed in the car. Which was parked in the Angel Hill parking lot in the center of town. It was dark and rainy, so there weren't too many people around, and the back windows of our car are tinted. Totally cool.

Except that right after I'd taken my jeans off, as I was wrestling with the dress to put it on, I sat on the car keys. And somehow hit the "panic" button. Which made the alarm go off. Flashing lights, honking horn, the whole thing. Oops.

Perfection

Last night's concert went really well. We had a bigger-than-expected audience, and the choir was in quite good voice. As expected, soloists and orchestra were both outstanding.

I had to take this picture this afternoon from F & T's living room window - the raindrops were so pretty clinging to the clothesline. I wish I'd had the SLR (and had been less lazy and had gone outside!), but you get the idea.

I've been thoroughly enjoying Elizabeth Goudge's Three Cities of Bells. The final book (The Dean's Watch), was recommended by C, and the library only had all three books together. What a chore - I shall have to read them all. I've just finished the first one (City of Bells), and it had a great story, lots of chuckle-worthy lines, and is the perfect book to curl up with on the couch. I took it one step better and curled up with some goat cheese, red wine, and the books, on the couch. ::sigh::

I was reading by the light of our new lamp (lamps?) from Ikea - John and I were totally disappointed with the lighting section at Ikea until we spotted these on our way out. LOVE them. And they're tall enough to light up the room but low enough to read by. It's called the Barometer, in case you want to be cool like us.

Tonight in Bury: Faure Requiem

Right, you lot. There are still some seats left for tonight's performance of the Faure Requiem by the Bury Bach Choir. The concert's at 7:30 in the Cathedral, and tickets will be available on the door.

The choir is good (and bigger than it has been in a few years), the orchestra will be fab, and the soloists are always extremely good. Our conductor, Philip Reed, works at English National Opera, and seems to be able to convince ENO soloists that what they REALLY want to do on a cold weekend in November is troop up to Bury St Edmunds and sing in a concert. Fine with me!

We'll also be performing Handel's Messiah (which, believe it or not, I've never sung before) on the 20th of December in St Mary's Church. It will definitely sell out, so get your tickets now! The details of the concert are here.

Blickling and Blakeney

The Bury Bach Choir normally goes away for a weekend once every few years. About a year ago, we thought about a trip to somewhere in Europe for the weekend, which got downgraded to a trip to Durham/Newcastle for a weekend, which got downgraded to a day trip to Norfolk.

We hired a coach and 50 of us went to Blickling Hall, followed by a concert in Blakeney (on the Norfolk coast). Blickling was stunning - it's a Jacobean house with ornate, huge interiors and a formal garden, all surrounded by parkland. We toured the house and walked through the gardens and the park, and then had a picnic in the courtyard, before getting back on the bus to head to rehearsal. John got to tour Blakeney while we were all rehearsing, and then after our performance we stopped for dinner on the way back and got home around 1am. Man, were we tired.


It was a nice 'day out', and we definitely bonded with some choir peeps. The concert was not our best, but the audience seemed to enjoy it. The quote of the evening, however, goes to the vicar(ess?) of Blakeney Church, who said to the assembled at the end of the concert, "What a lovely concert. There were some pieces we knew well, along with some that we didn't know quite so well." Yeah, us too!

Mom's here!

This has been a busy week! We went to Birmingham on Thursday to get my Indefinite Leave To Remain for the UK. I'm now officially allowed to come and go as I please, stay as long as I want, and even go on welfare. Woohoo! There were a lot of steps (tests, other visas, PILES of paperwork, and we're £950 lighter), but it's such a relief to be here and have the happy little piece of paper in my passport that says 'indefinite leave to remain'.

Then, Friday morning, my mom arrived for a 5-day whirlwind trip. We've been having a fantastic time - lots of gardening and touristing and eating curries and cream teas and fish & chips and pub food.

The original purpose of the trip was to come to the Bury Bach Choir's concert on Saturday night - we performed the Verdi Requiem to a packed house in the Bury Cathedral (over 700 people - we sold out!). The concert was the best we've done - I was so glad that both mom and John were there.

Here's Aldeburgh, where we went yesterday.

On the way home, we went to Helmingham Hall again - we loved the gardens so much we had to show them to Mom. She's a fan now, too. I loved these dwarf irises - so pretty.


She's here for two more days - I think we're going to go on a countryside guided walk today and do some more planting in the garden. We've mentally redesigned our garden about 400 times - we're having so much fun with it. It'll eventually settle (and we'll actually purchase the plants and put them in)!

This drop of water was caught in the leaves at the garden center we found nearby. The plants all looked really healthy and they were so much cheaper than the chain stores. Granted, the place is pretty well hidden away, but we'll be going back for more!

Sm. Boy Takes Over World

James and I played Risk today - he did much better than the last time we played, about a year ago. He plays more strategy games and is getting better at the 'don't spread yourself too thin' concept.

Here's the board, right before we called it a draw:

I was blue and James was grey, which you can't quite tell from the picture. We were just about tied (with ongoing conflict in Europe).

Yesterday the Bach Choir performed in St Mary's Church in Bury - it was one of the best concerts I've done with them. We sang quite well and the soloists were fantastic. The mezzo-soprano was a replacement at the last minute (the scheduled one was ill) and she had the most gorgeous operatic voice. Our conductor works at the English National Opera and so has a rather large database of opera singers at his fingertips.

We performed with the Suffolk Baroque players, and for one of the pieces had some Baroque trumpets perform with us for two of the pieces. Then the orchestra played an aria from Julius Caesar with the mezzo and the most spectacular Baroque horn that I've ever heard. I heard the horn player warming up and complimented her on her playing, but I was completely unprepared for what she played in the concert. It was a really complex piece, with lots of running scales and trills. All of which were unbelievably hard and beautifully played. I was really glad that we weren't singing while she was playing - it meant that I could watch and drool. I've tried to find the Suffolk Baroque website and can't - I'll have to ask our secretary for their contact info so I can hear the hornist again.

Here's the back of the church before the concert

Lost

Here are some pictures from our walk last weekend - the weather was gorgeous.


I've been awol because we rented the first half of the first season of Lost on Saturday and have been watching the episodes every night. I don't think it's as good as Heroes but it's really compelling (and way better than 24).

And, as we hadn't had enough TV, we watched The Illusionist last night. It was a great movie. I can't think of an Edward Norton movie that I haven't liked. It was really well done and had a great story. And the magic was v. cool.

I think another blogging hiatus is in order: it's a concert weekend, so check us out if you're in the neighborhood on Saturday night!

Starting in

I cut out the place mats that I'm going to make from this fabric that I got in New York at Purl:


I have some orange fabric that matches their faces that I'm going to make napkins out of. The grand plan is to have them finished for Thanksgiving - we'll see if I make it.

The Bury Bach Choir concert went pretty well last night - we kind of fell apart on the Mozart, but completely made up for it with a pretty darn good rendition of Britten's "The Company Of Heaven." It's not performed very often, but it should be - it's genius.

It Sucks To Be Me (no, really!)

And I have the mug to prove it! Our friend Mark went to London to see Avenue Q last weekend. I gave him a copy of the CD back when we were living in the flat - I can't even remember what it was that sparked the conversation. So tonight he turns up with this mug, as a present for me from London:



I LOVE it...and it totally goes with my 'Everything in life is only for now' button that's on my monitor at work.

I was talking to one of my choir buddies at rehearsal tonight and she said that both she and her husband have been sick with a lingering cold-y sore-throat-y thing over the last few weeks. The more she described it, the more I think it's what I've got. I've had crazy headaches (not stress ones - those are different), a nasty taste in my mouth, and a sore throat. Oh, and no attention span. Seriously, none at all. I can't hold a thought in my head for more than about 10 seconds before I flip to something else. It's driving me bonkers at work - I can't seem to finish ANYTHING. Today at one point I had 3 open emails that I was composing, two things on my desk that I was working on, and a spreadsheet. It's not that I'm super busy (I am, but it's not new) - it's that I truly can't stick with any task for more than about 2 minutes before I suddenly think of something else that I need to do right then. I don't usually have this problem...and I need it to go away NOW. Maybe sleep will help...

Oh, and if you're in the Suffolk area this weekend, check out the Bury Bach Choir Concert on Saturday evening.