Tag: Music

midsummer music… and dancing

We’ve had a busy few days celebrating midsummer with music of all kinds. Thursday night Jon Boden celebrated the end of a year of folk songs in his A Folk Song a Day project with a gig at Cecil Sharp House. I have listened to every one of the songs, though not every day, tending to gorge…

June 26, 2011
Eugene Onegin 2nd Production Rehearsal

So we are upstairs and don’t have enough doors for our entrances and exits, and have to crunch against walls and pretend we aren’t there. It’s hot and it’s raining, and there isn’t enough light for photographs; good job I took loads last time. This is one of those rehearsals where there is a lot…

June 21, 2011
Eugene Onegin – 1st Production Rehearsal

Our first production rehearsal is six hours long. Nick is stuck on a delayed Eurostar, so Duncan is conducting from the piano, Bryony is poised with measuring tape to review costumes, Tom has collected flower pots, (which he later walks into and sends in all directions) baskets, cushions and a watering can, and the floor is marked…

June 19, 2011
Eugene Onegin – 6th Rehearsal

This is the final ‘Music’ rehearsal, and Nick is trying to get us off ‘the book’. Some of us require weaning, others are trying to go cold turkey. The waltz scene from Act II worked pretty well without the words ‘n’ music in front of us, although the words on some of the more exposed sections…

June 16, 2011
NOT Eugene Onegin 5th Rehearsal- RtR go wild

I’m sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and a very happy cat who is glad I’m home from a weekend away. We’ve been playing truant from the opera! Green fields and pastures new, we’ve been on an organic smallholding in …Swindon … for a weekend of singing with a small selection of the…

June 13, 2011
Eugene Onegin- 4th rehearsal

In order to help me write this blog I scrawl things in the margin of my score, then erase them when I’ve updated the post. This week’s scrawls say: Marvellous Nearly marvellous Will be marvellous. This being either Nick or my assessment of where we’re at. I write things down because my memory is unreliable…

June 10, 2011
Eugene Onegin- 3rd Rehearsal

Sunday Morning: Nick is back and tests us on what we’ve learnt with Duncan. “What would you give yourselves as marks out of ten?” he asks. “Four,” “Two!” we compete to be self effacing in our judgement. “Well, I’d say it was a six, so let’s see if we can get to nine and a…

June 5, 2011
Eugene Onegin- 2nd rehearsal

Thursday evening, and I should be at my writing group but here we are at Blackheath again, clutching our carefully marked up scripts. Jonathon is also clutching an article about charity shops, which we hope will help with finding our costumes. It’s half term and we feel a bit thin on the ground, indeed Music…

June 4, 2011
Eugene Onegin- 1st rehearsal

So! First rehearsal: musical director Nick Jenkins is jetting in from Brussells or somewhere, and not expected until midday, so we collect our hired scores and amuse ourselves updating them with word changes from Director Harry Fehr; in pencil of course! Then Harry introduces us to the designer Tom Oldham and costumer Briony. Harry has…

May 29, 2011
Me and My Pianos

I’ve been decorating the living room, and the piano was really getting in my way – too heavy to move! Solved that, (thanks Muireann) with a bit of lateral thinking and a long pole. So my imaginary blog reader is now asking themselves: Why is she on about pianos? Can she even play the piano? Naah… I can pick…

April 13, 2011