There was much excitement at Anna-Lauren's return after an emergency trip home to the States. Hugging and stuff. Although she was still a bit jetlagged so only stayed for half the rehearsal.
After Anne's initial concern that she might be the only Alto in attendance (the question was, could she sing enough for four? (yes, she bloody well could!)), Heather and Jenny came to support, so at least we weren't painfully low on numbers. Behm, having made friends with the cats, was relieved of his feline lapwarmers and we had a bit of a sing...
The new African Piece, Nyathii Onyuol, is coming along nicely. We tried not to shout, but it's always tempting to take the enthusiam in African music too far. Jenny also got a little hysterically distracted by the line which sounds like 'manwanky'. Ollie produced an amended version of The Swallow and the Bells (aka Carol of the Bells, only with a more faithful - but still frightfully twee - translation of the lyrics) with the Ukranian words sandwiched in: Shchedryk, as it is now, and a less exciting but simpler and more coherent version than we had tried a few years ago. Always nice to see the newbies' stupefied faces when confronted with such an array of languages :D
Speaking of which, we have some Swedish stuff! Nu tändas tusen luleljus, sent direct from Sweden in a bundle of 'beautiful' Christmassey and seasonal songs. Anne will be playing harp for this (she was informed) and Harriet will be giving us a lovely solo at the beginning. And maybe at the end. Actually we might just send the pair of them on and go for a cuppa. It's something to do with light apparently and other than some very suprising accidentals in the Soprano line it sounded wonderfully Swedish and wintry.
Remember the Lamb? Apparently we'll be doing that again, along with a new piece by John Tavener, Rocking. You may know this as a Christmas song kiddies often sing with painful emphases, "We will rock you ROCK you ROCK you," etc. and will be pleasantly surprised by this version which is more of a succession of very unusual, exciting but ultimately wonderful chords in that Tavener/Pärt/Tormis vein. The ladies had tried this before but the boys were Rocking virgins so it's particularly impressive that we managed to make it sound recognisably musical.
And the Korean lullaby, Jajang, Jajang, Aghi Jesu which elicited a "That was RUBBISH!" from Kay at a certain entry (it was the Basses) and led our esteemed leader to remark more than one that it wasn't a very easy piece. what was meant to be a "Once through without stopping whatever happens" descended into 20minutes of note- and Tenor-bashing. I'm sure it'll come together. Probably. These things usually do. [runs off to practice furiously]
Anne then asked us for large thermos flasks and warned that Rosslyn tickets are going fast (if you wanna come, better get in touch soon!) and John tried to get some information from Ollie about the imminent CD - which should be available to download or buy at concerts any month now - before people drifted away into the miserable night.
Hopefully you'll have your Claire back next week.
C
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