AUCS concert
Well, the whole thing was damn fun. I just adore the way that Simon Preston wants to ask our conductor, Peter Kelsall, to do something, but can't just ask him, he has to do it in a kind of quasi-passive-aggressive kind of joking manipulation - "I think it should be the decision of the music director....... but I think the music director should do this!" - all in good fun though.
My favourite, beati quorum via, went great. I did a little analysis of it, because for some reason in our dress rehearsal, though we didn't seem out of tune, when we got a new tuning note from the organ, we were a bit off, and being a cappella, could well have been correct, since singing tends to be in just intonation.
My analysis said that it did start and end on the same note mathematically, but it did do weird things along the way. It's in Ab major, but when it goes to Eb, the dominant, that should rightly be strongly related to the tonic, it was a wolf 5th (40:27 as opposed to 3:2, the result of going to the relative minors and majors a few times).
The Vaughan-Williams also went well, my other favourite. I don't like the little ascending 4ths fugue very much, but it does set up a great finale. The trumpeter that helped us with that went to my old school, and graduated just before my brother, who was over from Wagga Wagga and went to the concert, so that was fairly cool. The low Db's in this and another piece I'm pretty sure I hit in tune - hard to tell, I couldn't do them all that loud.
It was a great atmosphere for us, lots of fun, big audience. For one of the pieces, the organist probably thought "I'll remember to do that F# for the Bairstow, but I just want a quick look at the St. Cecilia piece, I haven't done that one before...." and he started playing the accompaniment for Cecilia. Ooopsies. I could just imagine how singing "let all mortal flesh keep silence" to the tune of Cecilia would be.
The party after was good fun. found a ridiculously old brand of beer (founded in 1040, claimed to be the oldest brewery in the world) that after foaming for 10 minutes was lovely, like most wheat beer is. Shame I couldn't find another. Lots of nice chat, introduced myself to (or was introduced to) most of the people I didn't know yet. Alastair wearing partly pink glasses really suits him..... and fills me with desires that make me feel strange in a way that only Oz from Buffy (Seth Green) has hitherto managed. OK, I was joking. Not about Oz though. I'd do him.
Seems like the family enjoyed it. Yay for them!
My favourite, beati quorum via, went great. I did a little analysis of it, because for some reason in our dress rehearsal, though we didn't seem out of tune, when we got a new tuning note from the organ, we were a bit off, and being a cappella, could well have been correct, since singing tends to be in just intonation.
My analysis said that it did start and end on the same note mathematically, but it did do weird things along the way. It's in Ab major, but when it goes to Eb, the dominant, that should rightly be strongly related to the tonic, it was a wolf 5th (40:27 as opposed to 3:2, the result of going to the relative minors and majors a few times).
The Vaughan-Williams also went well, my other favourite. I don't like the little ascending 4ths fugue very much, but it does set up a great finale. The trumpeter that helped us with that went to my old school, and graduated just before my brother, who was over from Wagga Wagga and went to the concert, so that was fairly cool. The low Db's in this and another piece I'm pretty sure I hit in tune - hard to tell, I couldn't do them all that loud.
It was a great atmosphere for us, lots of fun, big audience. For one of the pieces, the organist probably thought "I'll remember to do that F# for the Bairstow, but I just want a quick look at the St. Cecilia piece, I haven't done that one before...." and he started playing the accompaniment for Cecilia. Ooopsies. I could just imagine how singing "let all mortal flesh keep silence" to the tune of Cecilia would be.
The party after was good fun. found a ridiculously old brand of beer (founded in 1040, claimed to be the oldest brewery in the world) that after foaming for 10 minutes was lovely, like most wheat beer is. Shame I couldn't find another. Lots of nice chat, introduced myself to (or was introduced to) most of the people I didn't know yet. Alastair wearing partly pink glasses really suits him..... and fills me with desires that make me feel strange in a way that only Oz from Buffy (Seth Green) has hitherto managed. OK, I was joking. Not about Oz though. I'd do him.
Seems like the family enjoyed it. Yay for them!