Dear All
A rather longer session than usual last night I think – great to see a few new faces as well as most of the regulars of course. Karen, Julia and I will be keeping our eyes and ears open for the latest guidance on safe singing; clever though Zoom is, it is far from ideal for choral singing as we all know and it would be really lovely to get together properly. There are obvious public open spaces in Shaftesbury and we’ve also had a kind invitation to sing in the grounds of a private house too, so watch this space.
THINGS TO DO
This is the link I sent you all last week about the future of choral singing. It is an interview with ENT consultant Declan Costello and an expert on the voice. He has been leading the UK research into Covid-19 and its potential dangers concerning singing and wind instrument playing; all very interesting and far from being all doom and gloom. Give it a listen - 15 minutes well spent.
https://www.facebook.com/104870371295582/posts/122007702915182/
Sing Gently - The American composer Eric Whitacre has been working with virtual choirs for many years. I gather he thought he'd made his last virtual choir piece until Coronavirus hit. At a time when singers are being told that they cannot sing as a group, he has used the concept of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken items are joined together with gold to make something beautiful, to create “Sing Gently”. 17,572 singers from 129 countries no less. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InULYfJHKI0. Thanks to Mike Turnbull for telling me all about kintsugi and looking forward to hearing even more about it from Yuko one fine day.
Thanks to David (bass) for the attached video of the theme tune to The Good, the Bad and The Ugly. I often wondered how the recording was made … now I know. Look out for the dummy hanging over the orchestra.
This Sunday’s TV proms comes from 2017 and features Chineke! - a British orchestra and the first professional orchestra in Europe to be made up of majority black and minority ethnic musicians. (The word Chineke derives from the Igbo language meaning “God”.) The programme includes music by Dvorak, Handel and Rimsky-Korsakov. (BBC Four 7.00 p.m.)
Finally, here is as shameless plug from Karen for her Pagoda Project. Give it a click!
https://www.facebook.com/PagodaProjectDuo/photos/a.201853543645625/201859023645077
ONLINE ARTS DIARY
For more online arts programmes, don’t forget to check the Fine Times Recorder’s listings. There are lots of wonderful free things to see and listen to on-line: http://www.theftr.co.uk/whats-on/
Keep well, keep in touch, keep on singing, and, with luck, see you next week.
David
30 July 2020