Rob 22nd February 2012Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and The Songmen are busy preparing our new programme Iuxta Crucem for Holy Week.
We have all sung regularly in churches and cathedrals in the past, and share a deep appreciation for their musical traditions. It's my view that much of the sublime sacred music was written for Lent, so it's been a privilege to put together this programme for the group. Iuxta Crucem is inspired by the image of Mary at the foot of the Cross, and includes music from across Europe and from the 15th century right through to the present day (including the first performances of a new piece of mine).
As we spend so much time touring overseas, we are glad to be bringing this programme to two of our spiritual homes, Tewkesbury Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral. There's an extra significance for us all as these will be our last UK performances with Coops.
I can't decide which I am looking forward to more: the concerts, or my next tasty ale on Easter day...
Rob x |
 | Jon 15 February 2012It has been an interesting period since my last blog…
Coops went through a period of soul searching and at the end of last year advised us that he had taken the very difficult decision to retire from The Songmen. Whilst this was a sad moment for the group as a whole, it is undoubtedly the right decision for Coops and it will give him the time to undertake a number of really exciting projects in the not too distant future.
However, as result of this we found ourselves in rather the strange situation of searching for the new Songman.
So, what makes a Songman? - this is something we asked ourselves many times in order to create a summary of the essential qualities and desirable attributes of a Songman. It included the obvious items such as "an exceptional voice" combined with those less specific items such as "being flexible to cover a wide genre of music" and "the ability to work in the group to make the trademark sound" - the Songmen blend if you will.
Well, needless to say, this list was not short and we realised that this was not going to be an easy task!
With the assistance of our good friends in the choral world we set to work identifying a select group of singers who potentially could be the next Songman.
Invitations were sent, arrangements made and the auditions took the form of a rehearsal. The music being carefully selected both to give the candidates an idea of what it is like to be a Songman whilst at the same time as allowing us to get to know them and see if they would "fit".
I'm pleased to say that we were not disappointed - there was an exceptional standard of singing and this allowed us to focus on some of the more subtle areas of our performances and establish the real strengths of the individual.
From this initial group those who impressed us most were subject to further scrutiny, and as we progressed through the rounds we constantly upped the requirements - including the testing of their mettle with La Guerre as part of the final round!
Well, we heard some truly excellent singing during the auditions and I can honestly say it was our privilege to work with such a great bunch of guys, but I know the question you are all asking ...
Have we found the new Songman? - Yes
Will I tell you his name? - No … sorry, I mean … not yet …
I promised the boys I wouldn't … but what I can tell you is that the new Songman is brilliant and is going to be a great appointment for the group.
For those desperate to know, might I suggest keeping an eye on our website ...
Exciting times!
Take care
Jon xx
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| Ben C 8th February 2012I am writing this whilst journeying back home after a very successful day at Bedford Modern Junior School. It was the second time we've been to see them, for their annual House Singing Competition. Jon and I teamed up to work with Kaye House on their House Song, 'Somewhere over the rainbow' and Soundscape on the poem 'Windy Nights'. We had a great time working on developing the way they were singing and communicating the music. And all of their hard work paid off when we won Best Song and Best Overall. What a great bunch! Well done to you all! We finished off the day sharing a concert with some of their choirs, which was a fantastic way to end the day.
I now have some sad news to share with you. After two fantastic years with The Songmen, I have come to the difficult decision that it is time for me to move on to new projects in my life. I am very much looking forward to my last few months with the group, especially as my last concert is going to be with our fabulous friends 'Vivae Vocis Concentus' in Perugia on 6th May. I still have a few gigs in the UK and hope to see you there. I know the group have been working really hard to find my successor - we're all really delighted with our choice and the guys will share this news with you in the next few weeks.
I hope I get the chance to see as many of you as possible before May.
Good luck to you all.
Coops x |
| Chris 1st February 2012I struggled with what to write for this blog. Not because there is nothing to say - quite the reverse. 2012 is shaping up to be our busiest ever and our new relationship with Ikon Arts Management is proving to be really exciting. Guy and I visited our new management team last week and it was great to discuss our future with Nicola and Costa and find how naturally well in sync we all are. Of course, after our meeting, the second highlight of the day was taking the advantage of being in London, one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities in the world and heading to the famous Covent Garden and partaking of a basement Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet...
I was going to talk about today our exciting new concert programme for Lent called "Iuxta Crucem" - a meditation on the image of Mary at the cross - which we will be performing in special late night events at Tewkesbury Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral during Holy Week. A collection of some simply stunning music where everything has a deep and meaningful association with the mother of Jesus and the period leading to his Passion.
However, all that got thrown to the side today when it was announced that our first full album "Midnight" has been nominated for "Best Jazz Album" at the Contemporary A Cappella Awards 2012!!! Anyone who knows us, knows how proud of "Midnight" we are and the amazing experience we had working with Grammy-award winning producer Bill Hare. The period of judging begins this week and we won't hear the result for a few months, but we are pretty pleased right now and are keeping our fingers crossed! Also nominated in the best classical song category, were fellow Ikon-represented group, The Swingle Singers, so a good day all round for UK a cappella music!
Got to run now - when I am not soaking up the glamour of being part of an international award winning vocal group, my wife and I are doing up our Victorian home in the Cotswolds and I have been reminded I have a loft needing insulating. Oh, the high life! Till next time... x
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| Guy 27th January 2012It's been a busy week for the group. We signed with Ikon Arts Management who now represent us as our worldwide Managment and Booking Agents which is a great step forward for the group. Nicola, Costa and the team at Ikon have already made us feel very welcome and we're looking forward to a fruitful and exciting relationship developing.
We've been rehearsing a couple of new programmes over the last few weeks and adding some great new pieces to our repertoire including some spirituals arranged by Ben and Rob, and some pop songs too.
The first edit of our new disc 'A Sacred Place' is coming along nicely. This is a lovely collection of Sacred Masterpieces ranging from the Renaissance period to modern choral music two of which are original commissions for the group. We're looking forward to this being released later in the year.
Keep your ears open for release dates (and for Midnight - our jazz and pop disc) soon!
Guy
x
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| Ben 18th January 2012Last Friday saw our first visit to King’s Place and the London A Cappella Festival. The Festival started two years ago and has quickly become a draw to a cappella fans from across the globe.
It was a very different type of performance for us. We were singing in the foyer area between concerts given by ‘Cadence’ and ‘Fork’ from Canada and Finland respectively. Although this was not the full concert of the type we normally do, it was a great opportunity to show our wares to a new audience as well as our faithful supporters. It was great to hear other groups performing as well. To be honest, it was not the easiest performance venue we’ve ever sung in – for the first time we had a pair of microphones helping us out and the nature of the occasion meant that our ‘audience’ were also discussing what they had just been to see or were about to see. This meant we had to bring our ‘A’ game and the response from the listeners was very generous.
Our short set was a mixture of very old, old and new. The new were two new arrangements of mine of the song ‘Heartbeats’ which accompanied a well-known advert for Sony televisions a few years back; and ‘Be Your Husband’, a cool combination of Jeff Buckley and The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’. The old (for us anyway!) were tracks from ‘Midnight’, ‘Mr Bojangles’ and ‘I’m Crazy about my Baby’ which both went down very well. We finished off with very old in the form of ‘La Guerre’, a piece that we all love to sing and thankfully the audience loved to listen to!
After the gig, we celebrated in the usual way and I was lucky enough to spend the next day in London with my girlfriend Catherine, catching some fabulous busking at Covent Garden and getting a possible idea for a future album by seeing the West End Gershwin show, ‘Crazy for You’!
All in all, a fab weekend!
Ben x |
| Rob 11th January 2012We're back from our Christmas break, during which we get to relax and do vaguely normal things, and straight into another busy month for the group.
It's an exciting week for The Songmen, which kicked off with our appearance on The Choir on BBC Radio 3, with some choice compliments from presenter Aled Jones. If you missed it, it's available on BBC iPlayer until Sunday evening — our appearance is just over an hour in.
Of course we're gearing up for our debut at the London A Cappella Festival on Friday evening. It's free and unticketed so if you're in London there's no excuse for not coming along to Kings Place at 8pm!
As if that weren't enough, we have just had a first opportunity to listen to our sacred CD which we recorded in the Autumn — look out for preview tracks on the website in the near future. If you can't catch us on Friday, check our calendar for a forthcoming concert near you — and if there isn't one, why not get your favourite venue to book us?
Rob x |
| Ben 8th January 2012If you haven't already seen through our Facebook page, we are excited to be appearing this afternoon on Aled Jones's Radio 3 programme 'The Choir' at 5pm. According to the BBC website, our version of 'Bright Eyes' will be played in this special edition promoting next week's London A Cappella Festival, at which we are singing on Friday evening. 'Bright Eyes' is a track from our forthcoming album 'Midnight'.
The album can currently be bought directly from us at our concerts but will be on general release in the coming months (details to follow), so if you like what you hear, do come along to one of the concerts listed on our Forthcoming Concerts page or keep an eye on our website for news and updates.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy listening to the track - we will post a link for iPlayer after the show has finished if you missed out on the live show.
Finally, don't forget to come and hear us live at Kings Place near King's Cross Station at 8pm. Other groups singing that evening include Apollo 5 and All The King's Men.
Until then, continue to enjoy a happy New Year!
The Songmen x
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| Jon 22nd December 2011It is with great pleasure that I write my final blog of 2011 reflecting on what has been, undoubtedly, a good year ...
Performing ... well that's what we do and this year has been absolutely brilliant. I have visited and performed in more countries this year than ever before and I love meeting new friends and getting to experience a little bit of their culture.
Educational work is another string on the Songmen bow and, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, this is something I love. The standard of the groups we work with just keeps getting better and better. Love them or loathe them, the current trend for talent shows is helping to bring about a new era of British vocal creativity.
We have also made two recordings this year and we are very pleased with the results – if you haven't heard Midnight, take a listen on the music page of our website and if you have, well why not listen again?
But best of all, in 2011 I was able to spend more time than ever before singing with my best friends.
So, what does 2012 hold in store for The Songmen? ... well, that would be telling ... but I have access to the insider information and, trust me, it is going to be awesome!
I'm off now for some mulled wine, a mince pie and to sing a carol or two to get me in the festive mood!
All that is left to say is Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Lots of love
Jon xx |
| Chris 7th December 2011I have been thinking about education work a lot recently. After I left uni, I spent some time working in a private school in Gloucester where I fiddled with the school’s IT and got just a little taster of a teacher’s life. Becoming a teacher is a common choice for music graduates; the other is moving to London to try and make a living as a musician along with the billion other talented musicians already there (and probably end up moving into teaching a few years later anyway!). For some, teaching is very much the right decision and I applaud them for it, but for me, much as I liked the kids and the good friends I had in the school, after two-years I was quite happy to move on having proved that a teacher’s life was not for me (and, if I am honest, I am no loss to the British education system).
Since the founding of The Songmen, I have had the opportunity to go into schools again and work with kids of all ages – pre-prep through to A-Level and everything in between, and it’s become something that I really enjoy. Sometimes, I even think, gosh, I’m not that bad at it either...
Last week, I took Guy with me to my wife’s school to see their production of “Oklahoma” that she had directed. We both really enjoyed the show (my wife is an amazingly talented drama teacher and director), but Guy made a point that really chimed with me. School productions, master-classes, adjudications and similar activities can be the best part of a teacher’s job, but alongside comes the overhead of marking, reports, class discipline, school trips, homework, parents evenings, school politics, registration and break duty etc. ad infinitum.
We half-dozen in The Songmen get to have all the best bits – going into a school and actually working with a bunch of talented and/or enthusiast young musicians – without that long list of complications.
Sometimes I forget how lucky we are and perhaps that’s one of the reason why I like our education outreach work so much nowadays.
Chris x |
| Guy 29th November 2011It seems that every time it's my turn to write a blog I am either just returning from, or going to, London. Regular readers will know how much I love London (I try and get over there a few times a month to see friends and go to the odd concert or too). My last London 'concert' was actually a jaunt to The Coliseum, the home of English National Opera, where I saw the fabulous opera 'Castor and Pollux' by Rameau. The opera was AMAZING and the performance was made all the more special by seeing an old singing colleague of mine, Ed Lyon, make his ENO debut.
When I was just seventeen Ed, another friend, James Mustard, and I sang William Byrd's Three Part Mass together as three soloists in Tewkesbury Abbey for a Sunday morning Eucharist. The lasting memory I have of that particular service was that James (the bass) asked me to sing a trill on the last chord of the Benedictus, which seemed a little odd. However I didn't argue because he was good and (a bit) older (sorry James if you're reading this) and so did as I was asked. Since then I've probably sung Byrd's Three Part Mass over a dozen times and not once have I been asked to trill on the final chord of the Benedictus... To this day I still don't know whether James and Ed were playing a musical prank on me or whether James had some English Renaissance 'insider' scholarly knowledge... All I will say is that Ed's French Baroque trills in 'Castor and Pollux' were a lot, lot more beautiful (and more appropriate) than my adolescent attempts that Sunday morning in Tewkesbury Abbey!
So, tomorrow Chris and I are off to London to help our good friend Paul Smith (from Voces8) celebrate his 30th birthday (being 24 I really can't imagine being that old) which we're both really looking forward to. On Thursday we've got a couple of Songmen business meetings and then we're back home where we'll both, no doubt, be met with piles of Songmen admin; Chris is our point of contact for all foreign matters and I'm currently in negotiations with several UK Concert Societies and Festivals about 2014 programmes (How organised am I?!)
We'll next be singing in my favourite city in January at The London A Cappella Festival. We're performing in the foyer of Kings Place on Friday 13th January 2012 before the headline event. Details for the festival can be found here:
www.londonacappellafestival.co.uk
Hope to see you there!
I'll leave you with a photo that I've been meaning to post for ages. It's of Ben and Chris in Spain being mobbed by a young Spanish choir in the street who had just seen us performing a concert... fun times!
Love,
Guy
x
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| Ben 23rd November 2011It was Guy's birthday last week (one of his 24th birthdays), and I was reading through the long list of messages wishing him well for the day and was delighted to read that we are to see a good friend of ours in the not too distant future.
Regular readers will know that we are singing in the London A Cappella Festival in January and an eminent a cappella producer, Bill Hare is to be making an appearance. For those of you who don't know, Bill is referred to as the 'Godfather of A Cappella' and is largely responsible for the now preferred a cappella sound coming out of America and now featuring in recordings by groups from the UK and across Europe. He is responsible for producing Voces8's acclaimed 'Aces High', and discs by The Swingle Singers and The Flying Pickets, to name but a few. He is also the producer of our very own 'Midnight' and we are proud to have his name on the CD sleeve. So it's going to be a real pleasure to see the great man again, not just for those of us who were able to go out to his home in Milpitas, around 50 miles south of San Francisco, but for the others who have yet to meet him. We're also excited to meet another collaborator on our album, Danny Ozment from Washington.
For more information about these chaps, check out www.dyz.com for Bill and emeraldcitypro.com for Danny, and don't forget to keep your eyes on our website for the official release date of our new albums, 'Midnight' and 'A Sacred Place'.
Till next time,
Ben
PS – at time of writing, just 31 more Facebook 'Likes' before we hit 500! Keep spreading the word.
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| Rob 17th November 2011After our Spanish sojourn it's back to the grindstone of planning next year's concerts. There's plenty in the calendar for next year and our first performance in 2012 will be at the London A Cappella Festival. We're looking forward to our tours across Europe and beyond later in the year (details soon), but it's always good to get down to London and we all have friends there that it'll be good to catch up with.
Meanwhile Ben and I have been busy working on some new compositions and arrangements for the group that we'll be unveiling next year. We had a first run through a couple of these in Zarautz. It's a great feeling hearing the guys bring these off the page and into life for the first time. On the early music front, we were given a wonderful gift in Borja of several books of Spanish polyphony, and I'm sure I'll find some gems in there to add to our repertoire.
So you see it's all non-stop Songmen fun even when we're not all together! Better get back to it…
Rob x |
| Jon 9 November 2011 Well, I cannot believe that a whole week has passed since we returned from Spain. We made many new friends at the wonderful Tolosa Choral festival and it was a great success, but it has been lovely to have a more restful week.
This does not mean, however, that we haven't been making plans.
Thanks to the wonderful people that we have met during the past year we now have lots of opportunities to perform both in Europe and further afield over the next 18 months. This week we have been actively planning for the concerts and tours that will be happening in the near future and have been getting quite excited about them.
Much of our discussions since coming back from Tolosa have been on the format of future programmes. I shan't go into any great detail just now, but the idea is to compile them around certain themes that we think will make interesting listening. We hope you will enjoy hearing the pieces nearly as much as we know we will enjoy performing them!
To tide you over until next time, at the bottom of the post I attach a link to our recent performance in Tolosa of the wonderful Beati Quorum Via...
One final, slightly cheeky request - we are rapidly approaching 500 friends on Facebook and we would love to become a Facebook 500 group. So, if you enjoy the performance below please forward the link to all of your family and friends so that they too can share in the experience and become our friend on Facebook!
That's all for now.
Love
Jon x
Beati Quorum Via http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0CH96yrYxg
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| BenC 1st November 2011Hola guys,
Well our Spanish adventure draws to a close. We're enjoying a final drink at our hotel in Zarautz before heading back to the airport. Eskerrik asko to Jon for the round. We've been out here a week and have had a fantastic time.
I'm pleased to report that we have been very successful in winning two awards in the Tolosa International Choral competition and can now call ourselves an International Award winning vocal ensemble. One in the sacred competition and one in the profane. You can see our performances on YouTube (links are at the bottom of my blog). We've also met some fantastic new friends as a result of these competitions.
Aside from this, the highlights of the week have to be our three concerts. Being able to perform for three incredibly enthusiastic audiences has just been brilliant. To get standing ovations is always a thrill but to get such amazing reactions to our singing has made the trip a fantastic success.
I think we're all returning home with some fantastic memories of our time here, although most of us have had to take out our belts a little due to the fantastic after concert meals we've received from our hosts. Most of all we must thank our wonderful Spanish guide Jon for ensuring we always got where we needed to be. Without him we'd still probably be stuck at Bilbao airport!
Hope you enjoy the videos of our performances as much as we enjoyed performing them. Follow the links below.
Mr. Bojangles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMWh4evFXz0
La Guerre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blOmolvcC7I
Classical Gas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMypdCA8f2U
Brigg Fair http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX2hd5t7r74&NR=1
Adios,
Ben C x |
| Chris 25th October 2011Hola!
Regular Songmen supporters will know that we are now in Spain, having come to Basque country to participate in the International Choral Grand Prix Competition and Festival. The festival is based around Tolosa, though we are staying in Zarautz, a beautiful coastal town in the north of the country, about an hour east of Bilbao and 15 miles from Tolosa.
This festival is something we have been preparing towards for a while. In addition to two major competitions in sacred and 'profane' (secular) music, the festival organises a number of public concerts across the region and we are looking forward to sharing our music with a fresh audience.
None of us has been in Spain before (correction - Guy has been to Ibiza, but I do not think a clubbing holiday really counts...) so we were not too sure what to expect and realised pretty quickly that our language skills are not yet up to the task! Rob is our usual language expert and has coached us in renaissance-era French and contemporary German, but we are already resorting to dumb arm jestures and pleading looks to get our way!
Music-wise, we feel we have brought a really strong programme for both the concerts and competition; cornerstone is Janequin's "La Guerre" which Rob and others have blogged on already. We will also be performing "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams, originally written in the 1960s for classical guitar and orchestra, which Ben has expertly arranged for our voices. It uses no words, but we imitate the sound of the original through appropriate nonsense words and sounds - we have found it goes down a storm in British concerts and we hope the appeal translates to audiences here.
We'll put some stuff up on our website and Facebook pages over the next few days to help give you all a taste of what we are up to, but for now, here are a couple of photos taken this afternoon:
Rob, Ben and Guy standing in front of the Bay of Biscay
The local Music School where we are based
One of the many town squares - out hotel overlooks the central band-stand
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| Guy 18th October 2011Friday night saw some of us heading to London (I LOVE London by the way having spent some very happy years there learning my trade as a singer) to support our good friends Voces8 at their new cd release launch party. The disc is called 'A Choral Tapestry' and it, if the concert preview of it was anything to go by, will be fabulous. You can buy it direct through the Voces8 website and from Signum Records.
We also caught up with some of our friends in The King's Singers and got to know a new and exciting a cappella group called Apollo5. The future of British a cappella really is in good hands I feel!
We're off to Spain on Tuesday for a series of concerts and to take part in the Tolosa International Choral Contest. We're really looking forward to making new friends in Spain and we'll let you know all about it when we get home.
We're hoping to hear the first edit of our sacred album 'A Sacred Place' in the coming weeks. At the moment it's in the talented hands of Robin Tyson, our producer, and Dave Hinett our engineer. The recording process was hugely enjoyable and we're hoping the hard work will pay off and we'll have a fabulous album for your cd racks (it will be available in the new year).
I was going through the millions of photos on my iPhone yesterday and came across this one of Ben and I before our recent concert at St. John's Worcester. Who is right? Answers on a postcard please ;)
Until next time, big love!
Guy
x
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| Ben 12th October 2011So much has happened since my last blog a month ago it's difficult to know where to start! I guess a good place would be our recent adjudication of Dean Close School's House Music competition. What a feast of exciting talent! It certainly made our job difficult but to see so many young people enjoying their singing was a joy! I should add that the delicious dinner we were served beforehand was also magnificent!
As the group's arranger I have been trying my hand at composing more original work for the group. My setting of Crux Fidelis will appear on our forthcoming album 'A Sacred Place', and you can hear Inland Waterway here www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j9Es1vRJ2I. More recently I have discovered a poet from South Africa who has inspired my next project. I discovered the poetry of Fr Harry Wiggett during my week at the Edington Festival of Music in the Liturgy in August. The poem in question, based on a window in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, really leapt out at me and I felt drawn to set it for the group. Since then I have made contact with Harry and would already consider him a good friend. He is a man of pure faith and getting to know him through his poetry and email correspondence has been so far a privilege. The great thing is that the poem already set is one of a series of nine, each reflecting on the Gabriel Loire windows in Cape Town. I look forward to sharing the whole set of pieces with you in the coming months.
Until then, happy listening!
Ben |
| Rob 7 October 2011As the newest member of The Songmen I was thrown in at the deep end, with a CD recording six weeks after I joined, and a daunting pile of music to learn ‘off copy’ for our first concert. Nine months later I’ve finished my second CD with the group as well as dozens of concerts. But in addition to all this there’s an enormous amount of work to do ‘behind the scenes’, and though we all come to The Songmen first and foremost as singers, we each bring what we can to the groundwork. We’re very fortunate to have a range of useful talents within the group including an experienced businessman and a qualified accountant.
For my part I’ve taken on the ‘early music’ programming for The Songmen, which is an area I’ve always had great interest in. One of my first tasks was preparing an edition of Janequin’s La Guerre for the group, which Ben C mentioned in his last blog. This was originally a four-part work, with a fifth line added (in Janequin’s lifetime) by Philippe Verdelot. Preparing this for The Songmen meant re-working the piece into a new six-part version (though unlike Verdelot, without writing any new material!), and also researching the pronunciation of 16th century French. My principal source for this was Singing Early Music by Timothy McGee, an excellent reference work which covers the sounds of the main European languages as they developed through the Medieval and Renaissance periods. No doubt I’ll be coming back to this for our forthcoming early French programme, ‘La Mort et la Gloire’, which finishes with La Guerre but starts two hundred years earlier with some of the earliest polyphonic music including Machaut’s glorious Messe de Nostre Dame. Hope the rest of the guys are looking forward to it as much as I am!
Rob x |
| Jon 28 September 2011There are many things I love about being a Songman, and those of you out there who also perform know that there is nothing to compare to singing a great gig to a truly appreciative audience.
I am pleased to say that this was exactly our experience at St John in Bedwardine last weekend. We had a wonderful time singing to a capacity crowd, made lots of new friends and now look forward to hearing the sound from their soon to be restored bell tower resonating throughout Worcester in the future.
You will probably be aware that we are very keen on education and regularly work with various schools and groups to provide workshops and master classes in A Cappella singing.
Prior to becoming a Songman, however, whilst I had been on the receiving end of much education during my life, I hadn't really been significantly involved in the passing on of "wisdom" to others.
Therefore it was with some trepidation that I joined my colleagues on our first workshop a few years ago. Before we started we asked the groups to perform to get an idea of what we were working with and they could sing ... really sing ... and they had some great ideas. I realised at that point that this was going to be great fun!
The day flew by, the groups were great and it was an absolute pleasure to work with them (passing on a few "tricks of the trade") to help them take their performance to the next level.
Since then we have done a lot of education work and, as you can tell, I love this side of the Songmen. I'm really looking forward to working with the groups at Dean Close School in Cheltenham next Saturday culminating in the judging of their House music competition.
I don't yet know which House will win, but I already know one thing - we'll all have great fun finding out!
Take care
Jon x
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| BenC 21st September 2011After a really busy summer, here we are approaching the first concert of the new season. I'm really looking forward to this concert, not least as it's only round the corner for me, so a great opportunity for family and friends to join us, but also as we're performing Clement Janequin's La Guerre.
One of the biggest pieces in our repertoire, I think to really convey this piece to an audience you really have to inhabit it. How do you do this you may ask? Well for me it is a matter of living it for a period of time, not just in rehearsals but also away in your own time, as well as finding out what the piece is about.
La Guerre describes the Battle of Marignano, between the French forces of Francis I against the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1515, which resulted in a French victory. One of the first things we looked at was the language, luckily Rob is a dab hand at this and we've spent a great deal of time working on our pronunciation of the Old French used in the piece. For me some of my favourite discoveries have been the vivid word painting used by Janequin to tell the story, and the way that he's used subtle phrasing of words to create the insults that would have traded sides in the run up to the battle. The battle scene is the climax of the piece. Starting with the firing of an Arrow, and then brilliantly portrayed by Janequin's writing.
If this has whet your appetite and you would like to hear us perform this wonderful piece please come and join us for our concert this coming Saturday, 24th September at St John-in-Bedwardine Church, Worcester.
Ben C |
| Chris 14th September 2011The new season has begun! Rehearsals are back in full swing and we are looking forward to resuming our educational outreach program for the new academic year by visiting Dean Close School, Cheltenham in a few weeks to adjudicate their House Music competition. Competition adjudication is a personal favourite of mine and I am always impressed by the enthusiasm we see in kids as they perform on stage. Dean Close is a great school (The Songmen have had an association with the school since we started) and we are have set our expectations very high for the night.
The International Choral Grand-Prix competition in Tolosa in October is still very much in our sights. In addition to competing, we will also be performing a series of concerts in and around the Tolosa area. Though the competition is, of course, going to be exciting, live performance is what we love best, so it’s great to get a chance to share our music with a new audience in a country I have never visited before. I may need to practice some of my Spanish before we fly out!
But before all of that, our next concert is a little closer to home; St John’s Church, Worcester on 24th September (check out the concerts page and do come!).
Phew, with all that too look forward to in just the near future, the new sacred album we recorded in Toddington only a couple of weeks ago already feels like a distant memory. The album is going to be brilliant and we can’t wait to share a few exclusive clips on the website later this year... ;-)
Chris |
| Guy 29th August 2011Tomorrow we begin a week's worth of recording at Toddington Church. What is especially exciting is that we'll be working closely with Robin Tyson (Grammy Award Winning Producer and director of London's Podium Music) and Dave Hinett (sound engineer extraordinaire). Both Robin and Dave are hugely respected (and very important people in our industry) and we're over the moon that they are collaborating on this project.
This new thirteen track album will sit in contrast to the studio album that we recorded a few months ago (also out in the new year) and will see us going back to our church roots. It's going to be a varied mix of sacred pieces taking the listener on a journey from the Spanish and English Renaissance right through to brand new modern commissions written especially for us.
I'm sure it will be a week of long days and plenty of hard work but to be honest that is just what we thrive on as a group. This last year has been particularly busy for us and this is the perfect way for us to kick off the new season - focussed, careful and, above all, immensely enjoyable work.
There will be plenty of video blogs from us during the recording process so keep your eyes on Facebook (www.facebook.com/thesongmen) and our videos page (www.songmen.co.uk/videos.php) where we'll post them as we go.
See you on the other side!
Big love,
Guy
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| Ben 21st August 2011It’s a very odd feeling thinking that two weeks ago we were rehearsing together in a practice room at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck. For the second time it was a tremendous five days. We have been working very hard since our last visit to take on the advice and techniques which the King’s Singers have made their trademark in order to grow as a group and it was great to hear from the horses’ mouths that all this working is really paying off. This was particularly the case with our inspiring mentor, Paul.
One of our key focusses for the week from a sound point of view was to broaden our dynamic range and it took a masterclass with the newest King’s Singer, Johnny, to really put us through our paces while preparing a performance of Stanford’s miniature masterpiece, ‘Beati quorum via’. Whilst we did not go on to perform this in the final concert of the week, it gave us the confidence to challenge ourselves to really step outside of our ‘airy’ comfort zone to produce a corporate, electrifying pianissimo.
We are very lucky as a group to have a broad and capable skillset, and this was proved with our choices for the final concert, which took place last Wednesday evening. I refer to Rob’s stunning piece, ‘Nolo mortem peccatoris’. Rob wrote this long before becoming the latest Songman, but it’s become an absolute favourite of the whole group. Look out for a video of it on YouTube which will appear soon.
Right now, I am sitting at my dining table working on my second new arrangement this week. I’m really excited about sharing these with the group and then everyone else.
In the meantime, don’t forget to listen to four tracks from our forthcoming album, ‘Midnight’.
Enjoy!
Ben
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