A star is born? Not likely!

I'm a bit late with this post, but my excuse is that I had to come down from an adrenaline fuelled high before I could write it!

Last weekend (Friday & Saturday 10 & 11 June) the Stuart Singers had their summer concerts in Minchinhampton. As well as singing as a 1st. Bass in the choir, my usual job at the Minchinhampton concerts is to make a MiniDisc recording, so that I can subsequently make CDs for the choir. On Friday night my Mum, Bettine, did the honours bless her. This time, though, we needed a video recording of Friday's concert too, so Gill gamely agreed to do that for us. Stills from the video are here - it was Gill's suggestion to use Flickr, and what a good one! Whilst roping in friends and family, our friend Mary Valentine from Los Angeles, who happened to be staying with us over the weekend, kindly agreed to take some new "action" photos of us rehearsing and then performing. All her photos are here. So, it was a real family affair.


Flanagan & Allen (Roger & I)

As if they didn't have enough work to do when they should be enjoying themselves, they had to sit through two higher than usual profile contributions to the singing from me. Firstly, as part of a medley of wartime songs, Roger and I briefly took on the parts of Flanagan and Allen to sing the introductory verse to Run Rabbit, Run. Not too distressing possibly. Halfway through the second half, though, came my big moment. A few months ago I'd agreed to do a solo number, replacing our normal male soloist who had had to drop out. I regretted it as soon as I'd agreed to it but, false modesty aside, I've generally enjoyed the process of working the number up and it certainly gave me a lot more confidence in my general singing. The Fishermen of England seemed to go OK, though having listened to recordings of both night's now, it certainly went better on the Saturday night, for which heavens be praised as my singing teacher was in the audience!


Stand by with the ear plugs!

By general consent, Saturday itself was one of the best concerts we have ever given and I'm proud that my moment of fame didn't detract too much from it. We've had a week off to recover, but rehearsals for our next batch of new repertoire start next week. Plus ça change....