Andrew Woode

Musical day; first stop Ashridge House, to perform with a number of other Hertfordshire Chorus members for a singer’s wedding (singing Shenandoah and May it Be from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack; the latter including a few words of Elvish (Quenya), not a language I’d performed in previously.

Then off to St Albans (St Saviour’s Church) to listen to a joint concert by the Joyful Company of Singers and their German guests, the Dresdner Motettenchor. Lots of wonderful pieces; particularly struck by Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst, first performed in 1945 in the ruins of Dresden.

Musical day; first stop Ashridge House, to perform with a number of other Hertfordshire Chorus members for a singer’s wedding (singing Shenandoah and May it Be from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack; the latter including a few words of Elvish (Quenya), not a language I’d performed in previously.

This was interesting; got 136/150, errors only in HU, RU, RO, FI (8, 8, 6, 4/10 respectively). Interesting how little help Western Romance is for Romanian; my Czech carried the other Slavic, and I do have some Greek (though needed some lateral thinking) and Hungarian.

10/10 (where achieved) puts me in 99th percentile for Greek and only 84th for French, which tells us something not unexpected about other test-takers so far: but the same percentile (86th) for UA and DE, which is less obvious..

Just listening to the latest CD from Hertfordshire Chorus; It contains Parry’s psalm settings De Profundis (first official recording, though Vaughan Williams considered it Parry’s “finest work “) and God is our Hope and Strength; followed by Elgar’s Snow and songs From the Bavarian Highlands.

Enjoyed a long weekend in Bath finishing up with singing with Herts Chorus in Bath Abbey. Contrasting pieces; Rutter Gloria, Bernstein Chichester Psalms and less familiar (on its second performance) Judge Smith’s prog-rock Requiem Mass with rock band plus brass

Off to the Hawai’i exhibition at the British Museum; fascinating and informative (including details of the royal visit to the UK) with lots of artefacts; carefully explained where possible but sadly some details are now lost to the modern population.

Lots of Hawai’ian words used; was trying to reverse the k>’ and t>k sound changes to compare with other Eastern Polynesian, not that I know much of those languages either…

What does 'The Ruum' mean to you? A robot which has been taking specimens of animals of a given weight since the time of the dinosaurs? Or an Indonesian coffee shop (based on a recent trademark)? I think I would be reluctant to risk a visit to the latter just in case...

Two weeks to go before I sing in Elgar's Kingdom at the Festival Hall - two choirs joining forces, one (CEFC) on the back of a recent CD release, the other (HC) has previously enjoyed rave reviews for live performances of it. But we intend to improve on both of those versions...

Recording session at St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb with Hertfordshire Chorus; singing Hubert Parry’s 12-part De Profundis (his best work according to Vaughan Williams) and his double-choir God is our Hope and Strength. This will be the first proper recording of these neglected works

Today on BBC Radio 3's Essential Classics they used Hertfordshire Chorus's recording of the first movement of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man, on which I sang: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (from 31:10 including the presenter introduction).

We had a good time recording it at St Augustine's Kilburn in November 2022, and Karl Jenkins was present at one session. But there were some anxious moments as a police helicopter circled, adding unwanted noise to some takes...

#EuropeanDayOfLanguages - most recent minority language reading, Mistral’s _Mirèio_, which I was reading on a recent visit to Avigno(u)n, with excursion also to Les Baux whose landscape plays a role in the poem

Linguistic though; HMP works for both Her and His Majesty’s Prison. But Welsh CEM (as seen on sign for Berwyn last night) surely can only mean the former? So if they don’t update the sign should Welsh-speaking prisoners be released on grounds of grammatical invalidity?

Neithiwr es i dros y ffin i Wrecsam am y Gymanfa Ganu yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol - yn mwynhau canu’r holl harmonïau, gan gynnwys gwaith o gyfansoddwyr lleol fel Caradog Roberts o Rosllannerchrugog/

Hertfordshire Chorus at Holy Sepulchre, Holborn; Paul Patterson’s Magnificat followed by Judge Smith’s prog rock Requiem Mass, getting its first live performance a mere 50 years after composition (I suspect it will get more outings soon). Both works heavy on brass. A very hot day for performing!