I spent the weekend singing, mostly. The choir travelled out in the semi-countryside on the outskirts of town, and practiced Rheinberger, Back, the Christmas programme and the hymns for the CD we're about to record, until we were basically blue in the face (and not only because the house was cold). It was fun, though. I needed to get away from thinking only about the thesis, and managed to keep the computer in its bag the entire time. The Rheinberger we sing is his Cantus Missae, which we'll sing on the All Hallows weekend; I know I've sung it before, probably nine or ten years ago. Beautiful music anyway, and fun to sing. Bach's Christmas Oratory is also fun. It has been performed in Uppsala Cathedral on the first Sunday in Advent for years and years. This choir has performed it once, two years ago; then we started preparing much too late due to a rather pressed schedule earlier in the term, although I think it went well in the end (I caught a cold that weekend, two years ago, and rehearsed in the morning of the performance but had to go home after - and missed all concerts in December, always a heavy month for singing. (This year we have four concerts in December, I think, and three at the end of November, including the Christmas Oratory.)

So that was not particularly interesting to anybody except myself, I guess - be grateful I don't start talking about the thesis. I just might, though I should really be writing it, not about it.

And tomorrow the cats have an appointment with the vet, to have their teeth cleaned from tartar. Poor fluffballs have no idea what's in store.

Labels: cats, singing

 
We spent last weekend in Helsinki, celebrating the wedding of Eemeli and Saijaa, two friends of ours from the Finnish science fiction fandom. Wedding parties are always fun; this one included the opportunity to come up with names for the twins who are expected in May, as well as the Finnish tradition (which I didn't know before) of the bride being abducted and the groom having to perform and do various tricks until he has collected enough money from the wedding guests to buy his new wife back. (Eemeli can juggle pretty well, even with eggs. He cannot sing, however.)

One of the best parts was the performance by three of the four members of the folk music group Inehmo. They sang six or seven songs during the evening, and wow, are they ever good! Their site is mostly in Finnish, but the link "Ohjelmisto" leads to a page with a few sound clips. Here is a YouTube video of them, again only a short clip of about 30 seconds. I really like Finnish folk music, and I like that type of singing, strong voices without much vibrato. If I understood Tero correctly, one of the members of the group is an old friend of Eemeli's mother, which is why they were hired for the evening. Their first CD (I assume -- the site says "recording") will be out in April. I think I'll try to get hold of that.

Labels: friends, music, personal, singing, weddings

 
I'll try posting this again, then.... so, I went to the Uppsala Choir School's spring concert yesterday. This autumn, it will be 20 years since the school started; I was one of the original 60 pupils, so naturally I have a special relationship to the school, and to the spring concert which I remember as the highlight of the school year. It is something extra, still, to hear the 300+ kids ages 9-19 singing together, in particular as much of the repertoire is the same today as it was in my day. But the concert has changed a lot, too, from the straight-laced affair of the 1980s -- no dancing or dressing up for us, heaven forfend! It's good to see that there has been development, even though I have only good memories from the spring concert, myself.

I met one old class-mate: Linda, whom I don't think I've seen since we finished grade 9 in 1988. I wouldn't have recognised her if it hadn't been for her smile -- in any event, it was really good to see her. We dared each other to crowd up on stage with the other former pupils for the final encore... it's been a few years too many since I sang the rather peculiar alto part to Sommarpsalm that the UCS uses -- it's one of the songs every choir in this country has on its repertoire, but the UCS version is the only one I've encountered where the alto part is mostly the same as the tenor part! It took us half a verse to get into it again, but it's not as if anybody could have noticed, not in that huge choir.

Labels: music, personal, singing