A Week Into 2008, A Fortnight To Go

There is no hanging around this season! Normally we have a concert in December which gives us time to breathe over the Christmas and New Year until we reconvene in February. This winter though, because of Paris, our own concert is in just two weeks' time. That's why we had a rehearsal yesterday, the second of only two before we perform at the Royal Academy!

Despite the relatively short break, it was quite clear that our voices had come a little undone over the festive season (too many mince pies and mulled wine), and Mladen had to take us through what felt like an eternity of warmups before we got even close to our pre-holiday sound. As Cilla said later "some of the cobwebs needed dusting off".

Although the vocal cords were a little rusty, thankfully it seemed that almost everyone had learned the lyrics off by heart. We opened the rehearsal, as we will the concert, with Jenkins' Dies Irae, and the intensity now builds up into the piece rather than (as in the past) petering off when people make up the words! I know I have been going on and on about it, but I really do love the piece, and we are now doing it justice.

We aren't performing everything we have learnt this season - the remarkably difficult When I Fall In Love being a case in point - which does give us a bit of a breather. The French songs Dirait'On and Hymne à L'amour seemed to be sung without a hitch, and the only song which caught me off guard was Fields Of Gold where I kept getting the "among" and "upon", and "walked" and "lie" lyrics mixed up. Easily repaired!

The end of the rehearsal was choreography again, and it was the sopranos and altos turn to polish up Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend. One thing I have noticed is that no matter how simple the choreography designed for us is, we have to make it even simpler, because it just works better that way. Diamonds was originally to have rather complicated marching band formations on the stage, but it was looking rather messy, and we are now much more comfortably standing essentially in two or four rows. That's better!

Kudos especially to sweet, sweet Karin and Charlotte for their vamping up the moves and looking so sexy.