I just had to quote this little snippet from her:
The tickets are cheap for a fun night's entertainment, the drinks are cheap and the venue is warm, what more could anyone ask for?
Hahahaha! So true! And it will be a superb night out. The Pinkies winter concert is at 7.30pm on Saturday the 19th of January 2008, so get your tickets now.
...oh and I'm just about to lose my mind.
As we are entering the final stretch before the concert it is rather hard to think about what the next season holds. The Pink Insider is not prone to posting rumour, but after a bit of digging and careful investigation, we've come up with a tentative list of new songs the Pink Singers are likely to be jiving to for summer 2008.
1. Introit from Karl Jenkins' Requiem
This is the last full choral song in the Requiem, and since the sheet music cost in the region of a tenner, we'll have to get our money's worth out of it! Seriously though, of all the pieces from his Requiem, Introit is the most famous (at least, it is a Classic FM favourite), and we will at last be tackling it.
(P.S. The video has nothing whatsoever to do with the pictures. It looks like someone was performing the Elephant Man, took loads of pictures and set it to an abbreviated version of Introit).
2. Motown Medley and Son of A Preacher Man
One style of music we've never really attempted is Motown. Our actual motions may be stiff, but our rhythms are not, and this may well get us into a foxxy mood. We're also pretty good at medleys, so this seems like a great choice.
3. Somewhere from West Side Story
Hmm. I'm not sure about this one. I mean, I love the song, but there is a real tendency for any performance of it to be overblown (I'm lookin' at you Babs). Simon has a version of Ms. Streisand performing it with Il Divo, quite possibly the most traumatic combination I have ever heard for this piece of music. Gimme Natalie Wood any day.
Mmmm... Yummy! And with karaoke lyrics to boot!
There is other music we attempted in the past but which never made it into a stage performance. Age of Aquarius anyone? Perhaps that will sneak it's way into summer? Will there be others? Undoubtedly, but for Pink Singers it is still not too late to get your requests in!
It is wonderful to go to a choral concert, to hear a choir sing. But I think the deepest joy of all is to actually sing.
Couldn't have put it better myself!
Well, it has been an exciting season, and everything culminates this Saturday at the Royal Academy of Music when we finally put all those hours of rehearsal (and drinks in the pub) to good use. Yesterday's rehearsal was quite reassuring. We appear to have plateaued in some of the songs, which is great because it means we are nearing the limit of what we can achieve, and there were others where you could still feel an improvement.
What really worked to our advantage this time was getting the chance to go on stage to practise the both the singing and the choreography. In past years we have had to rely on getting to the stage on the day of the performance which leads to a huge amount of stress as we never have enough time and nerves mean we inevitably make a mistake in the warm up. This time we could get a feel for the space and the sound a week in advance.
It was also a chance for our resident pro photographer Mike K to take snapshots of us in our performance gear. It is always interesting to see what people choose to wear, and I do like the diversity on parade. Over the years there has been a trend towards more formal clothing - this is a formal performance after all. I really loved Amy's outfit - you're so pretty! Still, there were a few too many pairs of jeans on show, some of which were dark grey rather than black, and some pinks were quite noticeably not the bright fuschia of the Pink Singers. Ah well, these things can still be addressed.
I also now have the names of my guests from Equivox, who are thankfully, my own hosts for when I went to Paris. I instant messaged them last night and they're really pleased too. On Saturday mornings I am still semi-religiously running with the Front Runners and so I invited my French guests along since they will be here. While they were initially hesitant, they seem to have been won round to the idea. Perhaps the promise of 60 men and just two showers did it for them?
See you at the concert!
Last season, Andrew, one of the webmasters, decided to do a blog post a day on the run up to the concert. This year, he has invited a 'select' (basically anyone who can be cajoled into doing it - I know about these things!) number of Pinkies to chronicle the run up to our winter performance on the official Pink Singers blog, found on our MySpace page. And, doing the noble thing, he has kicked it off with a post he himself wrote. Here'a a snippet:
Singing with the Pinkies reminds of a jigsaw puzzle, it might take time to put it together, but the end result is always amazing and worth all the effort.
Whether you are coming to the concert or not, and of course I hope you are, it is a great window into the what makes Pinkies tick, and what it takes to put together a performance like we do!
Liang has been a busy bee and uploaded a recording of Equivox and us performing Let The Sunshine In at the post-concert brunch on the Sunday. It brings back great memories of our trip to Paris and the fantastic people we met there. And what a great time it was too!
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.
My other extended family is, of course, the Pink Singers and although we have officially 'broken up' for the holidays, I have continued to see the likes of Mladen, Paul, Michael and Liang for a variety of different reasons. We even had a small group performance on the 28th at the commitment ceremony of Rebecca and Fiona, two former members of the Pinkies. Mutual recognition only occurred between the couple and Philip R and Michael, both of whom have been in the choir longer than anyone else, but there was warmth and affection for all from the shared experience of being in the Pink Singers. "Edifying" is perhaps overstating the relationship between old and current Pinkies a little, but singing Happy Together and Hand In Hand with Fiona and Rebecca joining in certainly gave me a fuzzy feeling inside!
Looking back on the 2007 we've had our usual run of concerts, U.K. and international performances, Prides and small group gigs. Every year is different though, and this year my highlights have included events outside our official calendar like Lynne and Annie's and Nathalina and Jackie's weddings, watching Something Fishy's debut at Bar Wotever and their runaway success at our summer concert, and boogie-ing down at the Soho Revue bar and Dingwalls with "I can't dance by myself!" Paleday.
Best of all is the old friendships which have been strengthened, the faded friendships with returning Pinkies which have been renewed, and the new friendships with the newbies which have been formed. Life is a tangled skein, and the Pinkies are a microcosm of that. 2008 brings the 25th birthday of the Pink Singers, and the first birthday of In The Pink(ies). Here's looking forward to even more memories!
P.S. It is New Year's Day! I am allowed a little soppiness!
