Quarantine Song
So - schools are dismissed. Of my four students due for lessons this morning, only two turn up - the other two already in isolation at home. Seventeen year-old David [name changed] arrives promptly at 8.45, complaining of a gunky chest but sure it isn't a symptom of...
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Musing on what these Cancellations mean
I had three concerts lined up for the next couple of weeks - all of them cancelled due to Covid19. I want to try and think about what that means in terms of my community - who my music touches. The first was a big Beethoven 250-year celebration - a local choir and...
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Climate Change and Spirituality Podcasts
This isn't about singing, but it is my voice (and others') - a series of podcasts for the Oxford University Church about the spiritual crisis that is part of our current climate crisis. Aiming at one a month. First up - reliable scientific context from IPCC author...
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Sublime
Aha - I just found a review of the Bach Christmas Oratorio I sang in before Christmas - 'sublime alto' they call me. https://www.great-milton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dec-2019.pdf Of course, I was far too concerned with my 'Christmassy' outfit (a glittery...
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November 22 – Holywell Concert
Julia Hollander, Peter McMullin and Anna Snesar Present English and Czech music for voice, piano and violin GOD MADE A TREE Holywell Music Room, Holywell St, Oxford 7.30pm, Friday November 22, 2019 Free Entrance - Donations to RAIN - Agroforestry in Brazil...
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The letter
This is what I was working on last year, with producer Dixi Stewart https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002rv6 A BBC Radio 3 programme about my family - including current members thereof. Listen and let me know what you think...
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In the hothouse – concert march 7
A recital of art songs built around the centrepiece of Wagner's 'Im Treibhaus' - 'In the Hothouse' - all about our relationship with the natural world. Pete McMullin plays the wonderful Steinway piano in Holywell Music Room. Also introducing a recently re-discovered...
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Rockabye
In a dingy Viennese coffee house, the woman behind the bar isn’t just enjoying her playlist on the PA system - she is joining in, her grainy voice (Austrian accent fully Americanised) rising above the whoosh of the milk frother, ‘So rockabye, rockabye…’ I admire her...
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The Shape of You
I’m on holiday in Argentina. A steamy day in Buenos Aires and I spot a beautiful girl wearing headphones and little else shimmying down the street singing ‘I’m in love with the shape of you’. I am struck by the incongruity of the carrot-top Brit Ed Sheeran inveigling...
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Waly way
Like many family members, Michael regards it as his job to encourage his wife's singing with exuberant vocals of his own, in his case out of tune and at a belt. He is paying extra for these singing sessions on top of tens of thousands for 24 hour care at home, and...
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When that I was a little tiny boy
It was her carer's idea: at the day centre she could see that Paula became extraordinarily animated in my singing sessions - clapping and stamping and surging out of her wheelchair with pleasure. The worry was that soon enough her hat-trick of disasters - Alzheimers,...
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Che sara sara
I took ages introducing this Doris Day number into my repertoire - just too schmalzy, in my opinion. But once it was printed out, and I'd slotted in its three chords in the key of A, I felt as though I had always sung it. Since early childhood, I had known its...
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