I see Gareth Malone has launched a new website....

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The Holst Singers have a specatcular concert programme coming up this spring. Two concerts, both entitled "Ikon", one in London's St Martin-in-the-Fields and a free concert at King's College, Cambridge, promise to be a vocal treat. The concert programmes will feature Russian Orthodox music and Estonian choral music by Rachmanninov, Arvo Pärt and others.
http://www.holstsingers.com/concerts

Judging by their CD release of the same name, these shows may count as unmissable. The Holst Singers' 1999 recording of Russian Orthodox music is replete with the exquisite, spine-tingling close harmony of Sviridov, Gretchaninov, Tchaikovsky, Pärt, Górecki and others. Check out the audio previews of this album - this is simply gorgeous music.

Ikon (Hyperion, CDA66928) is available to buy online from the Holst Singers' online shop.

Fans of English composer Sir John Tavener will also revel in the Holst Singers' recordings of The Veil of the Temple and The Tavener Collection. The Veil is a mammoth 26-hour piece written for a large choir, orchestra and a myriad of exotic eastern instruments, and was recorded in the 11th-Century Temple Church (a setting in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code). According to the composer in an interview on BBC Radio 4, the work takes in traditions of the Hindu, Christian and Muslim worlds, crossing religious boundaries and continents.

Memories of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales will come flooding back with the Holst Singers' The Tavener Collection (Decca 4750962), which includes the haunting Song for Athene, which rose to public prominence at Princess Diana's Funeral.

These discs too are available to buy online.

Labels: chillout music, choirs, choral music, classical music, Da Vinci Code, Gregorian Chant, King's College Cambridge, polyphony, Princess Diana, Russian Orthodox music, Stephen Layton, vocal

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Sissy Schuss, Mont Tremblant, Québec. 

Last one down is a ....

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Looking for a harpsichord player, continuo player or clavicord player? Neil Coleman is based in London, UK, and performs regularly at venues around London.

www.neilcoleman.co.uk

Find out about his next recitals

Read about his favourite harpsichords

If you're interested in having keyboard lessons, piano lessons, harpsichord lessons, get in contact with Neil.

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Looking for a harpsichord player, continuo player or clavicord player? Neil Coleman is based in London, UK, and performs regularly at venues around London.

www.neilcoleman.co.uk

Find out about his next recitals

Read about his favourite harpsichords

If you're interested in having keyboard lessons, piano lessons, harpsichord lessons, get in contact with Neil.

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If you're still reading this blog, it's worth knowing that it's offically moved!

I've been using the Blogger system for a two or three years now and it's served its purpose well. However, I have now migrated the news over to my own home-made CMS on www.mcmorran.org/news . Why put up with all the irritating banner ads when I can just build my own system?

I'll leave this blog in cold storage for a while anyway - it's got an archive of past news if anyone is really interested.

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Well done Wendy, who's (finally) landed herself a job as an e-learning Producer for MassMedia Studios. She's staying true to her roots as a Manly girl, and flat-hunting in Manly. Then her morning commute is a catamaran ride to Circular Quay! Sure beats waiting for the 185 bus in the pissing rain.

Says Wendy: "The journey to work is more awesome than I remember, with the morning sun glistening on the water and warming my skin, the beautiful blue sky, you turn the corner and there is the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, I can't help but smile each time I experience it. "

Yeah, yeah, yeah, what-EVER!

MassMedia Studios: http://www.massmedia.com.au

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Think different. No, really.


In these glorious days of convergence, you get used to things not being what they used to. I can listen to the radio through my TV, play video and MP3 or surf the net on my phone, make phone calls through my computer, and so on.

But this convergence mullarkey seems to be taking some odd twists this week. First up was Apple Computer's announcement that you can now run Windows on a Mac.

Shock, horror.

In a kind of poetic, but perverse mimicry, all sorts of other odd things are happening. The far-right BNP has just put up its first "ethnic" parliamentary candidate.

Tune in soon folks, for the latest on the Pope's candidacy for leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party, Osama Bin Laden coming out as a Zionist, and the inaugural flight of Porcine Airlines, the world's first commercial air carrier to have a fleet entirely composed of pigs.


This sendup of Smirnoff advertising doesn't seem quite so funny now, does it?

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Saw an amazing exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank this weekend: Dan Flavin. This guy designed eerie art installations composed entirely of neon lights. It sounds wanky but the effects are amazing. It blew me away.

Take, for example, the work untitled (to Jan and Ron Greenberg), 1972-3. The visitor stands in a large white cube, at the end of which is a wall of orange neon tubes. It's very bright and very orange, like standing in some sort of Protestant tanning studio. You then leave and walk down a corridor lit entirely by white strip lights, turn the corner, and walk into a similar cube, this time lit at one end by a wall of green neon lights. Again, it's uncomfortably bright. Time to leave, so you head for the corridor, which has turned pink when your back was turned. Except that's the trick - the lights are exactly the same, but your perception of colour has been temporarily altered by the green saturation.

This guy is screwing with my head!!

Amazing exhib. Shame it's closed now, but if you ever spot Dan Flavin's works on show anywhere, go out of your way to see them, they're spectacular.

Dan Flavin microsite (Hayward Gallery): http://www.hayward.org.uk/flavin/

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As the countdown to the new series of Doctor Who begins, there's some nice viral marketing out on the web again this time. We all know that the Cybermen are due to make a comeback, but it looks like there's a storyline about cyber-corporate activity. Are the Cybermen taking over humanity through the mysterious Cybus Coroporation?

The site features some amazing photos of the new Cybermen, including a disturbingly medical shot of a person undergoing Cyberconversion - in a subtle nod to Darth Vader receiving his helmet at the end of Revenge of the Sith, we see mechanical arms placing a Cyberman face cover over a human head.

There's also a shot of Cybermen in front of St Paul's Cathedral - an reference to the 1968 story, the Invasion.

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Matt's been busy producing a podcast show on the Guardian website. The latest Media Guardian podcast has an interview with David Tennant & Billy Piper about the new series of Doctor Who:

Media Talk with Matt Wells

You also subscribe to this for free through iTunes - one for the iPod this week I think!

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I see St John the Divine Kennington has re-launched its website - rather a nice piece of work, I may say.

If you're interested in the history of Kennington, South London, or in Victorian church architecture, you might enjoy browsing these pages. Or if you just happen to be looking for an Anglo-Catholic Church in South London, this might be the place for you.

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Here's something i've never tried before: writing a blog entry from my mobile! At the time of writing i'm on a virgin train whizzing through the midlands on my way to manchester. I must confess a minor shiver of excitement at this accomplishment, publishing to the web from my phone. The way it works: my phone has a very basic web browser and internet access. Now technology gives me a new way to say "I'M ON A TRAIN!" the world will thank the inventor one day.

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I've been promoted at work too - now about to oversee the History 11-14 section for a year! Eek!

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If anyone's wondering why I look worn down and exhausted, it's because I've been having a slightly busy month.

I had a couple of fairly simple tasks to achieve, mainly car stuff and sorting my life out since the upheaval of moving house. When I say "simple" of course, that doesn't take into account the malevolent magic of the Fuck-up Fairy, who waves her magic wand over my every project:

2 attempts	at getting my car MOTed - first garage tried to rip me off, so had to drive all the way down to Camberwell with dodgy brakes to find a cheap place
2 attempts	at renewing my car tax - the DVLA wouldn't let me do it more than 2 weeks in advance, so I had to go away and come back
3 attempts	at signing up with a local doctor since moving house (again) -they only take new patients on Fridays before 9am, and then you have to queue up to make an appointment to see a nurse who will register you, and then make another appointment to actually see a doctor!
4 attempts	at selling Wendy's telly on eBay - buyer 1 flaked out, buyer 2 said "oops I clicked on it by mistake", buyer 3 crashed his car on the way to collect and ended up in hospital. Finally sold it privately.

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It's the only language they understand.

About time too - they cause nothing but trouble, those chickens.

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"T" is for....



At work there's this cupboard. On one door there's a sticker saying "Testosterone", on the other there's one saying "Tourettes". I am dying to know what's inside, but the door's locked.

There might be a prize for the best suggestion.

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Hmmm. Could we, by any chance, be related?

I think we should be told.

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I can't even snog a 6'3" blond-haired, blue-eyed nordic god without the papparazzi snapping me in action.

Honestly!

Thanks, Bello.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bello/85564192/

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My Celeb Big Brother connection
Oh well, I've got to drop this in - I have actually met two of this year's Celeb BB contestants:
Rula: bumped into her at Bora-Bora club on Ibiza and danced on the beach with her. Nice lady.
Barrymore: ran into him in Infernos, Brighton, just after all that business with the pool party.

Ooh, the glamour.
Name drop over. CLANG.

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