The MBC Concert.

If I live to be 90, and I'm planning to, I'll always love performing for a live audience. Lawrence Welk

Saturday. Showcase performance at MBC. The kids have been rehearsing this stuff all year.

The girls & I left the island early Saturday morning with Liddy driving; scenic route. We were nearly late because Liddy went the way she knew ~ which was nothing like a direct route! And then the whole MBC thing rather did her head in; that & the whole arty thing. She just shook her head at how kid after kid arrived & just came & stood quietly in the foyer without a word to anyone. They're like that but it's performing at all these high~brow venues~ they can't yahoo about the place like the sports yobs do. She & the caretaker commiserated together on the strangeness of the music officiandos! So not going there.

Lid & I helped set up & then 1/2 way through the morning we discovered there was no water in the loos. A little investigation showed there was no running water to the kitchen either. No running water in the whole district. Dis~as~ter! Liddy & I drove into Manly to pick up 15L of water so we could at least fill the urns & we redirected the loo traffic to the older loos that run of tanks but we had musos looking to fill water bottles & no water.

We did eventually get our water back just as people started arriving for the concert. My mum arrived down from the Sunshine Coast about 1/2 an hour before show time looking stunning in a bone top & skirt & yellow jacket. She always looks beautifully put together & we can always pick her out of a crowd because of it whereas I always look frumpy no matter what I do. I can wear strange & feel perfectly comfortable but if I doll up not only do I feel incredibly uncomfortable, there is no appreciable improvement. A little while later Dearest's mum arrived & I hunted up a program:
Australian Vocal Arts Ensemble [Ditz is part of this]
Sound the Trumpet Purcell
Ave Maria Faure
Serve the Lord With Gladness Handel
Solo: Sea Wrack Harty
solo: Sweet Chance Head
Vox Totz: I’m Late Fain
Come to My Farm Folk Song
solo: Castle on a Cloud Schonberg
solo: My Dearest Dear Novello
Vocal Manoeuvres Ensemble
Just the Way You Are Joel
Can’t Buy Me Love McCartney
INTERVAL
Vocal Manoeuvres Chorus [& Ditz is part of this]
The Lord is My Shepherd McKinley
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough Ashford/Simpson
solo: Being Alive Sondheim
solo: Over the Rainbow Arlen
solo:Don’t Cry Out Loud Allen
solo: At Last Gordon/Warren
solo: Anthem Andreson/Ulvaeus
Australian Vocal Arts Ensemble [Ditz again]
Little Fishy Holland
Esti Dal Kodaly
solo:Summertime Gershwin
Vocal Manoeuvres

Abide With Me Monk
Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel Spiritual
Entire Company Now We Are Free Zimmer/Gerard [& again]

As you can see it's a pretty interesting & varied program & particularly interesting for me because I'm parked up the back in a corner most rehearsals & don't pay all that much attention. The kids are just background noise but I think something must be going in because I listen to this stuff differently now. I hear mistakes. lol. I know which passages are sounding overworked because they've given trouble. I know when something has come together really, really well & over time I've become very fond of certain pieces. The Purcell & Handel is just stunning but neither the girls nor I are very fond of Little Fishy. It is one of those pieces it is far too easy to make mock of & though the kids sing it well the visual image of some brawny hairy sailor with an image of his true love tatooed all over his hairy chest is too much for me! Esti Dal is a Hungarian piece & sung in Hungarian! It is really lovely but the time those kids spent wrapping their lips round the Hungarian! Now they've nailed it it will be a regular part of their repertoire I should think, as it should be. It is unusual as well as lovely.

Sea Wrack I'd never heard but really liked. And the young man who sings Anthem has the biggest voice. Last time I heard him do this it was in one of the small town studios & he just about blew the walls out! He is amazing! Great voice; great personality. The spiritual was another I really enjoyed but although I understand Aint no Mountain is a difficult arrangement I just don't like it. I particularly dislike our boy soprano going for the high A or G or whatever it is at the end & go to protect my ears. I'm a Neanderthal. I really, really dislike all that operatic screeching. I don't hear music in that. It just hurts my head. Besides he never sounds as though he's nailed that note properly to me ~ but what would I know?! Ditz is disparaging of my musical discernment. Actually it's only the high notes I can't cope with. I'm fine with all the lower registers but someone should strangle those high sopranos! Especially when it's Ditz doing it. In the car of all places! Just joking.

This was a really high quality performance; so nice for the grands, who suffer Ditz at her ditziest, to see all that noise & exuberance channeled into a constructive outlet. At one point my mother turned to me & said, " I can hear Ditz!" She sounded quite thrilled. She was also impressed with how disciplined the kids were but for where Alison wants to take this ensemble they need to be disciplined.

The bonus for the kids like Ditz having the whole company showcase like this is they can see what time & hard work can achieve. Every single one of the soloists, every single one of the older members, started where she is, learning the basics, learning stagecraft, overcoming stage fright. It's really encouraging for them to see how far the older ones have travelled & the older ones are pretty good with the younger ones too.

One more concert this month & I can breath again. Temporilarily. It's always temporarily.