Tales from London # 51-58

Hello,
It's been a while! I have been extremely busy in the last two weeks, traveling, writing papers, seeing concerts, etc. Here is the blog for the last two weeks (or as much as I can get to right now).

Monday

Today was a mostly uneventful day, I mostly worked on homework and ran a few errands. I went to choir rehearsal at night, where we are now working on the Mozart Requiem! I won't be there for the concert, but I can still keep coming to the rehearsals until I leave.

Tuesday

Today, for Music History class, we went to the Handel House museum. It is the house that Handel lived in when he was in London, though it doesn't have the furnishings that it would have when he lived there. It was neat to be in the space and see replications of what it would have looked like though.
In the evening, we went to hear a talk by the theater designer Allison Chitty on her process. It was very interesting to hear her talk about the details of her job, although much of it was over my head. After that, Jon and I went to see "The Habit of Art", a play within a play about the relationship between Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden. It was a quirky, funny play, with lots of banter between the actors and stage manager. I really liked it.

Wednesday

Today, we learned about the Vienna Philharmonic, "The Rite of Spring", and Anton Bruckner, and then went to see the Vienna Philharmonic in the evening! They were really awesome; I loved "The Rite of Spring", and they had a really interesting quality about them. They also played two of Brahms' Hungarian Dances as an encore, which was very fun.

Thursday

Today, I went to a bad concert! I know, it doesn't happen much, but it happened. The LSO was doing Rhapsody in Blue with an American Conductor. It was sloppy, obnoxious, even sometimes out of tune. The two pianists made up ridiculous embellishments that made it really difficult to hear the piece, and the conductor was swaggering around the stage, dancing like he owned the place! It was absolutely ridiculous.

Friday

I worked on my essay for British Culture class during the day today, and also went to the National Portrait Gallery. The Gallery was very interesting; it is weird to see a set of paintings that are all of famous people. The styles were so scattered, which was in its own right intriguing. The room that focused on imperialism, with romantic portraits of snooty British people in the various states of invading a country, made me pretty uncomfortable. It was good to see portraits of a lot of writers and musicians though!
In the evening, I went and saw Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" at the Coliseum. It was put on by the English National Opera, which meant that all of the singing was in English. It was set in an American diner in the 1950’s and the plot revolves around a sort of Music Man-esque traveling salesman who comes in with a magic elixir to sell to the rural folks at the diner.

The catch is, at the beginning of the play, a stage manager came out to make announcements, and said “I have some bad news. The singer who is playing Nemorino (the main male character) is ill. But that’s not the worst of it. The understudy for the role is also ill. After a lot of discussion, we decided that it would be better to bring in a singer who knows the words in Italian rather than have someone sight-read the English words with music on stage”.

So basically, what happened, was the entire opera was in English except for the main character, who was singing in Italian. It made the already hilarious play even funnier! There were many interactions between the main character and others where they would be speaking to each other in different languages, which was just a bizarre situation to witness. Moreover, the salesman knew the Italian words also, so he sang in Italian for his duets with Nemorino, and would also throw in random Italian words into his singing (example: “Che muerte, Uncle Joe”). Nemorino also said the words “20 bucks” one time, which was a hilarious juxtaposition of the folksy translation the rest of the characters were singing on his beautiful Italian lyrics.

Saturday

Today, we rode up on a bus to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. We toured around the home he grew up in, which was a small cottage, as well as other homes related to him and his family. I got curry for dinner at a pub, and then we saw King Lear put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was good, although I was not a fan of the actor who played Lear. It was 3.5 hours long, and we didn't get back to London until 1:00 in the morning!



Sunday

Today, I went on an exciting thing called "Ethan and Emily's Excellent Adventure". Basically, Emily and I went around to a bunch of the really touristy famous places around London and took pictures in front of them for our blog (http://blogs.lclark.edu/england2010/). It was a fun day, and we walked basically all of the way across western London! At night, I went to see John Adams conduct the LSO, which was very exciting. He was a very good conductor, and the piece he conducted (the Dr. Atomic Symphony) was good, but not great.

Monday

Today was another average Monday. I went over to my internship and worked all day, mostly preparing spreadsheets and word documents for this and that, and then picking out quotes from reviews of the choir. Then, choir rehearsal in the evening. Pretty standard.

Cheers,
Ethan

Tales from London # 43-50

This is going to be my longest post ever! Hooray!

Saturday

We had to wake up at 6:00 in the morning today to catch a 7:30 train to St. Ives. The train ride was really long (6 hours), but when we got there, it was definitely worth it.

St. Ives

St. Ives is a small, seaside town, traditionally known as an artists' colony. The air was so clean, the sky was a gorgeous, deep shade of blue, and the weather was beautiful. It was so nice to be by the ocean for the weekend, though it was certainly too cold to go swimming!
We went to the art gallery (Tate St Ives) in the afternoon, which was pretty interesting, although it was small. After that, we went out to dinner at a pub on the waterfront, which was really delicious.



Sunday

Today, we woke up, went out to a local bakery, and got some scones. We went over to the waterfront and ate them with local jam and Cornish clotted cream. Cornish clotted cream is incredible. It must be terribly unhealthy, but it tastes so good!
After that, we walked around for a little bit, and hiked up into the hills. The entire place is so green and beautiful. It was sad to leave after such a short time, but we had to go.
We hopped back on the train, but then got off in Exeter to walk around and explore a little. We walked through the cathedral, which was very pretty, and then walked along the wall, which was very old and medieval.
Then, we went back to London.

Monday

Today was a fairly uninteresting day. I went and took care of a few errands during the day, including going to the library.
In the evening, I had a choir rehearsal, the second to last before the big concert. My voice was very tired after the rehearsal; it's a very difficult piece of music.

Tuesday

Today, we had Theatre class in the morning, during which time we acted out some scenes from a melodrama from the 1800's for the rest of the class, which was very dramatic and entertaining. After that, we went to the Handel Foundling Museum.
The Museum was on the location of where a house for babies and children who were found abandoned by their parents would be taken. There was a lot of art work in the museum, which was kind of strange, and only one room had anything to do with Handel. It was interesting to hear what life was like for these children, though.
After that, we went to a preconcert talk about Handel's Belshazzar, which is an oratorio. After a couple of hours, we went to the concert at St. James Hanover Square, by the London Handel Festival. It was an extremely long oratorio, with a choir and 5 or so soloists. 2 of the soloists were male altos, which was very interesting. Although the concert was very long, it was also very beautiful (if repetitive).

Wednesday

Today, we went down to the Apollo Theatre at 8:30 to queue for 10 pound front row tickets to Jerusalem, which we succeeded in getting. After that, we went to our final class for Fine Arts in London, where we all had to give presentations on various art related topics. My project was on Damien Hirst, a very controversial British artist who likes to display dead animals. He is also the richest artist in the world, which is cool I guess.
Anyhow, after that, we went to Jerusalem, a long play on the West End. It is about a Gypsy who lives in a trailer home in the woods in rural England, in a place where his family has lived for decades. The plot of the play circles around his impending eviction, and (without giving away the details too much) explores many difficult questions about how he is leading his life. Mark Rylance, who played the main character, was absolutely awesome in this role. It was a very intense, emotional performance, particularly in the final 20 minutes. Although I feel as though I should see it again to try to understand exactly what happened, I definitely think it is the best theatrical performance I have ever seen.

Thursday

Today, we had class all day, none of which is particularly worth noting.
In the evening, I went to a pre-concert rehearsal for the concert on Sunday. We were in a big church, and I could barely hear anything the conductor said.

Friday

Today, I went to work for my internship all day. I worked on getting things like the seating plan and budget for the concert ready, which was very hands on and useful. There were a lot of final details to take care of, and it took the whole day. In the evening, I had dinner, went out for gelato with Jon, Will, and Jackie, and then went to see "The Last Station", a film about Leo Tolstoy (supposedly). It was really more about Tolstoy's secretary and his wife, and about Tolstoy dying. It was entertaining, but not really what I was expecting going in.

Saturday

Today was the day of the big Barbican concert! I had to go in at 1:30 to start setting up for the concert, getting flowers and refreshments ready, and carrying things all around the building. We had a long rehearsal at about 4:00, and then I had a quick dinner I had packed earlier in the day, and then the concert started!
It was extremely hot on stage, with the lights on and a basically sold out crowd of almost 2000! We performed Beethoven's "Choral Fantasie" and "Der Glorreiche Augenblick", the latter of which hadn't been performed in London in over fifty years! The concert went really well, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. I performed on the same stage that Yo-Yo Ma had played only 3 nights before!


Sunday

Today, I was going to go out to Dim Sum with some friends, but after we got separated, my phone died, and I never was able to find them! I went out to a cheap Chinese buffet by myself instead, which was tasty, and I ate the most meat I had eaten in a long time, since it's so expensive at the supermarket. After that, I went to see the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. They performed Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto and "Symphonic Dances". They were very impressive, but didn't really blow me away.
After that, I went to the Barbican Centre for the day's second concert, this one by the London Symphony Orchestra. The piece was James MacMillan's (a contemporary Scottish composer) St. Matthew's Passion. I went to an unenlightening preperformance interview with him, but the performance itself was absolutely awesome. It was conducted by Sir Colin Davis, and the piece was reminiscent of "Carmina Burana" There were many beautiful choral parts, as well as epic and emotional instrumental parts. It was very interesting, and I thought it was a unique adaptation of the story.

Tales from London # 38-42

Hello everyone! Sorry about the long interval between posts, it's been a very busy week, as always.

Monday

Today, we split up in the morning and went our own ways for Holly, Will, and Jon to buy tickets to Wicked, and for me to get a few errands done. I went to the British Museum as well, which was really, really crowded, but was full of a lot of interesting artifacts. It was a actually really disturbing how garishly the many, many sarcophagi were displayed in the Egyptian section. I definitely was not very happy with the way that the museum tried to make a solemn tradition surrounding death into a tourist attraction. Moreover, the Japan section was closed!
After that, I walked over to Chinatown to buy some more ingredients to make Zaru Soba soon. After wandering around for a fairly long time exploring, I went back to the room to meet the rest of the gang. After making some dinner, I went to choir rehearsal, which is starting to get really close to the performance and is thus heartily scaring me.

Tuesday

Unfortunately, today was Holiday's final day in London! We went out to breakfast in the morning at a pub, for an authentic English breakfast (for those who don't know, it consists of sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, baked beans, and sauteed mushrooms). We had a nice conversation, and then had to say our goodbyes. It was a short time that she was here, but a fun one!
After that, we went off to Westminster Abbey for a tour. It was truly an amazing place; unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside, but here is one of the outside:



Ok, 2. Can you blame me?
The inside was similarly large and beautiful. Every nook and cranny is filled with graves, memorials, and tombs. Among the people represented are queens and kings, Winston Churchill, poets, scientists, and basically every important person in British history. Of course, the best part was the musicians. Purcell, Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Handel all were memorialized somehow in the abbey.

Afterwards, we went home for a quick dinner, and then went off to Duncinane, a play written as a sort of sequel to Macbeth. The writing was, despite the setting, very modern and easy to understand. Moreover, being by the same author as Midsummer, the dialogue was extremely funny and entertaining. The story was about England's army being stuck in Scotland trying to keep the peace, which they made abundantly clear was symbolic of a certain war that Britain is taking part in currently...
Political undertones aside, the play was probably my favorite I've seen so far in London. The actors were great, and I loved the way the stage was set up. David Greig (the author) is definitely a wonderful modern playwright, and clearly very diverse as well.

Wednesday

Today, we had class all day, including watching the movie "Brassed Off" for Music History. We also had to act out scenes from a very dramatic play for Theatre.
After that, we went to the Royal Opera House to see Cosi fan Tutte. It was set in modern times, with an extremely bland set (as in literally everything on stage besides the people was beige). This definitely did not add to the intrigue of the plot (I would have much rather seen a period performance), but the musical performances by the singers made up for the boring setting. I was swept away in Mozart's music for the whole 3 hours.

Thursday

Today, we had class for basically 6.5 hours straight, which was absolutely exhausting!
Afterwards, we made Zaru Soba for dinner, which is a Japanese cold buckwheat noodle dish. It was absolutely delicious, and reminded me of home and Japan both!
Then, we went to the Coliseum to see the English National Opera do a performance of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The ENO does everything in English, which was interesting, but convenient in listening to the music. The show itself was incredible! The music was dramatic, and chilling, with a glass harmonica playing off of the mad cries of Lucia as she becomes insane. The singer who played Lucia had a gorgeous voice, with an incredible range and touch for hitting notes just the right way. The staging was also very interesting, with lots of old photographs showing up in different places. eventually as headstones in a graveyard.

Friday

Today, after music theory, I went and bought a ticket to see Handel's Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall on Good Friday, which is one of the most exciting concerts coming up! Then, I went and bought a ticket for the early performance of Avenue Q in the West End.
The show was really good, an extremely sardonic parody of Sesame Street, only with more mature themes. It portrays real life with the same cheesy music and puppets that are used to teach children, which is absolutely hilarious. I knew the music beforehand, so I expected many of the jokes, but the staging made many of the jokes much funnier than I originally thought they were. Also, a few of the jokes were changed for the British version (they had to throw in a dig on the French), which was very interesting to see.

Well, I think that's about all I have in me right now!
Cheers,
Ethan

Tales from London # 35-37

Friday

Holiday arrived here from France today! She is visiting until the middle of next week, so we are showing her around to all the awesome stuff in London while she is here. I worked on a lot of stuff for my internship during the day, and then we went out to dinner at the Hare and Tortoise (again) to celebrate Holiday's arrival. We are pretty much addicted to that place...
Afterwards, we went out for gelato in South Kensington. I got Banana sorbet and Milk chocolate hazelnut flavored gelato, which was amazing.

Saturday

We woke up early this morning and walked over to the Portabello Road market, which is a huge, outdoors and indoors market, with food stands, antique stores, and lots of people. We got quite a bit of amazing food to eat then and in the future (we got chorizo sausage sandwiches for lunch, which were awesome), and then headed back to Metrogate. We then commenced to cook a big pot of gumbo, with the same sausage from the market, for several hours. We had tea, and chatted as it cooked, and when it came out, it was amazing!
Afterwards, we all split up, and Holiday and I went over to the Southbank Centre to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir perform. They were pretty good, especially on the Poulenc mass. It was great to hear a choral performance, since I have mostly been going to orchestral music lately!

Sunday

Today, we woke up early and went out for coffee, and then over to St. Paul's cathedral for a church service.

Part of the service was Mozart's Mass in C major, which was beautifully performed, although we were sitting a little too far away from the choir. The inside of the cathedral was enormous, classical, and very ornate, with many statues and gold plated regions. It was a very fun experience.
Afterwards, we went out for lunch and got fish and chips, so Holly could try some typical English food. We then went over to the West End and walked through the theater district and China Town. Next, we went back to Metrogate to make burritos for dinner, which once again were amazing. Finally, we watched 2 movies, "Speed" and "Jurassic Park: The Lost World" in an epic cheesy action movie night.

Tales #31-34

Monday
Today, I worked for my internship all day, typing up memos, contacting soloists, and other professional sorts of things. It was surprisingly tiring...I think I am getting too used to going to concerts and the like!
After that, I got some Japanese fast food (Onigiri and edamame, so not unhealthy like Amurrican fast food), and went to choir rehearsal. The Beethoven piece we are doing is really dramatic and fun to sing, although it is still killing my voice while I haven't quite recovered from my illness...

Tuesday
Today, I went to class all day, in a weird schedule switch up so that tomorrow we could go to Cirque du Soleil! We learned about Cosi fan Tutte, the Mozart opera that we are going to next week, and I am really excited for. After that, we made homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes with sauteed mushrooms in them, which was amazing.
In the evening, we made some tortellini, and then went to the Oscar Wilde play "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime" at the Richmond Theatre. The play was funny (it is Oscar Wilde), but definitely not his or the actors' best work... There was really strange (read:out of key) musical accompaniment, which made the play unnecessarily cheesy. The set was pretty cool, and overall I was certainly entertained by the play, but not blown away.

Wednesday

Today, we woke up late, and went off to the Royal Opera House for our Back Stage Tour!!! We got to see the main hall while they were setting up for one of the ballets, as well as a practice room for ballet, the prop loft, the back stage area (which is measured in acres), and bunches of other really cool places around the building. It was very exciting.
Next, we went off to Cirque du Soleil: Varekai at the Royal Albert Hall. It was incredible, and nerve racking, to watch. Many of the artists were doing incredibly dangerous stunts, which was scary. They basically flew around the room, unsupported by harness or other safety equipment, doing acrobatic stunts all along. The story was not comprehensible at all (apparently due to changes in the act), but the incredibleness of the stunts made up for the lack of a plot.
After that, I went to a performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra of French Impressionist music by Ravel, Poulenc, and Debussy. Although it was a little bit difficult to get into the music near the end due to the splendor of the day so far, I was still very impressed by the orchestra and conductor, and loved hearing more Ravel. Debussy's "La Mer" was also a very beautiful piece.

Thursday

Today, we held a huge debate on the abolition of the monarchy in British society, in which the people in favor of maintaining the monarchy (including me) surprisingly, though narrowly, won the vote of conscience at the end of the class.
For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant for cheap pizza. Little did we know, however, the cheap pizza came at the price of having to listen to Celine Dion, Shakira, and an Italian cover of "House of the Rising Sun" throughout dinner! It was a little scary, but we made it out alive.
After that, we split ways, and I went to the Southbank Centre to see the Philharmonia Orchestra do Mahler's 2nd symphony. It was absolute enormous, with a 170 member choir on top of the already sizable orchestra (which had a separate brass and percussion section playing entirely off stage, out of sight). This piece, like the other I saw at the beginning of the trip, was a hugely emotional piece, with many ups and downs, and interesting movements. I have come to the conclusion that I have really underestimated Mahler to this point in my life, and will have to continue to remedy my lack of exposure to his music.
Cheers

Tales #26-30

Wednesday

Today, our only class consisted of going to Tate Modern! The museum was way more interesting than I thought it was going to be. The first exhibit we went into was basically just a giant dark, black box that you walk in to. It was absolutely surreal to walk into the darkness, not knowing what to expect, and just explore. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed a lot of the artwork in the museum as well. I was expecting it to be mostly ridiculously abstract (as in a completely red canvas), but much of the artwork was really insightful. I loved many of the early 20th century artists especially.
For dinner, we went to Hare and Tortoise (the amazing Japanese restaurant) again; I had Yaki Udon, which was 6 pounds of amazingness.
This evening, I went to see the New York Philharmonic (the first time of 2). They played Lindberg, Prokofiev, and Sibelius, which were all very polished, but not mind blowing. The pianist for the Prokofiev was very, very good though.

Thursday

Today, we had class all day. British culture was pretty good; we talked about the structure of British politics, which was very interesting.
After dinner, we went to the second New York Philharmonic concert. They played a Haydn symphony, which was pretty dull, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, which was beautiful, Adams' "The Wound Dresser", which was beautiful (and sung by Thomas Hampson!), and a piece by Alban Berg. The concert was once again good, but not amazing. Certainly several of the concerts I've been to of London orchestras have been better, and many have had better song choice!

Friday

Today, I was going to work for my internship, but found out that I couldn't today, so I decided to go on an adventure instead. First, I went to the British library, where I totally dorked out in the rare music section of the museum. Among the pieces on display were the original manuscript of Handel's Messiah!!!! aaaannd Ravel's original scoring of Bolero for 2 pianos, which I got way too excited about. There were also pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Elgar, and just about everybody.
After that, I went and got an onigiri (a Japanese rice ball with seaweed) and edamame from a Japanese fast food restaurant for really cheap, which was awesome. Then, I went over to Regent's park, which is another huge, open park in the middle of London. I walked around, looking at the birds and trees, and reflecting on the trip so far.
In the evening, I went down to the Southbank Centre to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time. They played Sibelius' 6th and 7th symphonies, which were very beautiful. The orchestra was very good. The conductor was a funny man, who kept grunting, which was a bit strange...

Saturday

Today, we woke up early and made way on an 8:30 train for York.
When we got there, we walked over to the hostel and checked in, and then went over to the park, where, since it is the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's ascension, a band was playing, and then they fired off a 21 gun salute with giant canons. It was very exciting and British, and extremely lucky that we got to see it!






After that, we had lunch at Pizza Express, where I got a pizza with artichoke and asparagus! It was really, really good.
Next, we went on a walking tour of the city. Some of the highlights:

The Shambles:

A cramped, medieval style street in downtown York, with authentic architecture still in many of the buildings. There were a lot of really neat shops, including one where we went back for hot chocolate later.

The Wall:

There is an old, medieval wall that spans York. We walked around on the top of the wall, and it felt like we were medieval soldiers!

The York Minster:

The York Minster is an enormous cathedral, which is on the site of where a church has been for about 2000 years. The current version dates from 1250-1400, and is enormous, gothic, and medieval. It is stunningly beautiful on inside and out, with giant arches, gorgeous stained glass, huge towers, and intricate carvings throughout.

Later in the evening, we went back to the York Minster for the choral evensong, which is a choral church service. It was sung by a Men's choir and a children's choir, and was wonderful. The singing was so pure, and it echoed throughout the halls of the cathedral. It was probably my favorite experience in England so far.

For dinner, we found a really cheap restaurant where I got steak and prawns for 6.99! They were absolutely delicious. We went back to the hostel, getting to bed early since we were really tired!

Sunday

This morning, we woke up early again and walked around York for a bit before catching the train to Birmingham. We walked over to the Tower, which was cool but we couldn't go in.

In Birmingham, we saw the Black Dyke Band (the current best brass band in the world (they won a contest)), which is a really old British tradition. The band was amazingly talented, playing way faster than I thought was possible on tubas, cornets, horns, and trombones. The music wasn't extremely inspiring for the most part, but it was entertaining, loud, and epic throughout. It was certainly an awesome concert.

And, now I'm back

Cheers

Tales #23-25

Sunday

I had a slow morning today, because it was Sunday, and I had a concert to go to at 3:00. I made myself a really good egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast, and then headed off to the Southbank Centre to see the Philharmonia Orchestra perform Edward Elgar's first symphony and Cockaigne Overture and Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. The Elgar overture was very, very English, which was exciting and cool. The violin concerto was boring, basically like a really poor copy of a classical piece in my opinion, despite the valiant attempts of the soloist and orchestra. The Elgar symphony was pretty, though certainly not life changing in any way... It was, if nothing else, a very welcome change from all of the atonal and modern music we've been attending of late.

Monday

Today, I also woke up a little late (still trying to recover from my cold), and then went over to the Barbican to go to the library and try to work something out with the record shop for the choir concert that we are putting on there. Oh, but before that, we made burritos that were, once again, absolutely amazing! This time, with guacamole!
Afterwards, I went to choir rehearsal, which completely exhausted my voice (Singing Beethoven is not easy!)

Tuesday

We had class pretty early this morning, due to some schedule swapping for later in the week. We talked about some very old theatrical traditions in our theatre class, which were quite surprising in how old and steady they were. One we learned about that was particularly interesting was: In one town in Scotland, a man has to cover himself from head to toe in burrs (he is called "Burry Man") once a year, and walk around for 9 hours, going around to pubs and factories, and he is only allowed to eat or drink whisky (which he must do through a straw)! http://193.62.154.38/celtica/Burryb.htm
After that, we had a guest lecture about composition by a British composer. He talked about composing for movies, which was interesting (though the music was unbearably cheesy, since it was from a movie!)
After this, we made some tortellini for dinner, and then went off to the Soho Theatre for a play called Midsummer. The play was very, very funny, with some very unique stylistic devices in how they told the story. It had a bit of a hollywood tinge to it (despite their best effort to claim otherwise!), but it was undoubtedly the most entertaining show I've seen so far.

Cheers,
Ethan