LANERCOST FESTIVAL

Lanercost Festival ended yesterday.

It started on Wednesday evening with an public dress rehearsal of Midsummer Night's Dream in the Priory ruins.  On Thursday evening there was a concert by pupils of Chetham's School of Music, for which I was stewarding: I was really tired and feeling horribly nauseous, so thought about going home in the interval.  I'm so glad I didn't as I would have missed the best part of the concert: Wyn Chan, a 14-year old pianist from Penrith followed by a 17-year old boy from Ancora on the violin.  All performers were exceptional but the last two excelled.  Wyn Chan seemed to be able to create a huge amount of feeling in his playing, despite being so young: and the violinist (I wish I could remember his name) played so passionately I thought his violin strings would break.

On Friday evening the 'official' performance of Midsummer Night's Dream took place, again with weather fine enough that it was held in the Priory ruins.  I had hoped to go but again was incredibly tired - I had hardly been able to walk during the day - so missed it, but it sounds as if it was an excellent and memorable show.

By Saturday I had had a good night's sleep so attending Classic Buskers as a member of the audience and in order to review it was a pleasure.  The evening was hilarious: although the virtousic playing also led me to tears of melancholy during Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte.   I'm hoping that my review will get printed in the local paper soon, in which case I'll create a link to it.

Last night I was singing in the Festival Chorus in Handel's Judas Maccabeaus.  I hadn't particularly enjoyed this piece to start with but it grew on me, and whilst I originally thought it had a lot of similarities with The Messiah, as I got to know it better the differences became more apparent.  It was good finally to hear it as a whole, solos, duets and all, last night, and also enjoyable to have the experience of singing with an orchestra again: though the orchestra were nothing like as good as they might have been.   It must be about 20 years since I last sang with an orchestra, in London when I was in the Canonbury Chamber Choir (I wonder if that's still going - I must check the internet).

It was a long performance and I was tired by the end and got very grumpy when I got home and found the house wasn't spick and span.  I'm tired today as well but have managed to keep the grumpiness under control.  I also applied for 3 jobs last week so all in all it was quite a tiring week!  There seem to be fewer and fewer jobs advertised but I guess we're getting into the school holiday period and things may pick up again in September: that is, if the public sector hasn't been decimated by then.

Children both finally quiet which means Daughter has fallen asleep at about 9pm instead of 10pm.  Small comfort but at least the weather seems to have broken so it may be a bit cooler for them in bed tonight.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring.