Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[karlhenning]

I'm sure it do, as I recall the score you posted.

[Luke]

The Advent service is tomorrow (which is also my birthday - halfway to my three score and ten...) but the pre-service rehearsal will be over in a rush and doubtless a little stressful for reasons I shouldn't go into here! So I popped over to school just now and unlocked the church just to refresh my memory of the organ there and so on. Every year it's the same as this service approaches, though it's earlier than usual this year - it's an idyll: an English country church set in beautiful grounds, the air bright and clear and cold, but sunny. Today there is snow covering the churchyard, too. It all feels....right! A vision of Olde England, or something. And I sat there at the organ in the chold church, shivering as I tried to remember how to use the pedals (no chance!) and felt rather peaceful for the first time in who knows how long. Certainly my favourite event of the year, this one, and the girls are singing so nicely that I'm not nervous about my own piece (previous page for mp3, anyone?) this time round, though perhaps that's a bad sign  . Plus, now that my kids are at the school too, my daughter is in the choir/chamber choir, which makes tomorrow extra special.

[karlhenning]

Lovely!

[Luke]

Very glad I got a chance to go over things in peace and at leisure yesterday, because today was a bit of a stressful one. Scratch the 'a bit of' actually. Had to pick my daughter up from a camp and take her back for the rehearsal at 2, but the car broke down on our way there. In the freezing cold, 2 hours before I got picked up, we ended up an hour late for the rehearsal and chilled to the bones. And with the car left at the garage in who knows what state. What a way to spend my 35th birthday!

But then the service itself was beautiful, as it always is, and the girls were just beautiful in my piece, which, as my ex-wife said, was clearly written by someone who knew exactly what the girls could do and what they couldn't. It went down really well, I felt - I had some lovely comments from people who ought to know. Proud of this one - wish someone would download it! 

[karlhenning]

Oh, what a nuisance, the car breaking down! Of course that was a lot of added stress.  Glad the service was such a beauty, that makes up for a great deal!

. . . Proud of this one - wish someone would download it! 

Oh, my ears are burning.  I meant to, yesterday; but then, it turned out that I did not get to spend any time at the home desktop, which is the only station where I can execute such downloads.

[karlhenning]

A happy correction: I've just downloaded it!

[Cato]

I also have downloaded the score and performance!

Yay Team!   0:)

Luke: your PM Inbox is full!

[DavidW]

Hey that was really nice!   And I thought you were an avant garde atonal honker Luke!   I avoided this thread because I thought y'all would be just discussing technicalities of harmony or something equally entertaining for composers and dull for laymen.   But thanks to Karl's post in the listening thread...

well done Luke, I'll share this with my family and it include in the mix for a Christmas cd.

[karlhenning]

Splendid, Davey!

[Maciek]

Happy Birthday, Luke! (Sorry, wasn't online yesterday. 0:))

[karlhenning]

Luke: your PM Inbox is full!

Yeah. What're you gonna do about it, buster!? ; )

[Luke]

 

So sorry! There's some space there now.

Thanks for all your kind birthday wishes, btw (here, via email and on facebook-where-I-never-go-anymore-hence-lack-of-reply-there). The less said about the last couple of days the better, maybe, because EVERYTHING has been going wrong... but the piece went right, and I'm full of pride because it fitted the girls' voices so well, showed them off at their best. They loved singing it (I hear it sung as I walk around school, wafting up the stairwells and down the corridors!) and the audience were really, visibly taken with it - it feels very good, that. Thanks to you guys for listening, too - it helps at what is a difficult time for me (again, the less said the better about that too) to have this little part of my life partitioned headed 'The Bells of Christmas - at least that bit is going OK!'  

[karlhenning]

Hang on to that charming execution of The Bells!  Utterly enchanting, and it's those moments of enchantment which make it all worthwhile.

[Guido]

The Bells is very beautiful indeed. Congrats!

The outpost's post box is full. I have had to send an electronic email instead...

[Guido]

Are Eternal Peace and Christmas Morn available as recordings still (if they ever were?)

[Luke]

lol, I just sent you one back! I saw you were PM-ing, thought, 'I wonder if that is to me, I bet my box is full as usual', and emptied it slightly, but clearly a second or two too late.

Glad you liked the piece. It's proving quite a hit!

Spent a few happy hours the last few days making little films to go alongside some of my pieces, slideshow sort of things just to point them up slightly, to give a hint of the sort of images that run through my head when I listen and when i was composing, anyway. Maybe I'll upload them at some point - but none of the music itself is new, I should add.

[Luke]

They are, and they were, but they don't stand up very well. Eternal Peace is not very well sung, i must say, though it was recorded at a fairly early stage in rehearsal.. Christmas Morn is better performed, but the minidisc recorder I was using seems to have been grinding away somewhat that day, and the sound is no fun!

[karlhenning]

The Bells is very beautiful indeed. Congrats!

And here I just want to repeat the same. Well done, Luke!

[Luke]

Thank you too, Karl!

[karlhenning]

So, what's shaking? : )