Only(Simply) The Best For In Flagrante

Eamonn was back with us last night in our temporary accommodation. Again, the golf club did us proud and set us up so we could rehearse, plus Marcin was there as barman to serve our half time drinks!

There can’t be any other choir that gets the service we do. Only the best will do for In Flagrante!

Now we have to live up to the standards we have set. Only two more rehearsals before The Concert!

Jenny will be with us for the next two weeks, so Eamonn will have empty hands and can conduct and guide us to get:

· When to start

· Crisp clean cut offs

· Intonations of soft and gentle, intense, energetic etc

· Making us smile (especially when oohing!)

· Ensuring we don’t fall into the famous Eamonn dunce holes! You do not want to be that person! You will not only get a glare and snarl from Eamonn, but let down the whole of In Flagrante choir making us look unprofessional

· Ending together and standing completely still until the last piano note has been played

Of course, this will only work if we WATCH Eamonn and look up from our music at the poignant times.

To be the best we need to:

· Practise at home and become familiar with the words as well as the notes

· Perform and not just sing. If we look as if we are enjoying ourselves, the audience will too!

· Feel the music as we sing

· Perform Asteroid with no music open, with intensity, delight and a sparkle in our eye.

· Enunciate and tell the stories in each song and engage the audience

We are unique and very fortunate to have the acclaimed Eamonn O’Dwyer as our Musical Director. He not only composes wonderful and sometimes unusual arrangements of well-known songs, but teaches, encourages and motivates us to levels of performance and sound we didn’t think possible.

It is up to each of us to listen and make notes and practice with the backing tracks so when we come together, we blend and show we have worked, not just for our own satisfaction, but for all the choir and together we will be Simply The Best!

And ready for our encore

The Passion and The Pain

The lovely Elliot took us through our paces and we started with, All I have to do is Dream, which did sound a bit of nightmare at times! The underlying music is lively with the dreamlike quality in the singing which needs to sound delicate and not a painful dirge. It is a love song after all.

"What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.”

― Vincent van Gogh

Vincent followed; a song full of pain and passion.

Look at it from the perspective of you singing to Vincent Van Gogh as if you are the one who understands his pain and passion.

Emphasise the words and show understanding which will give it expression as we tell the story.

Take a look at this clip from a Doctor Who series where Vincent is bought into the 21st century to see the impact his paintings have now on the public which he didn’t experience in his own lifetime.

After a short break we resumed to A Lovely Day.

Not a bad rendition considering we only learned it for the first time last week.

As usual the ‘Oohs’ are a challenge and the very long notes on ‘Day’ for tenors and sopranos. Elliot suggested practicing with a ‘SHHH’ instead of ‘Day’ as it takes more breathe to sustain it and it will build up our strength and control, then when we go back to singing ‘Day’ it will appear to be much easier.

Give it a try and see how you get on!

The final chorus of Lovely Day with the altos repeating relentlessly, the tenors and sopranos with intermittent ‘Lovely days’ and the lady tenors with their looooong notes all sounded magnificent.

Let’s put our pain and passion into practising during the week.

Only three weeks left and a lot of work to do!

DO NOT FORGET: next week we are not in the usual venue but across the other side of the car park in the green building on the right as you enter the car park. Eamonn will be back. See you there

A Lovely Day

A lovely day for In Flagrante with the wonderful Elliot Clay leading us for the next two weeks.

Elliot has written his first musical Millennials which will be performed at The Other Palace on 08 July – 07 August 2022 and tickets for have just gone on sale.

We had a completely new song to learn called Lovely Day. Very appropriate with the beautiful sunny evening.

It is a song by American soul and R&B singer Bill Withers. Written by Withers and Skip Scarborough, it was released on December 21, 1977, and appears on Withers’ 1977 album, Menagerie.

The song is notable for Withers' sustained note towards the end, which, at 18 seconds long, is one of the longest ever recorded on an American pop song.

Lovely Day was used in adverts for Tetley tea, again in 1999 for a Gap commercial directed by Hype Williams, and yet again in 2020 in ads for Good Morning Football on NFL Network, Allstate insurance TV commercial, as well as an ad for Pandora Jewellers.

On January 20, 2021, the song was performed by Demi Lovato, with backing vocals from Lin-Manuel Miranda and several frontline healthcare workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as a part of the entertainment broadcast entitled Celebrating America following the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

Eamonn has done a beautiful arrangement of this song especially for In Flagrante. Although it is a very simple song, it is quite tricky to sing with the silences being as important at the notes. Sopranos and Lady Tenors especially, must take very deep breaths to sustain the incredibly looooong notes!

Of course, there are Oohs! And sopranos aren’t on the tune, which is always a challenge for them!!!!

With the different “lovely day, lovely days” interlinked with each other and repeated many, many times the challenge is to keep the enthusiasm so it is as interesting and intense at the end as it is at the beginning.

Lots of homework so we improve next week!

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square was recapped. Eamonn’s arrangement of this song gives a varied style throughout this story.

Make the most of the different characteristics of warmth, playfulness and fun. Enunciate the words to bring out a performance for the audience to enjoy. This one was in very good shape!

Practice makes perfect. Keep up the good work!