Tuesday 14 June 2005

I spent part of today in 'professional musician mode' in a recording session of two Handel arias, which was a rather dispiriting experience (in fact to take my mind off it I'm typing this as they record around me the bit I'm not in). Fortunately the singer is the wonderful Ailish Tynan who puts up with no BS and is great fun.

This morning I pinned down dates for the final Lion CD recording sessions, mailed off a directory entry, and got an unexpected email from our company accountant saying he'd told me the accounts were ready 4 months ago. Somehow this vital email hadn't reached me, so now there is a mad scramble to get the accounts signed by the directors and into Companies House. 

An interesting discussion about concert intervals later this morning: Maurice Bott (who was at the concert in Warwickshire last week), Alison and I all hate them, if we're in audient mode. Intervals provide a great social opportunity for some, and a commercial opportunity for the venue to make some money on the bar, but if you've gone to a concert to be entertained rather than to be sociable, then it's an uncomfortable 20-30 minutes. What's required is some undemanding entertainment, so that those who came for 'culture' don't feel like Johnny-No-Mates.  So in a chamber music concert, why not shorten each half and have the musicians playing solos on stage in the interval for optional entertainment? All the musicians still get a rest at some point; those who've come for a social experience can get on with it, and those who've come to hear some music can have some more. Come to think of it, we've done this! DG and me playing tunes in the bar in St Andrews in the Square, and in the downstairs galleries in St Cecilia's in 2002 ...

And another thing: did Mary Ann really get married on the radio today? I suppose she did ...