Christmas 2008

 

After a really busy Autumn, it's time to decorate the Christmas tree and have a few days' holiday. I've had a wonderful few months singing all sorts of different repertoire, including some new compositions, and many other songs new to me. I loved Régis Campo's settings of 'Le Bestiaire' which we performed in Paris and Dijon with the Orchestre Nationale de France, a really interesting addition to the song repertoire. I had great fun singing three concerts with Ann Murray and Graham Johnson, in Devon, Dublin and Deutschland: I hope we will do more. I took part in three birthday concerts at Wigmore Hall, for Angela Hewitt, (where we performed some beautiful songs by André Previn), Michael Berkeley and this week for Steven Isserlis, where I had the immense joy of singing with Andras Schiff and Radu Lupu, and alongside Mark Padmore and Joshua Bell. That concert has gone into my list of unforgettables. I met lots of old friends in my home town of Cheltenham where I took part in the Cheltenham Choral Society's 70th birthday celebrations, singing the Messiah in the Town Hall for the first time for many a year. Before that, I was in Glasgow to perform 'La Voix Humaine' with Stéphane Denève and the Scottish National Orchestra, which was a marvellous experience : Stéphane is so great in French music and the orchestra plays beautifully for him. Then last week I was in Brussels with Jason Carr and Olivier Sferlazza doing the show that we will perform in Toulouse on 28th December, where I get to dance a bit, and sing Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim along with Reynaldo Hahn, Offenbach, Mireille and ....Jason Carr. Rather too many 'I sang' sentences in that list... I wish I could say that I had been to see lots of other performances- actually In Toulouse we saw Goldoni's 'Le Menteur' in Laurent Pelly's beautiful production, and when I was in Paris I was enchanted by Charlie Chaplin's beautiful daughter in her Cirque Imaginaire, so I have had a couple of evenings off.

I wish you all a very happy, successful and healthy New Year.  FL