5/30/10

-sunday, church which turned out to be stake conference

-sunday dinner was salmon

-played uno

-watched Mobsters and Mormons

5/29/10

-LIVERPOOL

-breakfast of a muffin and some milk and we hit the station

-when we arrive in Liverpool we hit the TATE first.  Who knew they had a TATE Liverpool?  

-Picasso gallery was amazing

-lots of surrealist art which really excites me!  I love love love surrealism

5/28/10

-saw Luke's guitar teacher playing

-got huge cups of hot coco

-walked around a bit, hit up top man, Luke's favorite shop

-Luke goes home teaching so, I hang out with Luke's mama and sister, we girls talk shop

5/22/10

-watched sun rise

-real bum walks by and scowers the trash

-pubs going till like 4 am

-walked around looking for breakfast and a place to use the loo

-finally found the place Scott and I had dinner was open

-walked to find breakfast some more

-went to bus stop

-danny got news paper

-rode home

-felt disgusting

-Johnny had a "wait, where am I?" moment

5/21/10

brighton beach babay

-free day

-no class

-beach for 5 hours ish

-arrived and searched for Jessica's swimsuit for an hour

-burried each other in the sand

-ladies argue on the beach

-we get our photograph taken

-we run into town and walk around the lanes

-try to get everyone to look at the Pavillion

-look at the museum in the church that was started as an art gallery by some famous producer (the producer of Coldplay and something else)

-Scott and I went to dinner while everyone caught a movie

-brighton pier and the rides

-lay on the beach

-watch the sin and babalyon take place

-chat with the bobby (cop in England)

-Scott gets pooped on while waiting outside the Odeon theatre

-walk down to the beach, meet random drunk girls

-walk back into town and around to a pub, Logan, Scott, and I go into...lots of young people...younger than us....I didn't get ID'ed yea!

-walk back to the beach, find cardboard on the street

-bring it to our homeless hotel less hostel less friends

-Johnny and Robert were gone...with the random drunk girls...back to their hotel...dodgey!

-sleeping in cardboard boxes and people doing the nasty on the beach

-scott is still awake so I suggest that we go to find a hostel or cheap hotel

-logan, scott, and I search around and don't find anything

-we give up and wind up going to one of the big boats in front of the maritime museum

-watch the sun rise and chat in delirum

5/20/10

Tonight we listened to the Trinity choir rehearse and perform for evensong.  This was probably my favorite evensong.  Conducted by the same director as the Holst singers, I've seen him work twice now and I like his rehearsal style.  I feel as though he works very efficiently and has a good feel for how the ensemble wants to work.  He moved quickly with this group and commanded attention.  His conducting gestures were also nice and clear.  He conducts with his face and upper body and the choir responds to whatever intricacies he is asking for; though it's not always easy to see these from the audience I can surely hear nuance coming through.  With the Trinity College choir he chose what seemed to be more contemporary pieces.  It was so fun to hear a new sound from an evensong and their psalms were the most uniform and prayerful of any we have seen.  I felt, after simply looking at these students, that the environment at Cambridge is a little bit more relaxed.  Perhaps this is because we were in Oxford for evensong on the Sabbath but there were no boys in Trinity College.  Just a group of talented college aged students.  I liked that they moved from the choir stalls to stand around the piano and rehearse not spending too much time on any one section of the music.  Simply put, this was exquisite.  

-cambridge
-punting
-shopping in gentlemans shop for a bit
-roamed the market
-outdoor mall thing and jazz player
*scott got a bag
-sat on shore and watched punters go by
-ran to the evensong
-beautiful evensong at Trinity College with the polyphony conductor again
-came back and got tix for Venice and made plans for Brighton

5/19/10 Wednesday

Tonight we sat in on the rehearsal for the Holst singers at Temple Church.   I loved the architecture.  This simple gothic design is just so beautiful and gothic stained glass is my favorite.  The colors are so rich and vibrant.  I was soooo ready for beautiful music.  We talked in class about how the Holst singers are probably the group that we, as BYU students, could relate to the most.  They are not considered a professional choir and most of them work in careers other than singing or so I was told by members of the choir.  As I was sitting there listening I had a thought about acoustics and physics really playing a role for a choir.  Something as simple as elevating the men on chairs behind the women drastically changed the sound for the rehearsal.  

In regards to the singers, I felt that their sight reading was pretty decent but I'm wondering how they pull of coming together for so few rehearsals and sight read their music and manage to polish it in time for a concert?  I could see how connected these singers are to their conductor though.  This is something I haven't noticed as much with other groups.  There intonation was pretty great and I was particularly impressed with the sopranos hitting large interval jumps with such accuracy.  It sounded to me like they were singing right in the center of the pitch and I was highly impressed.  In "Praise Ye the Lord" I lost their consonants a little bit but, I think they made up for it in "Come Jesus Come".  What a moving piece.

-class was long today

-lunch of pasta at my flat

-little Venice

*chatting with this random couple

*walking, getting on bus, going back

*looking for cool stuff, the zoo the market...nothing
-we tried to find the puppet museum but it turns out to be like 12 pounds for adult tix
-took a nap in the park
-boarded the tube and went to Temple church
*we were there like 5 min late and everyone was already gone from the appointed meeting spot
-arrived in the church where the Da Vinci code was filmed, georgeous stained glass windows
*director directed polyphony also
*chatted with members of the choir
*got a ride to the grocery store from a member of the choir
*talked with the casheer from France