The adventures of Miss Despina

Hello!

If anyone heard the daily service earlier on Radio 4, you might be interested to know that it was my choir singing. It was a lovely morning - in the church at 8.15 for tea, coffee and lemsip, then rehearsals til 9, then a run-through, then the service itself. We all felt very peaceful and uplifted afterwards, so we went across to Café Rouge and had brunch. As the only non-music student in the choir, I was finding it hard to get to know people at first, but everyone there is actually really friendly. Here’s a link that will eventually get you to Monday’s daily service, if you go down to the Ds and select it, but it’s not really that important. (I hasten to tell anyone who listens that I didn’t do any of the soli.)

Yesterday I was 45 minutes late to a rehearsal for Into The Woods. I walked in just as my first song was due to begin. "How are you for a top B flat Despi?" he asked. "Not a problem!" I said, and then realised that hardly anyone there knows me, and probably thinks I meant to sound like a complete arse! But the show is going well, the cast are lovely and my role is small but so pretty and complex that I should be able to craft it to perfection… Here’s hoping! As Rapunzel I get to do lots of "aaaaaah-ing" and screaming, then get squished by a giant, which, let’s face it, is far more imaginative than anything Puccini ever came up with!

Even though I’m slightly absent from their rehearsals at the moment, I’m currently doing lots of publicity for the wonderful City of Manchester Opera. We have a concert on December 1st which we need to push, and then a singing day on February 2nd, which we need to push even more. I love that group, I just hope we recruit loads of excellent people and grow and grow to such exciting proportions that we can one day stage an opera in its entirity!

And what else?

Oh yes, I’m rehearsing on Thursday with a friend who just happens to be the assistant organist at a local cathedral. It’s a hard life, I know, but someone has to do it…