Thursday 5/13/10

Rehearsal with The Sixteen (which actually is comprised of 18 singers tee hee)

The Prime Mer.  (I'm going to call it that because it sounds cool.)

Yea, that is the OLDEST THING ON EARTH...it's a piece of an asteroid.  awesome. 4.5 billion freaking years old.

Hey look ma, I'm on two sides of the world at once!

Scott and I are on opposite sides of the world.  I can feel his love on the other side of the world!!! (aka, I could still hug him across the prime mer! haha!)

Today began with another round of rehearsals.  We met all together to chat about our plans as a group for the day then divided to conquer our music for Oxford.  Dr. Staheli asked which groups thought their music was easy enough to just go with the roll out keyboards for the day.  For some reason, we all needed to rehearse at the same time today and couldn't do the come early stay late thing.  Nobody was volunteering so I raised my hand.  Based on our rehearsal the previous day, I thought we had a pretty decent grip on the music.  I hadn't realized that our rehearsal leader didn't feel the same nor did the other members of our group.  Oops.  Well we rehearsed with that and I think it made us stronger in the end.  It forced us to find and fix our problem spots. Right after rehearsal we dashed to the South Kensington tube station and then to the boat station where we boarded a little day cruiser and headed for Greenwich.  I have no idea why we didn't just go to the tube station right across the way from the boat loading area.  Whatever!  Scott and I napped on the boat ride naturally.  I remember being the flag girl on my family's boat when we went out to water ski and falling asleep on the boat all the time.  mmm sweet memories. As soon as we arrived Scott and I found an information center where they were answering questions and selling maps.  I asked the lady behind the counter if they had free maps.  She smiled this sassy smile, as if she was saying good job.  Way to figure out that you don't need to pay us 5 pounds for information and maps.  Our first stop was, of course, the Prime Meridian.  Is that the kind of thing you capitalize?  Is it a proper noun?  Anyway, we walked through this museum about space and astronomy.  I got really excited about Newton's "Principia Mathmatica", his book about physics and astronomy.  It was said to be bound with leather from his desk chair.  Being that I studied physics this last semester, I Got pretty excited about this book!  

gtttttttt555555555jjjjjjjj <---this is Scotts Contribution to my blog entry...he typed this with his nose trying to get in my way and obstruct my view.  Silly boy.  

Anywho, we walked through this lovely garden at the base of the prime meridian observatory and finally reached the prime meridian!!!  I think we accidentally entered the back way because the prime meridian we took pictures of vs. the prime meridian our friends took pictures of were very different!  Well, we took some pictures standing on opposite sides of the world...yada yada bla bla bla.  They are pretty cool I guess.  I think I was more excited about finding this back entrance!  It had the most beautiful view of Greenwich and the Royal Naval College.  I enjoyed learning about the connections between astronomy, time, and sailing.  There were also a surprising number of connections between what I learned there and what I have learned in the recent past.  When I was with Scott's mom, Bonnie, during General Conference, we went to replace Scott's watch battery.  There was a certificate on the wall saying something about horology which is the study of time.  As you can imagine, there is a school of horology there in Greenwich and there was a display of some of the oldest maritime clocks in the world.  In fact, this maritime clock collection is considered to be the finest and most expansive.  Oh boy!  Another interesting bit is that apparently if someone was trying to calculate longitude they were jokingly said to be insane.  Words to refer to the mentally ill actually became something like this "look at him, he's over there trying to find longitudes again".  In a really well known painting depicting Bedlam by Hogarth, there is a man in the background who is drawing latitudes and longitudes on the wall.  This ties not only to what I learned in abnormal psychology class but also into the text of a song that the BYU Singers performed last semester called "I Love My Love".  The opening line talks about a lover in Bedlam which was, historically,  an institution for the insane.  Thank you education. I feel so intelligent when I make connections like this!

Oh my lucky stars, today I got to hear The Sixteen rehearse and then perform.  It was such a unique opportunity to have their director, Harry Christophers, rehearsing them and then taking the time to chat with us about the group's history and the repertoir for that evenings concerts.  Blessed day.  I think it finally hit me today that these singers are 1: incredibly well trained and 2: incredible sight readers.  It's always interesting to me to see how a conductor puts his program together and Mr. Christophers took the time to explain that to us.  In 2000, the group began a sort of musical pilgrimage back to English roots.  Perfect for what we are studying!!!  We were delighted to hear the works of Byrd, Tallis, and Shepherd.  We've mostly looked at Byrd and Tallis and I felt well prepared to hear lot's of polyphony.  I loved hearing polyphonic music move the way it did.  There was such a beautiful shape to every line.  The typical shape for a musical line, if you were to draw it out, would be an arch.  I felt like each of their arches had so much variety!  Thank you Sixteen!  Their pitch was not as spot on as the Tallis scholars but they sure blended in an incredible way! Scott was feeling like the bass/ bari sound was a bit overwhelming at times but, my argument was that was what allowed the sopranos to sing so freely.  I could have cut the concert a smidge shorter because it is very difficult to remain focused after so much polyphony. :)

At the end of the concert we headed back for London with Emily, Steve, Jeff, Nathan, Sister Hall, and a member of The Sixteen who is also a member of the church.  Awesome!  This train from Greenwich was super cool.  There was a part where we were crossing over a water way leading to the Thames which reminded me of Oakland for some strange reason.  Then I remembered...silly Michelle, you're in London.