Choral news
15/1/2009
Exciting news from the land of Robinson Chapel Choir: the summer tour to Hong Kong has been confirmed. And, what's more, the climax is gonna be a particularly massive concert (an expected audience of around 2000), with us, Hayley Westenra and Yundi Li* :-D. We're going to have to be pretty good by September to justify all this, but I can't wait.
And, as if Hong Kong in September wasn't exciting enough, we're going to Peterborough in a couple of days as well. Bet Kings Choir don't have as much fun as that :-P
*I'll admit that I hadn't heard of him before, but just have a look at that bio. I'm fairly convinced now that I'm more excited about him than about the person I had heard of...
There is a war going on for your mind
7/1/2009
I was introduced to Flobots by Pip's blog a few months back, then got the album for christmas. It's some good stuff, and it's adding to the growing chunk of whatcha might call "urban" music on my music box... Rap and related genres seem to be very good at occasionally producing people who take political awareness seriously - to the extent that I suspect all my urban music is political. There's no official video for this, one of the finest songs on the album, yet, so just turn up the volume, press play and turn the monitor off for a few minutes:
This particular track, it has to be said, does set out their ideology, whereas perhaps they're at their best when simply exhorting you to think for yourself. (As it happens, I agree with much of their ideology as it's expressed here, which does help ;-)). It sometimes shocks me awake to realise that there are so many bits of music - and indeed art, radio, even the odd bit of television - the sole purpose of which is to persuade their audience to think. It seems odd that this should be necessary... Then of course I realise that they are but a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, compared to all the forces designed to stop people thinking.
There is a war going on for your mind
If you are thinking, you are winning