Day 4 - York: More laundry, The Festival Consort, Rose Consort of Viols, and The City Musick

Ahh, Laundromats.  Oops, I mean Launderettes.  We have gotten officially fed up with smelling like we wash our own clothes, so Allison went to a little laundry place here in York (Allison's Note:  Husband, are you criticizing my laundry-washing-in-a-tub skillz??  My arms are still sore from that adventure).  Other than the oppressive shop owner ("Excuse me madam, you are closing the dryer door too loudly, let me show you how to do it"), everything went well and we now have nice smelling clothes (As does half of York, today was a busy day at the laundromat, but most people just dropped off their dirty clothes, and most of them were bachelors.... ha!)  The do-your-own-laundry thing work for serious backpacking and was a good idea in London, but now that we have a small home base in a smaller city (and 9 days in the same place!) we decided to find other ways to be fresh-from-a-spring-meadow clean.  (Translation:  Some smells can't be scrubbed out by hand.)


Allison, Daniel and I met for lunch at The Roman Bath Pub, a little place with a 1,950 year old Roman bath in the basement!  The ruins are set up like a small museum and you pay a few pounds and you can see it and have the very helpful museum owner give you an introduction.  

The Romans never looked so Tudor

A Roman Bath.  Under a Pub.  Behind an electronics store.

It's interesting - the Roman street level was about 10-12 feet below the current York street level.  (In the museum, the ceiling above your head is current street level and what you're standing on was Roman street level.)  I suppose that makes plenty of sense but I hadn't thought about it. Anyway, it was fascinating to see things that old AND they had Roman armor you could try on in the corner. (Left the camera... sorry!)


We were busy today with two concerts, both were excellent.

The lunch time concert was the Festival Consort, a vocal quintet made up of various performers from various ensembles performing in the festival and the The Rose Consort of Viols:

This 1:00 PM concert featured the music of Peter Philips (1560-1628) and Richard Dering (1580-1630).  It also obviously featured the "Viol".  Viols are not used today in your typical orchestra but were used in early music, specifically developed during the Renaissance.  The tend to come in a few sizes as you can see below.  Such an interesting sound is produced from this type of instrument!  The first thing I noticed is how relatively soft the overall sound of the group was.  With the improvement in instrument production and the quality of materials used, our modern decedents from such instruments produce a louder sound that can be heard clearly at the back of a room.  The group's sound was light, stringy (in a good way!) and very pleasant to hear.  (The instruments have gut strings (like nylon) instead of metal - that also makes them softer.) 

From left to right: recorder, bass viol (on floor), cittern (darker guitar-looking thingy, played melody and chords), lute (lighter guitar-looking thingy, played mostly melody), the singer, bandora (mandolin-looking thingy, played mostly chords

The bandora

McSteamy playing the cittern

The concert was held at the National Center for Early Music here in York.  Their concert hall was formerly an old church but has been renovated for performance purposes.  It looked like a medieval banquet hall, with real candles and huge windows used for natural lighting rather than light bulbs.  The ceiling had a Tudor look with wooden beams stretched far above us.  Ironically, among all this period architecture and decorating, there are 21st century sound panels, similar to what I have in my band room to make the room less "live".  Hearing these period instruments in this setting makes me quite excited to see the instruments up close at Oxford University's Bate Early Music Instrument Collection.  It also makes me thankful for the improvements in instrument production that we have today.

It was nice to hear some instrumental music - it has pretty much all been vocal so far, but there's a good mix for the rest of the time, as well as several other performance halls that are really unique and REALLY old...although I'm really looking forward to our last concert in York because it's back in the cathedral!

Day 3 - York: Church at York Minster Cathedral

We went to church in the largest cathedral in Northern Europe today!  How about that! 

So amazing

Listen to the video below - York Minster has 32 bells that are rung on Sundays and some holidays by hand.  Turn it up really loud and it's exactly what we heard out our window this morning at 9am (The bells rang from 9-10 AM)!  Amazing!

The services at York Minster are Anglican (Church of England) – if you’ve never been to a traditional Anglican service, it’s pretty similar to a Catholic service…minus the whole transubstantiation thing and a few other parts…  It’s kind of in between a Catholic service and a traditional Lutheran service.  The choir was beautiful, especially the children.  Hearing the children’s voices soar above the adults into a huge stone space is just incredible.  You could look up at the ceiling and forget that you weren’t huddled in there worshipping with your fellow peasants in the 1200s!  There is so much singing in this type of service, both by the choir and by the congregation.  The row of older adults behind us had a gusto all their own :-)  (Allison's Note:  Then there's me sitting between Andrew and Daniel.  Andrew has a beautiful voice and Daniels is like an opera star in Kentucky.  Huge voice + Me + Huge voice = intimidation).  Hearing the organ was great, too…I’m no lover of solo organ music, but hearing such a beautiful instrument in a place like that kind of blows your mind.

The main organ - from the 1800's because a fire destroyed the previous one

Look at the detail on the pipes!

It was a Eucharist (Communion) service, so we were able to participate.  There were apparently a huge number of people there today since there are horse races, the Early Music Festival, and some other event going on in the city this week, not to mention the fact that it was a special service for the big wigs of the Church of England.  The priest who gave the sermon was the Bishop of Copenhagen.  After the service we had tea and biscuits in a back chapel – just like going to some fellowship hall in a church at home and grabbing a cup of coffee after the service, only you’re surrounded by 600 year old stained glass and stone, and some knight probably took some sort of vow where you’re standing and looking longingly at the empty biscuit tin.  Again, this puts many things into perspective.   

I declare and appoint thee Sir Andrew, Lord of the Early Music Festival 

Allison:  We spent the remainder of the day walking around York and the remainder of the medieval wall (which I evidently spelled wrong 5 times yesterday... my bad!),  At one point I lost my black cardigan sweater on a walk back to the B&B.  I retraced my steps to every shop we stopped at, all the shop owners were so compassionate and helped me look around but we couldn't find the sweater.  "Oh sorry deary, we just feel so poorly for you."  Then, a lady a block away found me walking outside and said she overheard me discussing my missing jacket and that she found a jacket on one of the city walls we had walked by earlier in the day.  It was mine : )  I went back and all the shop owners were so excited for me.  "Oh deary, my husband said he saw that jacket when he was on the walls" (Really??!)  Love these cute English people in York!!
Here are a few pictures from around York, I think I've fallen in love with this place!

View of York Minster from upstairs through a window

Because...why wouldn't you name a street this?

Take that, dachshunds

I feel that when I'm 85, I will own a shop like this.
It will make no money, but it will be named "The Blue Bike" and have a blue bike parked outside

Took this pic for my friend Karen : )

Soooo... I made the boys get "high tea".  HA!!  Look at their faces!!!

This picture is for all you sissys out there that think eggs have to be kept in the refrigerator.
This is on the grocery aisle shelves, not the refrigerated section.  Eggs, can in fact, be left out!

View from the wall around York - this is the original Roman fortification from 37AD!

York Minster from the wall

I want the view from my house to look like this... Katy... sigh

Backyard parties in England... way better than Houston

Inside the wall fortification thing... 

Can you guess what time of NIGHT this is??  Hint:  It's not 6 PM, or 7 or 8 or even 9 PM!!

**By the way, in case you are checking this with baited breath 5 times a day to see when we’re posting some videos (I know you all are :-), we’re trying hard to get videos posted but it’s really difficult with the wifi connections over here.  It takes forever just to load a picture!  We tried to upload several at a time in London and left it to upload all night and it ended by saying we had an error.  We’ve decreased the picture size of the ones we post which helps, but video has proven pretty impossible.  Unless we find a faster connection in York or maybe Oxford, we’ll probably just post all the videos under a video tab on the blog when we get back.**

Day 2 - York: Workshop for Voices, The English Concert

Today was a good day.

Walking York's medieval city wall

I got to have some alone time!  The guys, Andrew and Daniel, attended a vocalists' medieval music workshop which I excluded myself from mostly because I woudn't want to subject the workshop attendees to my voice.  My poor band kids have to listen to me sing parts all the time, it's really a wonder that the program is growing.  Anyway, I'll let Andrew tell you about his nerd workshop below.  I had a great morning.  We had breakfast and then I decided to have my first run here in York.  I was intending to go running in Hyde Park in London, but we were just to busy and tired from walking so many miles everyday that we didn't.  York, as I mentioned yesterday, is beautiful.  The River Ouse runs directly through town and the wonderful city of York has put in a riverside running/walking/biking trail that runs for miles, even past the city.  So while the boys workshopped, I ran 5 miles along the river in York (Aren't you proud of me, Devon?!)!  

Here are a couple of observations:

1.  Running is far more exciting in a foreign country

2.  Running is great practice for driving in a foreign country, you have to run on the opposite side!

3.  Running in 60 degree weather vs. 100 degree weather makes me like running!

4.  Running through farms, hills and dales is so much more gratifying than running on concrete in Houston.

Quaint York

After that I meandered through town.  Having never been here, I have to say it is officially my favorite small town that I've ever visited.  The history of this place is pretty awesome.  Remember Constantine?  Roman Emperor?  York originally was called Eboracum back in AD 71 and Constantine was crowned emperor here!  Skip ahead a few hundred years to the year 627and a church was built; more on that later.  The Vikings took over, then the Danish and finally the Normans who fortified the city with a wall; more on that later.  During medieval times, York became England's second biggest city with Henry VIII using the church I mentioned earlier, "York Minster", as his Anglican Church's northern capital.  

The trees kind of block the view and look small, but the trees are HUGE

York Minster Cathedral is unbelievable.  (Andrew's Note:  What you see above is about 23 1/2 steps from the place we're staying.)  Gothic design at its absolute best.  If you've been to Westminster but not York Minster, there really is no comparison.  York Minister is shockingly tall, beautiful, ornate, and it honestly just astounds you.  It's visible from nearly every point in the city of York, all directions are given in relation to it.  We're attending church there tomorrow, so we'll give you the scoop on the inside for that later.  

I spent some time in town.  My Nook and I had "high tea" at the Earl Grey Tea Shop.  It was lovely!  (Nice - sounding British already!)  Scones, egg and watercress sandwiches, tea, a good book and no boys.  Yes.  I did some shopping in the center of York, which is the location of the "Shambles" street.  It is billed the most picturesque street in Europe, although to get a people-free picture you have to get there at like 4 AM.  (Not happening).  Shambles came from the word shammell, meaning a butcher's cutting block because the street used to house rows of butchers.  The Tudor buildings are so quaint and the shopfronts make you want to buy way too many unnecessary things.  I found a cute pink coat (very, very necessary, husband) that will be great for football season with the band.  (That's OK...I'm pretty sure I'll find a VERY necessary $800 kilt in Scotland.  In fact, I'm sure of it.) 

Tea time is much better without boys

The Nook, my date

The Shambles

More Shambles

Some meat sellers still located in the Shambles area

 I then headed to hear the impromptu performance put on by the medieval vocal workshop the boys had been in all day.  It was really neat to hear music that had just been found and not yet published be sung for the first time since the 1500s.  Wow!  (It was a great little workshop - although I could've done with about 2 hours less of it :-)  We rehearsed a William Byrd Mass written for the Catholics for the first 2 hours and got some really good insight into why he wrote it and the correct way to sing a piece from that period.  Bottom line = measure lines are a pesky modern invention, pay no attention to them!  Sing the line!  Our director never did tell us exactly what he does for a living, but he was incredibly knowledgeable about all things early music.  He may have been a professor, probably at the University of York.  The folks who came to sing ranged from "enthusiastic amateurs" (as they called themselves) to early music professors (as we found out when one tenor piped up and said, "Pip pip, your score for the Dering motet has an error in the Latin - it should be the plural of the word in bar 31!"  Somewhat intimidating :-)  Anyway, we broke for lunch and came back for another 2 hours of rehearsing on some little known pieces by the late renaissance/early baroque composer Richard Dering.  We had a little performance of Byrd's Mass for 4 Voices and the 4 Dering pieces we read through.  A little rough, but fun!

Bad picture... sorry.  Andrew and Daniel are in the top right

After the "concert", we did some walking around York's 2 or so miles of medieval wall.

Walking the 2 mile wall around York

Following this concert, Andrew and I went to hear the talented English Concert.  This group features all instrumentalists (yay!), such as the familiar:  oboe, cello, viola, violins, double bass, and the not so familiar:  theorbo and harpsichord.  The concert featured music of Handel and Vivaldi.  Quite impressive!!  Here is what we heard:

Handel-  Concerto grosso in B flat Op. 3 no. 2

Vivaldi-  Cello Concerto in A minor, RV420

Handel-  Armida abbandonata, HWV105

Handel-  Alpestre monte, HWV81

Handel-  Three arias from Agrippina, HWV6

Vivaldi wrote at least 28 cello concertos.  It wasn't so much that he loved the cello, more that people were willing to pay him to write them, so he did!  The third work listed is a beautiful cantata.  During the time of Handel, opera was banned in Rome by the Pope, but the people like Opera, and the secular cantata, being a similar format, was the perfect substitute for composers to use without getting into trouble.  Enough nerd from me.  (And me!)    

New pink coat!  And it's cold enough to use!

Day 6: London to York and Biscuits

Today was supposed to be a "I'm not doing my hair today" so don't take a pic of me day.
As usual, I'm learning flexibility.  And to always do my hair.  

Kings Cross Station at Platform 9 3/4 was our departure station to York.  I call that fate.
We all got pictures.  If you don't know what Platform 9 3/4  is,
you have a very sad, sad life.  

Off to York!

We took the train to York, England today around noon.  You really have to admire the UK's efficient transportation system, I wish Houston were this easy to get around.  I spent much of the trip reading, while Daniel and Andrew ate Dark Chocolate Digestives.  And by ate, I mean they finished two packages of the cookies.. I mean biscuits.  (Andrew's Note: Biscuits!!)  Things get ugly if you call biscuits "cookies" here.  Andrew is obsessed with the whole biscuits thing.  He has this book called "Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down".  And no, I didn't make that up.  It gives all sorts of lovely biscuits to eat with your "cuppa" (cup of tea).  Oh, and there's a website.  He checks this weekly in case there's any pressing news on the biscuit front.... this is a whole new level of nerd folks.  (I haven't checked it weekly in about two years!  They've stopped posting :-(  I suppose there's not enough demand for biscuit knowledge.)

There's like a thousand calories in two biscuits, each package holds like 20,
and they ate two whole packages.

We got to York, five pounds heavier.  (And five times more awesome!)  I'll give more background on how awesome this town is on another post, I'm too tired from ... sitting... in the train.... and watching boys eat biscuits.  Needless to say, it's quaint and wonderful and perfectly English.  We have 9 days here so we're super excited to take it easy and explore the Roman ruins, the "Shambles" (the most picturesque streets in Europe), go hiking, and just relax.  And attend two Early Music concerts a day from the York Early Music Festival.  Can't say thank you enough to Fund for Teachers for this opportunity!!

We're staying at this awesome B&B, "The Lamb and Lion Inn".  Having never stayed in a B&B before, Andrew and I were pretty excited, especially about the towels in the bathroom!!  So plush and fuzzy!!  Our room is super cute, not expensive, free and fast wifi, and breakfast is included.  Love it!  The people in the pub downstairs just told us that it was rated by some travel magazine as one of the best places to stay in all of Europe for under one hundred pounds.  I wrote out 'one hundred pounds' because I can't find a pound sign in word on the computer.   Pounds.  The owner's name is Brian, he carried my bag up three floors to my room.  Andrew forgot to tip him but he seemed to still like us.  We like Brian.  And York.  (We chose this place on a whim, mostly for the location (about 500 feet from York Minster Cathedral) and the mid-range price...we had no idea it was going to be such a gem!)

So so cute!  Dahh!!!  Love it!  

So much space for a British loo!!!   And the towels!
Will have to get a picture in tomorrow of the towels!

The first concert of the York Early Music Festival was by the Gabrieli Consort!  The concert was held in York Minster Cathedral, more on that later.  Let's just say there's been a church there since around 630 AD. Yes.  That's not a typo.  Andrew can give you further details of the concert, he was salivating the entire time.  (Indeed.  The Gabrieli Consort is a group of about 25 professional singers started about 30 years ago and they are amazing.  They did a concert based around the 16th century composer William Byrd's Great Service - basically Anglican (Church of England) service music for morning and evening prayer.  William Byrd is interesting...usually composers in this time were either famous for writing music for the Catholic church or music for the Protestant church.  Depending on the religious preference of the King/Queen, you could look forward to either a comfy career or getting thrown out on the street (if not being burned at the stake!)  Byrd wrote music for the Catholic church and the Anglican (Protestant) church - it was all so good that he managed to keep his job (and his head) through the ebb and flow of religious persecution from both sides.  
Byrd's music was the majority of the concert, along with a couple of modern pieces:


*Gabriel Jackson (20th century) - To Morning
*William Byrd - Great Service - Venite, Te deum, Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc dimitis
*Anonymous 14-15th century hymns - Iam lucris orto sidere, Rector potens, verax Deus, Te lucis ante terminum
*Jonathan Dove (20th century) - Full Many A Glorious Morning, Care-charmer Sleep
*Eric Whitacre (20th century) - Sleep (Possibly one of my and Allison's favorite all time pieces!!)
     
I liked the concert but was way too distracted by the amazing architecture.  (It is definitely hard in these places to not drift off into thinking about how the stone that your feet are sitting on has possibly been there for 1,400 years!)  One of my graduating band students, Taylor, is studying architecture... I expect my next band room to be built with a ceiling like this, Taylor:

The Gabrieli Consort in York Minster Cathedral.  WOW.

The last piece, "Sleep" is probably Eric Whitacre's most famous piece along with maybe "Lux Arumque" - look them up on iTunes, turn up your speakers, and just let the sounds lull you into a music coma.  It will.  His songs are like nothing out there.  He has written a few works for band, but most are for advanced groups.  There is one piece entitled "October" that I'm considering doing with my band this year... jury's still out on it though.  I'll have to see how strong my woodwinds are in the tuning department.  Keeping my finger's crossed though, I'd really like to attempt it!

Here is "Sleep" done by the St. Olaf Choir, conducted by Eric Whitacre himself.  Turn up your speakers really high... Do it.

 (And by the way, Grace Choir peeps - they ended the entire concert tonight with a similar arrangement of "Tallis' Canon" that we did on our Spring Concert last year!  How do you like that?!?)

Last Day In London - Harry Potter, Jellied Eels, and King's Singers!

Harry Potter Day!!!!  

Something is buzzing in London

Just kidding… but no, seriously.  I’ve been obsessed with the books since I read them in college.  As I started my freshmen year at Asbury University, Harry started his first year at Hogwarts.  Tear… Gag.  Love these books.  Read them too many times to tell you without being embarrassed.  (Andrew’s Note: Me too!)  Dressed up for the book and movie releases.  (Me too!)  Been to every midnight showing and release party with the hubby and recently, with some of my favorite Harry-Nerds, Jordan, Julia and Anthony!  (Yes.)  I can’t wait to have kids just so I can read them the books much like my dad read me “The Hobbit” by J.R. Tolkien when I was in first grade. 

Today was the UK movie premiere, which is when all the Potter stars come to Leicester Square to see the first showing of the movie; we commoners won’t get to see it until next weekend.  Regardless, we signed up for the Harry Potter Walking Tour at noon.  It met in the thick of things at Leicester Square which was huge fun.  It was like a midnight showing in the US, but way more intense.  Some of these Brits had been camped out since Monday in tents to see the stars walk down the red carpet.  There was even a girl from Argentina who had come to see the premiere.  I appreciate devoted fans, as I consider myself one of them.  Way to go Argentina.  Anyway, if you were one of the first 3,000 to get a wrist band, you got to attend a red carpet party at Trafalgar Square before the red carpet walk at Leicester Square.  Needless to say, London was Potterified today.  It’s like the closing of an era here and they’re making the most of it. 

We met our tour guide in the center of the nerds.  He yells out, “Who is here for the Harry Potter walking tour?”  About 3,000 people turned their heads and started salivating.  No kidding.  We signed with about 40 other people and the tour began.  The really funny thing is that we walked less than a block to get away from the Potter mania, and 3/4 of the tour group got lost.  We went from 40 to 10 in about two minutes… poor tour guy, he thought he was going to lose his job.  (It’s true.  He said he’s lost one or two from time to time along the tour, but never the majority of them before he’s even said a word.)  However, if you’re going to lose a Harry Potter tour group, what a better way to lose them then in a HP movie premiere?  J  We walked all over the city of London, and saw all sorts of sites from the film locations to the inspirations for locations that J.K. Rowling wrote about.  However, it was pouring the whole time.  Pouring!! Boo!  (That might be a little dramatic..it poured for about the first 45 minutes, then a few more times for 5 or 10 minutes here and there.  It was slightly miserable since we walked the streets for about 2 ½ hours, but our AWESOME R.E.I. raincoats helped so much!)  We were drenched from about the waist down, but it was so worth it.  I’m definitely going to find a way to make my band kids view all my pictures from the tour.  Must find a way to relate it to band class… must.  (Play Harry Potter next year!)

Kind of ghetto, but they had to set up something for the
tourists, even if it's not technically in King's Cross Station

After the Harry Potter Swimmin….I mean Walking Tour, we fulfilled one of my have-to-dos for lunch.  About 2 years  ago, we saw a Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Food Network where he went to London and stopped at a shop called F. Cooke & Sons.  It’s a tiny shop in a London suburb that has been feeding London workers the same thing for 180 years – EELS!  Little river eels.  (If, at this point, you want to stop reading to freak out for a minute or two go for it.  I’ve had 6 years of marriage to Andrew to not be weirded out by his fascination with all things not normal, you’ve had 5 blog posts.  There’s only so much we can expect of you…………..  Better?  And…. Back to eels :)  They also serve pies and mash, which is a small beef pie with a mountain of mashed potatoes.  Very stick-to-your-ribs food for a full day of working.  Andrew Zimmern got a bowl full of jellied eels and loved everything; from the eels to the green sauce they slather everything with to the ambiance of the place.  Sure enough, I plotted us a course through 4 or 5 tube stops and then about a mile’s walk through random borough and we found it!  Daniel and Allison and I each got a pie n’ mash and I got a bowl of jellied eels :-)  They were actually way better than I expected!  The eels themselves were meaty like cooked tuna, but a little softer and hardly fishy at all - almost like a piece of soft swordfish steak.  You do have to be careful and eat around the spine…it’s really sharp and angry.  (I love eating at restaurants where there are no tourists and the owners have to tell you how to eat the food.  Ether we come off as idiots… a lot…or we eat at really bizarre places.  Could be an unfortunate combination of the two…. Sigh)  The clear jelly around them was odd – like a salty brine.  When we paid, we told the lady how much we enjoyed the food and she was thrilled to hear that we saw the shop on TV 2 years ago and made a special trip out there to go.  She said the restaurant has been in her family since it was started in the 1800s.  Full, happy (?), and culturally satisfied, we set back off for London (although my socks were still a little wet from the morning!)

Me being excited and Daniel contemplating why he came with us to this particular outing....

Jellied eels on the left, pie n' mash in green sauce on the right!  Stick to your ribs, coal mining  food!

I call this picture "Navigating the Spines"

Awesome.  Notice my Harry Potter shirt, too!

The City of London Festival Concert tonight was one we had been looking forward to very much.  The King’s Singers are a very famous group of men who have been around for a very long time.  They are fairly unique because they are a men’s group who sing 4-6 part music.  The two guys singing countertenor sing what would be the soprano and alto parts.  It’s amazing – the older of the two has this beautiful, clear-as-a-bell falsetto tone that gives me goose bumps.  Their program was varied with new and older songs: (Alright nerds, the concert had a theme… can you guess what it was?)

Bennett – All Creatures Now are Merry-Minded

Weelkes – The Nightingale, The Organ of Delight

Ligeti – The Cukoo in the Pear Tree, Two Dreams and Little Bat, The Lobster Quadrille, A Long Sad Tale

Bartlet – Of All the Birds That I Do Know

Gibbons – The Silver Swan

Ravencroft – The Three Ravens

Wilbye – Sweet Honey-Sucking Bees

Williamson – The Musicians of Bremen

Kats-Chermin – River’s Lament

Various songs that they love – Beatles, Paul Simon, etc.

A few of these were Renaissance madrigals, and the Ligeti pieces were 20^th century madrigals that were some of the most difficult choral pieces we’ve ever heard (Sounded a lot like the composer said “you have to sing every note in a different key than the next guy and also in a different time signature…. Go”.  According to the program, Gibbons’ “The Silver Swan”, about a mute swan who, when dying, sang that “more geese than swans now live, more fools than wise”, is about the passing of the madrigal tradition itself.  I didn’t know that!  My very favorite was Williamson’s “The Musicians of Bremen”, a piece that was recently composed for the King’s Singers.  It’s about a cat, dog, donkey, and rooster who decide that they are old and of no more use and want to go apply to be musicians in Bremen because they are supposedly accepting applications.  It was really fun to listen to and BRILLIANTLY composed for each animal. 

Another beautiful venue - The Mansion House, home of the Lord Mayor of London!

The King's Singers!

(**Choir nerd alert!!  Students, take notes!!**) Listening to this group sing really reinforced the notion that singing the same vowel shape across the group does HUGE things for your tuning.  They have mastered this of course, so every single one of them had exactly the same vowel shape for every single note.  They also sing in the British style of little or no vibrato (depending on the piece), so there is nothing to mask being perfectly in tune.  It is a sight to see!  Or….a sound to hear!  Whew! (I’m even embarrassed at how nerdy that was husband!  Way to go!  But in all seriousness, Andrew does know a thing or two about the vowel concept; you should hear his (Grace School) and his mom’s (Gwinnett Young Singers) choirs.  WOW.  They do the vowel thing like few other children’s choirs!)

What a fantastic way to wrap up London!  We’re sad to see London go, but tomorrow we are off to York and the real musical meat and potatoes of our trip at the York Early Music Festival.  London is Allison’s favorite city in the world (yes yes) and I had hoped that it would live up to my expectations, and it really has.  I love this city!!!