Skip to main content

International Gala Concert - Male Voice Choirs, Truro 5 May 2007

When I was small I played snap, or pairs, with a favourite pack of cards. The pictures that had to be matched were children in their national costumes and I loved just looking at them and wondering what their lives were like. Nationalism has been a dirty word since the 1940s, with our post fascism and post-colonialism sensibilities, and homogeneity is making so much of the world seem bland but tonight, the wide range of difference is delightful in its variety.

On the day the SNP are celebrating in Scotland, the Hall for Cornwall is filled with choirs from all over the world; a celebration of nationalism and diversity. The farthest travelled are the Birralee Blokes from Australia, who open this evening's concert with three perfectly arranged and performed pieces. These guys all look under twenty years old and it’s great to see young men taking to choral singing, and great to hear that choirs are so keen to come to this annual series of concerts that some are having to wait a couple of years for a slot.

There are European choirs here too, and there’s a noticeable folk flavour to some of the pieces; although I’m expecting the traditional three part rhythm there are many in two, or four. It’s fascinating how many of the pieces performed have a strongly Eastern feel, taking the imagination to Russia and beyond. I remember last year’s concert where the Latvian and Estonian choirs had the audience in raptures. I guess folk music is in our very bones. I do hear it’s the new jazz.

The theatre is packed, and hot, and people are grumbling but it’s a small discomfort and anyway some people absolutely revel in complaining. The pleasure is all in absorbing the sounds as they thrill the air in the auditorium, and steal upon our ears, like a lover’s whisper. A few of the choirs have chosen to sing African melodies and these work their way through the body, tickle and soothe the spirit, to make an ancient, primal connection.

The Swedish Linkoping University Male Voice Choir creates a wonderful mood; their harmonies blend and tone to produce a glorious, uplifting sound. Hungary, Germany and Brittany are represented, and of course Wales and Cornwall. The full, deep voices of the Cornish choirs, and the angelic harmonies of the Dowlais Male Choir from Wales strike a particularly heart-warming note with me. I feel proud to be different, happy to identify with the Breton, Welsh and Cornish singers; my Celtic nations. Our histories are intriguing; I still wonder what all the different lives are like. Maybe I should go on a modern Grand Tour of old Europe - Celt in a VW goes East. Could be a book in it.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GLORIOUS 39. Dir Stephen Poliakoff. 2009

Glorious 39 strips away illusions. Poliakoff presents the apparent idyll of an English aristocratic family headed by genteel patriarch Lord Keyes (Bill Nighy). He presides over a country estate in Norfolk and his elegant townhouse in London – a world of golden light, romantic ruins, servants, house parties and happy children. But this is 1939, a mere 21 years since the Great War, the war to end all wars, in which millions died, Britain was crippled with war debt, and the English country house system which he so values was almost annihilated. There are many references to the ancientness of his family and tradition, but now, few male servants remained alive or unmaimed to work the English landscape or to be in service to the old families. Fearing domestic and political upheaval, appeasers such as Keyes sought to prevent Churchill leading the country and taking Britan to war, and to buy off Hitler to preserve British cultural and national identity. Nighty is excellent, contro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Running ‘till your nipples bleed

An email from a friend of mine arrives; she complains that, at work, she is routinely subjected to gruesome accounts of female colleagues’ intimate medical procedures and gynaecological problems. I am all commiseration because I, too, have had years of listening to workplace chats about periods, childbirth and sex lives. Oh please. Later, I wander off for a walk in the early evening sunshine and it is so silent and so beautiful that I flop down on the grass and lay awhile gazing out over the rolling fields, and the mouth of the river, and fall into a reverie. Two men pass by. A few minutes later sounds of women’s talk float nearer and, by the time the two females of the species draw level with me, I have risen up from my deliciously recumbent position in the meadow, alert and tense, something like a meerkat. “I do feel for her. Going down that IVF route is such an emotional roller coaster. I was never prepared for how terrible it was going to be.” I remain frozen in my meerkat position...
Post a Comment
Read more

MAN ON WIRE. Dir James Marsh. 2008

Enthralling documentary about young Frenchman Philippe Petit, whose breathtaking audacity gets Enthralling documentary about young Frenchman Philippe Petit, whose breathtaking audacity gets him arrested for the ‘artistic crime of the century.’ Man on Wire has a strong theme of destiny throughout. Magician and unicyclist, the teenage Philippe sees a magazine article about the building of the twin towers of the World Trace Center in New York. At that moment his life’s purpose is clear. Everything he does is focused upon this one aim: to wire walk between the two buildings, half a mile above ground level. As bold and daring as a bank raid, the team manages to get onto the top floor of the Twin Towers, ready for the attempt. Film maker James Marsh uses archive footage, photographs, interviews, recreations and graphics to conjure up a dizzying, exhilarating film. Refreshingly dismissive of rules, Philippe has no time or patience for limits and restrictions. Driven by his pa...
Post a Comment
Read more