Brian Dickie

Rodolfus Choir

Rodolfus Choir and Inner Voices with Ralph Allwood, St John's Smith Square Tuesday December 31 2013

This wonderful choir gave a lovely 30th Anniversary concert at St John's Smith Square this afternoon.  And they even did one number with just 16 Alumni including Sophie Daneman, James Bowman, and Iestyn Davies!  And the last item was Parry's Blest Pair of Sirens with all members of the audience who had ever sung it joining in.  And that included me even though the last time was around 60 years ago when I was a treble.  I elected to sing 2nd tenor on this occasion!  No, I did not sing it from memory - they handed out copies of the vocal score to all who put their hands up!

The astonishing excellence of this choir of young people is entirely attributable to the work of the remarkable Ralph Allwood.  I am thrilled that my great niece Georgie is a member of Rodolfus.  Having left Bedales , where was a music scholar, she is at Manchester University studying architecture.  But music remains a dominant force in her young life.  And no wonder, with inspiration from Ralph Allwood and all the superb other young musicians in Rodolfus.  And this afternoon they had a guest conductor in Edward Gardner no less for a couple of numbers.........and another of Ralph Allwood's choirs - Inner Voices.

I was also delighted to see Al and Di Hume, whose son Alex is also a member of Rodolfus.  This choir has pedigree!

So all in all a really great way to finish off this year.  I will try to remain awake until midnight.  But I wont push my luck!

St John's Smith Square 4 pm Tuesday December 31 2013

Ups and downs of the Blog!

I was amused to find a huge spike in readership yesterday after a period of quiet indifference! Was this friends of Castleton or friends of Starbuck's that made it rock?!

Today has been very quiet - a family day for me and a brutal wet morning outside.  Tomorrow I will be at the Rodolfus Choir event at St John's Smith Square in the afternoon. And then who knows what New Year's Eve may bring.  Central London is a no go area on January 31 so I may just stay put. I have no craving to celebrate either the end of 2013 which has been a fun year, or to welcome in 2014 which looks fraught with the possibility of emulating 1914 - not a good year.........

Heartbreak on Michigan

There has been a death in the COT family - the Starbucks at the corner (almost) of Lake and Michigan closed today. 

This was our refuge for all the 13 years I was in Chicago - round the corner from the office and always passed by on the way from the bus stop to the office on Lake.  Or rather rarely passed by - they had the most wonderful staff whom we all got to know and love over the years. Nothing will be the same again. 

Well, I guess COT is not the same anyway..........so perhaps only I and the other old stagers will shed tears.  And I am in London not Chicago anyway so why should I care?  Well I do - its the final confirmation that this is the end of an era!

Update on my day in London - Chelsea have been playing Liverpool in the Premier league up the road at Stamford Bridge.  The District line is closed for maintenance and there is mayhem in the streets with tens of thousands of football fans trying to get home just at the moment that I would have been trying to get to the Barbican for the concert.  So I cut and ran!

I will have a nice quiet evening at home for the first time for a bit.

Photo: © Jerry Fuller

Castleton reunion!

Emily Becker, Charlotte Gulliver, Carmen Santoro, Paç Pavaci and Nancy Gustafson

What a happy time we had yesterday evening with a remarkable, and somewhat surreal, reunion of some of the Castleton team at Café Des in Covent Garden. Nancy Gustafson and Emily Becker had flown in from the US, Paç Pavaci (leader of the Castleton Festival Orchestra) was in London with his wife Carmen, and Charlotte Gulliver had taken a train up from Petersfield to be with us for this celebration at the Café des Amis off Floral Street in Covent Garden.

My Albanian friend Paç, whom I had seen just a few weeks ago in Tirana, is in London as guest leader of the Philharmonia Orchestra for their concert this evening at the Barbican. Paç now lives in Italy and is leader of the Bari Symphony Orchestra.  He is now an Italian citizen, and married to a wonderful musician Carmen Santoro. Carmen is a widely respected coach and pianist working in opera in Italy and throughout Europe, including a number of seasons in Wexford.

I will be at the Philharmonia concert this evening - a popular Beethoven program for the Christmas season.

The sun is shining is London today - beautiful.  But there is another rough storm around the corner.........

Charlton Athletic 3 - Brighton and Hove Albion 2

Yes, it is Boxing Day, a great day in the British football calendar.  And today I went with my eldest son and two of his three sons to the Championship League match up of Charlton v Brighton.

It was a curious coincidence that 60 years ago I went to my very first professional football match - and it was at this very same ground, Charlton Athletic's The Valley.  I was twelve years old.  And when that eldest son of mine was twelve, thirty two years ago, he and I went to his very first professional football match - it was at Brighton's Goldstone Ground.

I remember little about that first game I attended, other than the fact that one of our great heros, Eddie Firmani, was in the Charlton side.

It was great to be back at Charlton today, 60 years or so later.  And we were seated within yards of where I had sat with a school friend in 1953............such is life!  It was a great day out - maybe we will make a habit of it!

Happy Christmas everyone.........

Adriaen Isenbrandt - Bruges 16th Century

Sweet home Chicago!

As I spend Christmas in London 15 months after leaving Chicago, I was interested to read the authoratative review of the music year in Chicago published by Lawrence Johnson's excellent Chicago Classical Review website.

I feel homesick!

Pre-Christmas quiet........

St Paul's Cathedral 2:45 pm Sunday December 22 2013

I have completed all my Christmas preparations so went to St Paul's Cathedral yesterday afternoon for Evensong which included the blessing of the crib and the lighting of the Christmas trees in this magnificent Christopher Wren building.  This was just a nice prelude to the celebrations on Tuesday and Wednesday when commerce gives way at last to the real purpose.

It was a beautiful Sunday - but this Monday morning we are back to greyness again, and a nasty windy rain soaked 24 hours is forecast.

At Borough Market

It was a beautiful crisp morning and I made my way to London Bridge station and the excellent Borough Market - just the place for the best provisions for Christmas, and at perfectly reasonable prices for top quality stuff.  It stands in the shadow of the Shard and was buzzing today although when I arrived at 10 am it was still manageable.  It will be mayhem tomorrow......

Cheese, meat, poultry - wonderful chutneys, spices, and bread.  There is nothing lacking for your Christmas table. So if you are in London and have still not made the easy trip to London Bridge now is the time.

Do not expect too much.........

I will be pretty spasmocic in blog postings over the next two weeks so just enjoy your family time and be assured that I will be up and running on a daily basis early in the new year.

I had intended to go to Les Arts Florissants this evening at the Wigmore Hall - but a whole day out in the shopping mayhem of the West End this morning and the King's Road this afternoon finished me off for the day by 5 pm.  So I have just been wrapping stuff to put under the tree!  I will be at Borough Market tomorrow morning for Christmas provisions.  There might be some photo ops!

Meanwhile everyone seems to be going off for two weeks - offices closed from tomorrow until January 6.