Empty chairs and empty tables.

... is a favourite song of mine from the musical Les Miserables.

Have you seen it?  I saw it in London about two years ago.  BRILLIANT stuff, I must say.  Very stirring stuff.

Good thing they're bringing out (yet another) movie version, for all you people adversely against the theatre.
Uncultured people.

Anne Hathaway has shorter-than-pixie hair.
Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen play the Thenardiers.
And then there's Hugh Jackman, The Drover.  Enough said.



So I'm sitting here, eating the last few frozen mint slices (yes, frozen).  Where is here, you ask?
Why, at my new dining room table and chairs, of course!

(source - because I can't be bothered to take photos just yet ..)

We have been enjoying eating our dinner on a table, not on our laps.  We no longer stoop over ourselves to eat.  Oh, what joy!  Although, we are sitting on plastic, as we have not scotch guarded the fancy chairs yet.  But we have our posture back!

And I have a table from which to blog.  And plan lessons.  And plan those other lessons.  And file them all away in my big white binders for posterity and dust.


( .. I'll get around to real photos of the house improvements soon ... ish.  Waitin' on some deliveries and some much needed extra time .. )

Thought for Friday.

 This is an example of something I will be performing in a week or so:

And now for something completely different ... something I came across by accident.  I loved it!!

And now this, simply because I'm a big fan of this movie which was released in the year I was born, and it just happens to be my birthday this weekend:

Have a great weekend, peoples!

Thought for Friday.

I had something else planned for today's Thought for Friday post, but I cannot go another day without posting the song that has been in my head for the past month.

I hum it all the time.

I really really like it.

So what do you have planned for the weekend?  The oh-so-glorious weekend?

Another favourite of Mindy's that I had in my head for, oh, my entire mission.

My past life

I used to sing in the Sydney Opera House.


How glamourous does that sound?  Well, not sure if glamourous is the word, but it sure was fun!  And exhausting.  And quite tedious, at times.  I miss it.

It took me around the other side of the world - you should totally click here.

The Sydney Philharmonia Choirs - that was the choral group I was with for past five years.  And, among other things, we would accompany the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the Opera House.  No, wait. THEY accompanied US.  Yes, that's right (although at times, it was much of a muchness.  All about territory, was it?).

We were volunteers.  No pay for us.  No monetary compensation.  We rehearsed every week for 3 hours, in the dark corner of the minimal-public-transportation section of the CBD; sang copious amount of music in many many languages, not always knowing what we were singing about; and endured language coaches who couldn't understand why we couldn't understand the difference between their pronounciation and ours.

Our chorusmaster was a top guy, who knows his stuff.  Brett (aka Bretty, to some fortunate people).

Brett recently remarked about some of the difficulties for us when singing in the Opera House.  Read them:  http://blogs.limelightmagazine.com.au/2011/04/08/working-with-choirs-is-like-no-other-job.  It's true.  As a high soprano, I was always placed on the end of the row, stage left, usually in the front.  I could always hear fellow sops (key women in the organisation, of course) belting it out with me .. only to hear the male half of the choir several seconds later, delayed by the reverb.  Always delayed.  Sometimes, disappeared.

Well.  That was Sydney.  Now I reside in Adelaide.  No Opera House here.  Not much at all, really.  Definately no dark corner of the CBD for me to wander though, no aussie and irish pubs filled with tourists with a not-so-flash man singing loudly with his guitar for entertainment (thank you George Street, with all your taxis and police cars every night, your plethera of boomerang, opal, and Ken Duncan-tshirt shops), no chic apartments on the water, with that random little glass gym underneath, next to couples sitting in dim lit restarants, ordering expensive little food on massive plates. 

Instead, I auditioned and now sing with the Adelaide Philharmonia Choir.  A smaller and more relaxed choir.  We sang last weekend with the Ino Choir from Japan.  They flew all the way over for the one concert.  It was beautiful, funny, and quite teary by the end.  Occasionally we sing evensong at St Peter's Cathedral.  Hollar if you're interested in listening.