October 31st

I finished the month with a finished video for my song Wavily Bobbily which was composed for a primary school who were also writing their own play. At this point in the story the two heroes had heard a terrible din coming from the ocean, so they donned their underwater gear and went to find what it was. They spotted several other things on their way.

October 30th

Today I designed posters and did lots of administrative tasks, then went to a committee meeting with samples of posters. There was a vote and it was a draw, so I’ve gone with my preferred option. The concert is filled with Glorias and Alleluias ….hence my search yesterday! Also today, I made a pizza with a soda bread base and lots of things from the fridge that needed using up. It was delicious.

October 29th

Today I went to Newcastle to photograph church windows. I was looking for one with a Gloria or a Hallelujah for our concert poster. I went in a lot of churches and did manage to find one in St. John The Baptist. There are some amazing windows around. Because I was studying them so closely, I saw all manner of things that you don’t see with a casual glance. Also today I did a bit of snorkeler drawing and animating for my next video.

October 28th

I finicked about with the Monteverdi again this morning before sending all the accompaniments off to Scott. I took the scenic route home from the post office and walked along the back lane to the church to see if there were any alleluias or glorias on the windows at the church to photograph, but no – so I’ll have to venture further afield tomorrow as I’m hoping for something of that nature for the background to our Christmas choir poster, which I need to design before Wednesday evening. Choir tonight was so very exhilarating – we had a good old crack at the Monteverdi, putting in all manner of interpretive phrasing and nuances, as well as jogging our memories with the notes. I decided that they’d worked hard enough after an hour and a quarter of that, so we romped through some carols with descants for the remainder. Then home to choiry thoughts, and then dreams!!!

October 27th

Today we went to Cragside and stayed there for several hours looking round the house and formal gardens and then finished with a big loop of walking – up around the drive, along the flume, around the back of the two big lakes, then back down through the woodland and area of huge rocks to the house again. It was a gloriously sunny day and I stopped to take some pictures. I might write a song about it in fact.

Later, I continued with a bit more Monteverdi checking, and started working on the cartoons and animations for the next song video. There’s another Twelve Of The Best brewing, but first I need to make sure I’ve got all the song videos ready.

October 26th

What I did start yesterday was a piano/organ part for Monteverdi’s Gloria, which we’re singing in The Bridge Singers’ Christmas Concert on December 7th. It’s taken me all day, and although I love this piece of music and singing it and conducting it is a thrilling thing, notating piano parts and trying to interpret a figured bass line has been a tedious task for someone with my limited keyboard skills and limited experience of such a thing. Anyway, it’s done, and when I hand it over to Scott for accompanying, no doubt it will be a splendid affair.

October 25th

Rubbish sort-of day. I did make a tasty quiche though with all the things in the fridge that needed eating up.

October 24th

I do think I’m an optimistic sort of person, and it’s because of this that when I went out to dig up the last load of potatoes earlier, I designated the large bucket for potatoes and the small bucket for weeds and dead plant tops.
Because I am an interesting person of fluctuating emotions, my optimism switched to extreme pessimism as I unearthed lots of teensy weensy perfect little potatoes and quite a few large potato shells, eaten out by the mice. I nearly switched buckets, but then an involuntary “Well look at that!” issued from my grinning mouth as I unearthed seven large and perfectly in tact potatoes with one thrust of the fork, and from then on things drastically improved and optimism was fully reinstated.
I have taken two small buckets of weeds and dead potatoes to the compost, and brought in one full-to-the-brim large bucket of mostly large potatoes. I only forked two of them, and this made me chortle because Dad always used to chortle about this unavoidable quirk of the potato harvester. 😀🥔

Also today: “Ooh spine tingling!” about Loud Blaw The Frosty Breezes; “Oh how lovely! That’s what I love about #WomenEd; it definitely reaches into your life and weaves a spell. It shows how so many other people who feel the same way as you have made it their life so you know you can too.” about “People Reach Into My World”; “Check this link out, it’s pretty cool….It’s amazing!” about Twelve Of The Best: Songs of Action; and “Love it!” about Wobbly Waltz. Always lovely to get feedback from people you know, but especially from people you don’t, like these comments.

October 23rd

Today I’ve been making yet another new video. It involved quite a lot of pfaff (with combinations of photos and cartoons), and I’m not a lover of pfaff, but I was very patient and now it’s done. It’s an oldish song inspired partly by my year of sunrise walks along Warkworth Beach in Northumberland in 2014, and partly by a friend’s story of the horror of her young daughter one day when they turned up at the beach to find that it was full of washed-up jellyfish. The video also includes silhouettes of two of my favourite dogs, Connie Hoskins and Morar Armstrong-Reed!

October 22nd

I’ve made the blog to go with yesterday’s video. I’m sure I’ve done other things too, but that’s the main one!

Twelve Of The Best: Songs Of Robert Burns

October 21st

There are some days when you really end up doing exactly what you set out to. It’s usually a day when a strategy for new task has overnight presented itself in your head and you get up and get on with it. Today was like that. I have made a new Twelve Of The Best video – Songs of Robert Burns, then I have gone to The Bridge Singers and essentially completed the list of learning that I had planned. We took longer than expected on I Saw Three Ships so didn’t manage to sing through some of the shorter carols to reinforce what we tackled last week, but still – all the big stuff was done, including my Hodie which is sounding rather exuberant. I came home from choir and finished the video. As I usually cannot sleep after such exhilarating rehearsals, it was a good use of time and energy! Here’s the video. Blog for it tomorrow!

October 20th

There are some days when you really don’t end up doing much at all. It’s usually a day when there’s just been a task completed (in this case, the songs of action videos), a strategy for the next one is not fully stabilised in your head, it’s raining a lot so you really don’t feel like gardening. Today was like that, although I did finally remember to send in one outstanding invoice that was well overdue and have been searching for songs with queens in them for later in 2020….oh and also I made a rather tasty lamb curry which is big enough for tomorrow as well!

October 19th

It was the first rehearsal for Rock Festival Choir’s Advent recital today. It turns out the entire concert will start with my Hodie Christus Natus Est, which is nice. Also, it will end with Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day in which I get to play my tambourine!

After rugby on the telly and a bit of learning track making for The Bridge Singers we went off to The Sage Gateshead for a chamber music concert including Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, some violin music by Clara Schumann and Brahms’ Piano Quintet. Next door in Hall 1 were Squeeze and Heaven 17. The place was heaving which is a great thing for music. Most people in our age bracket were there for the Squeeze, we noted. Most people in our audience were older than us. There were very few younger than us at all at either concert. I studied the Brahms for A level and grew to love it after the initial horror of it being so intense, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard it performed live – it was so exhilarating. The performers (who were all from the Royal Northern Sinfonia along with pianist Alasdair Beatson) were brilliantly energetic and made the music sizzle. All three pieces were great in fact, but the Brahms was the best for me, just because I knew it so well, I guess. As we left, someone behind me complained that they moved about too much “which I always feel is rather self-indulgent and detracts from the music itself”. I rather liked that aspect of their performance and I thought as we walked past Hall 1 and all the rocking and presumably dancing that was going on in there, why it has to be different for classical music which rocked just as much tonight. There were indeed people jigging about a bit all around me during that last rollicking section of the Brahms, so maybe the problem was only perceived as such by that one person.

October 18th

I spent most of the day dealing with this jelly. It was Jamie’s idea to have jelly in my Wobbly Waltz video – an excellent idea. If you watch to the end you can see that the wobbling eventually did for the jelly and it does lend the singalong video a retro air, but you get the idea and it worlds perfectly to sing along to! This evening it was recorders again – a different line-up tonight with people on holiday and others returned. A good old sight-reading session. Lots of fun.

October 17th

A grand day with furious finishing off of the goats from early in the morning, walking in the sun and wind with Rebekah, Julie and Shirley at Druridge Bay this afternoon (along with Connie and Morar – I don’t think I’ve ever been on a two-dog walk before), and Lionheart Harmony Christmas singing tonight. We finished the evening off with In The Bleak Midwinter which is always pleasing to hear and be part of at this time of year. Here are the goats:

October 16th

This afternoon I have made 17 small cakes, a large quantity of spicy carrot soup and have drawn a goat and a troll, but then I had to stop to purchase supplies and gather up Jamie from the trains. The goats will have to wait until tomorrow, but if you want a pencil case….. in 15/8….I have the very thing, completed this morning!

Also, during the last fortnight a lot of comments have come in from the choir and audience members about our concerts and these clips I’ve been posting. Here are the ones that relate to my pieces!

• Cheryl, you’re good. But your Lullaby is really, really good. Such beautiful words and so thoughtful. Thank you
• The lullaby was wonderful, that and “Darling Daddy” both had my eyes watering! (they really should dust in that church more often!
• The world premiere of Lullaby of Silences was beautiful, Connor’s opening verse was stunning
• Connor’s solo was haunting and gave me goosebumps!
• The small group singing Autumn Sea blended beautifully: if you closed your eyes, you really couldn’t tell how many people were singing.
• Northumberland had a member of the audience at Lanercost in tears again: he absolutely adores that piece and said he thinks that was the best we’ve ever sung it! But then, he is a proud Northumbrian and may be biased! And Lullaby had me in tears, too: something very special about that piece and even more so when singing in the Priory.
• Many congratulations must go to you and the whole choir for a job very well done. For me the highlight that stood out above all the many other highlights must go to the octet singing Autumn Sea. I loved the variation in their shading and the wonderful blending between the parts. All this helped to tell the story, not that easy with a complicated piece. They gave us a master-class of how it should be sung. In other words they were a “class-act”.
• The singing outside in the priory was so moving, because of our proximity to the effigy and also because we were singing your composition.
• We sound lovely! Look forward to more snippets! And thank you, for the weekend and also for Autumn Sea – I enjoyed singing it very much. 
• I think the receptionist wiping away tears after we performed the lullaby round the effigy says more than words for just how perfectly the song captures the monument. It really is a rather brilliant song, and I’m grateful for the privilege to sing it.
• Was definitely worth a second viewing in addition to the Keswick concert , the rendition of the lullaby around the baby in situ before the actual concert was magical , well done to you all Xx
• I’ve just watched these and I am so proud to be part of this choir. Thank you so much for all you do and especially for that wonderful lullaby.

October 15th

Realising last week when I made my Twelve Of The Best: Songs Of Action blog that I did not have singalong learning videos for five of the songs, I have set to today making the missing ones. Two down, three to go! Also, look at the wonderful flowers that The Bridge Singers gave to me on Monday night – perfect for the orange kitchen!

October 14th

After dropping Jamie off for the early train to London, and delivering music scores to the doorstep of the choir librarian, I went off up to Ross Sands for a bimble to the obelisks. The tide was a long way out and there were many birds wading and gathering out there. Many skeins of geese flew honkingly overhead, and there were over a hundred seals singing between me and Lindisfarne. The sun was out, there was little breeze. I arrived at the car parking layby at about 8.15 and I did not see any more people until about 11.30. It was perfect really. Except that is for the cows in the dunes. I do not like cows much. When I came back off the beach they were there between me and safety. I did what the signs said and went steadily right through the middle of them, trying not to step twixt cow and calf. They moved about a bit and were as close to me as you would ever wish to be. As I bravely strode forth, two more people appeared on the other side of them, and commented as I passed them by that my progress had inspired them to be bold themselves!

At choir tonight we started Christmas music amid much merriment. It’s all good fun and we’re still buzzing from our Autumn tour, but before we leave that behind completely, here are four more excerpts from our concerts in Cumbria.

October 13th

A day of preparing Christmas music for The Bridge Singers today. We’re singing this at a wedding in December as well, so have added it to several other alleluias for Christmas!

October 12th

Singing at Felton Saturdays was fun today – only four of us, so one to a part – me on soprano and we did a couple of Ave Marias and some Dowland, then Jamie and I went off to Alnwick Gardens to make the most of our year-long membership cards. We were taken with the water features and he posed and I took pictures. Lots of fun.

October 11th

I’ve finished my new Twelve Of The Best. It’s “Songs of Action”. They’re mostly songs that I’ve composed for primary schools and involve some sort of accompanying set of actions or dancing. Also, tonight it was Fingers Adrift at ours. Lots of trebling on my newish treble. All was merriment. Earlier I’d been dealing with the entirety of the carrots which I harvested yesterday – huge amounts of them. They’re mostly now buried in chippings for the winter, but the ones that had been partially got at by the mice are tidied up and sliced and in a huge bowl of cold water in the fridge for early consumption. We’ve had a lot of mice this year up in the garden, and also there are moles making their presence felt. The mice are very neat in their nibblings: they eat out the whole carrot just leaving the very outer “skin” as a hollow husk. Anyway, they’ll be hungry now.

October 10th

Today I’ve started, or rather continued and made great headway with, a new Twelve Of The Best video catalogue. Also tonight I took a rehearsal of Harbour Lights for my pal Sarah Gray who is poorly. It seemed to go well with much laughter and cheery comments galore. We tackled E Papa and We Will Remember. On the way home from Amble I reflected on how in my youth I would never have the confidence to rock up to a group of unknown-to-me adults and win them over like this within five minutes and get a load of excellent work out of them in an hour and a half. I credit Jamie with this. He says I had it in me all along. I suspect it’s a mixture of the two.

October 9th

A day of waiting for trains to come and then singing at Alnwick WI with The Bridge Singers. I have no pictures or clips of any of that, but I have also today made a new video for one of my oldest and most used primary school songs: “I Like To….”

October 8th

After early photos with Paolozzi at Pimlico and the British Library, we had an excellent breakfast at a fancy place in St. Pancras, then I came home to a royalty cheque from New Zealand, set to with the recordings from the weekend, went to a meeting in Weldon Bridge (I even contributed with a few ideas and comments!!!!) then continued with emails and more recordings. So I give you a third snippet from Cumbria. This time it’s the 2nd verse of Goodbyeee from Lanercost.

October 7th

Today we went to London to meet up with Gaynor and Colin again before they return to Australia on Wednesday. We met up at St. Pancras Station, then again for a pre-dinner drink at their apartment, then dinner at the wonderful Daebak Korean restaurant in Vauxhall. I had Yang Nyeum Chicken which I ate reasonably successfully with chopsticks and it was completely delicious. I heartily recommend it, if you’re heading that way. On the way back to our dingy little hotel room in Pimlico I took these pictures!

In the meantime, I’ve made another snippet of the choir from this last weekend singing at Lanercost Priory!

October 6th

While I’ve been busying myself with The Bridge Singers in Cumbria and facilitating performances of mine and others’ pieces, this has appeared on the Radio New Zealand website. It is the piece I wrote for the tribute concert to my friend and former lecturer John Rimmer who celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this year. I was very honoured to be asked to compose this short piece. The piece is for soprano with balloon and is performed here by Te Oherere Williams.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/musicalive/audio/2018715875/cheryl-camm-things-john-said

My programme note was: This piece was composed in April 2019 for the Rimmer at 80 recital by The Karlheinz Company at Auckland University on May 26th 2019, following a request by Eve de Castro Robinson for a 1-minute tribute to John Rimmer. It is a great delight and privilege to be part of this celebration, even though I cannot be there in person to honour such a wonderful friend, colleague and teacher.
John Rimmer was the first person who was nice to me when I arrived in New Zealand in January 1987. After difficult encounters with airport staff, other university staff, banking officials, the “hottest day of the year so far” and the university enrollment process, I found myself being greeted with great enthusiasm and kindness in the glorious bougainvillea-bedecked music department by a smiling John Rimmer. For the next several years John was one of my main guides through not only my composition studies but also through life in New Zealand. Now, John is my friend, and I see him and Helen each time they come to England to visit their family and we have a laugh and a reminisce, and talk composing.
John has always been exceedingly supportive of (and indeed makes me feel very proud of) my work as a composer and creative practitioner in schools, galleries, museums and other community settings. That is why there is ballooning in this song. I often turn up on a train to a workshop with a back-pack of balloons, a tupperware container of assorted “things to put inside” and an up-pumper – hours of creativity awaits! John taught me a great deal about the foibles and craft of composing: the minute’s-worth that immediately leapt into my head when Eve requested this piece are outlined in this song: 2nd performances are very hard to come by; each note should be considered very carefully before being commited to paper; the start of the piece is of great importance.

Things John Said

J-John used to say, “The first performance: an easy task. The second: Oh!

“J-J-J-J-John also used to say,” This note, this particular note, this particular note out of all the notes – why is it there? What is it’s reason for being right there? Why? Why? Explain this particular note to me! This particular note!”

J-John also said, “Always start your piece with a bang!”

October 5th

Today was the first of our Cumbrian Tour recitals in St. John’s Keswick. I’ve got plenty to say about this most wonderful of choirs and our concerts, but for the time being here is a picture from Greg and a minute or so of Gary’s beautiful song “Northumberland” recorded at today’s concert.

October 4th

This morning Mum, Frances and I walked to Lingholm by the lake, through a forest and mostly avoided lots of mud. We looked round the kitchen garden there, had our lunch and then walked back. Here are a couple of views of the lake before and during the walk. It was very beautiful indeed, of course!

October 3rd

Yesterday we came to Keswick in readiness for The Bridge Singers’ recitals on Saturday and Sunday. Today we walked to the Lodore Falls with Frances. Every autumn thing we saw brought to mind one of our repertoire for the weekend! The it was American style pancakes at The Coffee Lounge with Colin and an afternoon of athletics on the telly!

October 2nd

I’ve finally finished my newest video catalogue from the Twelve Of The Best series. There a blog to go with it here!

October 1st

Starting the new month with a new milestone on my YouTube channel!