At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
At school, I was never very keen on maths, science - or really anything where you could 'get it wrong'. I was far more of a music, history, art and english kind of person. I'd much rather argue my case than be able to score 100%. Weirdly, since joining The King's Singers, I have become rather into statistics; not in a particularly serious way, but enough to be worthy of comment. For example, I keep track of how many concerts I have done. Each one is numbered on my iPad. I also often calculate how many concerts we have done in a week/month/term, or how many countries we've visited in a given time period, or how many miles we've travelled, how many flights we've taken, and compare all these things to previous months, terms, or years. It's so geeky, I know, but this job is so extraordinary in so many ways that I find it really fascinating to keep track of some of the vital statistics. My colleagues find it odd, I'm sure, but if you ever find yourself in my company, I'll happily bore you with some facts and figures (probably KS-related).This evening, I spent a few minutes working out some of the statistics for the past week, which has been a pretty busy one! Here goes:In 7 days, from Monday 14th May - Monday 21st May:Miles travelled (by air, bus, train): 10,284Number of public performances given: 5Number of journeys of over 100 miles: 6Total live audience: c.3,740Total online audience (Chinese broadcasts): c.385,000For the sake of clarity, our main destinations have been Seoul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing. And tomorrow we head to Japan - which, in the interest of more statistics, is the third 'new' country I've visited this year.So there you go, there's a week as a King's Singer doing an Asian tour. And the numbers hopefully explain why I can't wait to hop in my (rather nice, oversized) bath this evening, as we finally have the evening off and a late start tomorrow. Bliss.As I munched my way through some tasty Peking Duck this evening, I found myself listening on Spotify to one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time: Helas pitié. It's from an album of medieval songs from a 14th century French codex. I find the singing on this particular track just stunning: the tone is so even, so well controlled, the piece is so expressively phrased. The musical style of France in the 1300s is also enticing to me in itself; it's often rhythmically very complex, quite difficult to sing well, and the harmony is sufficiently alien from music of 150 years later that one can actually easily mistake it for music from the modern avant garde. I've taken part in several amazing concerts (pre-KS) that combined medieval music with modern commissions or even, on one occasion, sound-installation music by Jonathan Harvey. The combination can be thrilling.Anyway, if you have Spotify, I hope you enjoy this beautiful medieval chanson as much as I have.
