Choir at Sage 4pm Sunday 2nd Nov

[ardcarp]

..or should I say THE Choir at THE Sage ON Sunday THE 2nd OF November?

The Choir returns for a second year to Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas, with a line-up of choral groups from the North East.

Adam Tomlinson presents this special edition of performances from local ensembles including the University College Chapel Choir of Durham University, the Newcastle upon Tyne Bach Choir, former Choir of the Year category finalists Tees Valley Youth Choir, and Enkelit who specialise in Finnish choral music.


The Choir (the R3 programme, I mean) seldom gets discussed here these days because I guess (a) many of us have given it up in despair and (b) there is a sort of bathos, following on, as it does, from Choral Evensong.

Maybe this afternoon's edition will be worth a listen?

[DracoM]

So much to agree with here.

[mercia]

no disrespect but I hope we haven't heard the best yet

[Nick Armstrong]

no disrespect but I hope we haven't heard the best yet

[ardcarp]

Well, having started the thread, I felt duty bound to stick with the programme, aided by a few glasses of sherry along the way. I enjoyed the Thomas Allen recollections, though quite what they have to do with The Choir, I'm not sure. I'll only mention two of the choirs. Durham Chapel Choir was probably singing out of its comfort zone in a not very kind acoustic. The 'Finnish' choir caught my interest...such an enterprising thing for a bloke in the UK to start one consisting entirely of native English speaking women and embracing both a difficult foreign language and a completely different way of singing! OK the tuning wasn't always spot on, but they certainly captured the spirit of what they were doing. Hic.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The silly people at The Sage who thought they were being so extraordinarily clever in their dropping of the definite article (oops I wrote "the") have also decided it would be equally clever to omit the same word used to preface their resident orchestra.
Perhaps the simpletons thought the rebranding would make them look cleverer than they actually are, by making it more like Latin.
In some music services, they tried changing Wider Opportunities to Widening Opportunities. But as a colleague said, changing Windscale into Sellafield didn't stop it being radioactive.
In the case ofThe Sage, it is already one of the best in the country, so if it ain't broken...

[Old Grumpy]

I am not party to the reason why Sage Gateshead has dropped "The" from the title. Perhaps part of the reason may have been to give more emphasis to the "Gateshead" component - given the vision and commitment of Gateshead Council to the whole project.

OG

[Gabriel Jackson]

I am not party to the reason why Sage Gateshead has dropped "The" from the title. Perhaps part of the reason may have been to give more emphasis to the "Gateshead" component - given the vision and commitment of Gateshead Council to the whole project.

OG

It's also worth noting that rebranding is not undertaken by "simpletons" who are "trying to be clever" as has been previously suggested. Those who are disturbed by the dropping of "the" in this particular instance might be distressed to discover that, officially, there is no "the" in London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's also worth noting that rebranding is not undertaken by "simpletons" who are "trying to be clever" as has been previously suggested. .

So by whom is (the) rebranding done? Presumably (the) people concerned make these changes for (a) reason, and I'm sure some people make. out of (the) change. But it all seems (an) unnecessary distraction and wasteful of employees' time.
I concede that (the) term " simpletons" may have been inappropriate, but I do think they are trying to be clever.
Similar futile exercises:
Nigel Kennedy dropping (the) Nigel.
(The) Lindsay String Quartet dropping the fact that they were (a) string quartet, while continuing to claim to be Lindsays (which they are not).
Decca dropping capital letters from their titles on (a) number of labels.
Ditto the Ramblers' Association.
Birmingham and Devon Councils dumping apostrophes on the grounds they are "confusing" - I reinstate (the) word "simpleton" for them.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Welcome back, Alpie - hope you had a good holiday; have you missed all this? What's it feel like to have your ideas confronted by THE Gabriel Jackson?

[jean]

When (the) Sage opened, it was already fashionable to drop the the from the names of venues.

They could have avoided all this trouble by never adopting it in the first place.

[Old Grumpy]

When (the) Sage opened, it was already fashionable to drop the the from the names of venues.

They could have avoided all this trouble by never adopting it in the first place.

As above (#7), it's Sage Gateshead, not just "Sage". Sage did put up a lot of dosh, but Gateshead Council had the original vision for the whole Gateshead Quays area and continue to support (to the tune of a grant of £550,313 in 2012/13) the activities of Sage Gateshead.

OG

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Welcome back, Alpie - hope you had a good holiday; have you missed all this? What's it feel like to have your ideas confronted by THE Gabriel Jackson?

Thank you, Ferney. Actually I'm a big fan of GJ's music, though we do often express different viewpoints on this forum.

[antongould]

Whatever the merits of The or The (gone) it will be The Sage to the locals for decades to come. Bainbridges is not John Lewis and Newcastle United play at ...............

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's still The Sage in my new street atlas too.