The Choir - R3 - The Art of A Cappella

[DracoM]

Agree strongly with last para.

[Roger Judd]

Your story about Thurston Dart, Decantor, sounds entirely plausible! He was my Professor at Cambridge, and I recall him saying piano tuners were a doomed race, and the way forward was electronic keyboards. I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong, but I think he had all 'acoustic' pianos thrown out when he moved to London University, and replaced by the new technology. He was also keen to breed a creature that would devour all over-blown organs. That said, he was one of the most inspiring lecturers and teachers around.
RJ

[cloughie]

Sorry everyone, can't resist replying to these kind words - I was the soloist in The Bluebird. Did 2 very happy years in Swingle II (as the group was then called, to distinguish it from the original French outfit) and learnt a great deal from Ward Swingle, happily still with us and enjoying retirement in his beloved France.

Incidentally, last night's excellent BBC Singers concert featured 4 ex-Swingles in various capacities: conductor (and composer) Ben Parry, composer Jonathan Rathbone, guest bass Simon Grant and me. Swingles get everywhere....

No doubt before long we'll be told who's the oldest swingle in town!

[jean]

Your story about Thurston Dart, Decantor, sounds entirely plausible! He was my Professor at Cambridge, and I recall him saying piano tuners were a doomed race, and the way forward was electronic keyboards. I'm sure I'll be corrected if wrong, but I think he had all 'acoustic' pianos thrown out when he moved to London University...

Harpsichords too?

[Flay]

There was a news item this morning about a vaccine against shingles which I misheard initially

[JungleRumble]

Is it the guest presenter format that you're pleased about, or just that it's not Aled Jones anymore? ;-)

Incidentally, Trinity College (dare I say it... Cambridge) also live webcast all of their services (http://www.trinitycollegechoir.com/webcasts/live/).

And posters have so far side-stepped the "if you had to have a presenter, who would it be?" question...

[french frank]

And posters have so far side-stepped the "if you had to have a presenter, who would it be?" question...

I didn't. If you didn't read between the lines, the regular presenter of Choirworks until it was axed on the grounds that the content (i.e. choir works) was too inflexible for a Sunday evening (until, two years later, they launched The Choir) was 'the gently authoritative' Paul Guinery.

Independent, 3 April 1998

[Simon]

... I recall him saying piano tuners were a doomed race, and the way forward was electronic keyboards.

That said, he was one of the most inspiring lecturers and teachers around.

Just not very good at prophecy, then!

[ardcarp]

Jean. Harpsichords were just fine for Thurston Dart, and so were (some) organs. He just had a thing about pianos. I didn't know he thought well of 'electronic' keyboards, because in his day they were in an embryonic state and quite ghastly (Compton and Hammond organs with 'tone-wheels' whirring inside?). Even now, so-called electronic pianos are a pretty poor substitute for the real thing. No serious artist performs on one. The piano is arguably the most successful instrument of all time. Tune in at random to R3 and the chances are you'll hear a piano. So Thurston was just being silly.