Spem and Spem again

Thursday afternoon's rehearsal went well, although Peter Philips didn't arrive until well after 5pm. He seemed pleased with our efforts; our Friday call was put back to 5pm when we had a chance to run through our own pieces before joining with the Tallis Scholars to run through Spem. After the run through we adjourned to Southbank for some dinner.

At 7.30pm we were on. The acoustic was much more helpful than I was expecting and thankfully the lights were so bright we couldn't really see the audience. Our set went off really well: Bruckner, Durufle and Finzi.

Then in came the Tallis Scholars and in no time we were off. It started well but a third of the way into Spem things started to go awry. It was mostly people getting out of time, which was hardly surprising considering Philips' ambiguous beat. At the time it felt like ages; I wasn't singing during most of the worst but at one stage expected PP to stop and start again. Miraculously it all started to fit together again and we all finished together (always a plus).

At the end of the concert we got another try at Spem and this time it went off remarkably well. Perhaps everyone was just concentrating that little bit more. Whatever the reason it was a really satisfying performance and I'm very proud to have been part of it (even if I didn't get my name in the program).