De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

  via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/WFkMq2Dzpd/     Well, it began with the trip to London mentioned a couple of posts below. After the highs experienced at the Band Night in school the previous night (I must congratulate the pupils on their performances. For such a small secondary school we have an amazing bunch of talented, enthusiastic young musician performers), it was nice to be able to reward those that came with us the next day to London for the energy and enthusiasm with which they entertained parents, staff and fellow pupils the night before. Special mention, by the way, to the Head, Mr. Lickley, and all the other staff who at the last moment decided to join the staff "Ukelele Orchestra" on stage as backing vocalists for their renditions of "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Bad Moon Rising".   I hope to put up a few photos from the event once we get back to school and I get hold of them from our pupil photographer. For now, here's a pic of our musici...

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via Instagram  http://instagr.am/p/VzP8-FjziI/ It's a kind of cable car ride that now crosses the Thames near the O2 arena. I had just visited the British Music Experience there with a group of (mainly) GCSE Music students prior to a London Philharmonic Orchestra concert at Royal Festival Hall which included an exhilarating performance of one of my favourite pieces, Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring.

I saw "Les Misérables" a week last Thurs. night with old family friend Bernard Weaver. I blubbed like a baby through much of it, I hate to admit, which is weird because when I saw it on stage about 20 yrs. ago in London and it had nowhere near the same effect on me. I've got to know many of the individual songs over the years, but I think the main reasons for its effect on me came from the casting of very good actors who can sing a bit rather than the opposite, thus enhancing the dramatic power of the story/words, and the intimacy of the camerawork during the solo numbers which afforded the cast the chance to focus on the emotional truth of what they were singing - or at times speech-singing, such as during Anne Hathway's truly breath-taking "I Dreamed A Dream" - without the need to keep the decibel level near the max so as to reach row z of a theatre's Upper Circle. As a result, I found that the meaning of the lyrics hit home much more forcefully. I und...

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