Food, music, and me bitching

So here it is, the menu produced by the lovely Pippa (who is taking me shopping for shoes and make-up for the formal, because I need all the help I can get). How cool is this??


Now I officially can't change my mind about the food I'm serving. Oh well...

While I'm on SingSoc stuff, I can't say I'm 100% happy with the music this semester. A lot of it's just not my kind of thing.

With Socii:
Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell - Bah. Opera. I hate opera. Rob keeps telling me it's not really an opera (I'm not sure why it isn't, to be honest, but I believe him). I haven't heard a single bit of it I like yet, and it isn't endearing me at all to the genre. It's kind of banal random repeated disjointed bits of sentences, hard to follow and the music doesn't seem to "follow" the lyrics at all. I'm fully expecting to yawn throughout the whole performance. Which isn't helping me to learn it, to be honest.
Gloria by Antonio Vivaldi - Yeah, this is okay. Can't say I'm keen on the whole Baroque style, but this is nice so far, and we don't really sound like the recordings I've heard, which is good. Probably we will before the actual performance, not sure how Harriet wants it yet as we're in the note-bashing stage right now.

With the main chorus:
African Sanctus by David Fanshawe - Supposedly a celebration of all faiths, a kind of traditional Latin mass type thing intertwined with traditional African music. It doesn't encompass my faith at all, but then I don't have any. This is the cornerstone of our huge £10k concert to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It jarrs me to be honest, African music's great, and Latin masses are great, but together? It just feels wrong. Plus as a second alto I'm not very happy about the horribly high top As we're expected to sing. It's hard, because I don't know what to expect from it in terms of rhythm and harmony and so am consequently struggling.
Carmina Burana by Carl Orff - I like this one, I've done it before (on no sleep), even though it's rather difficult, especially the fast bits. I especially like how it's not in the slightest bit religious. It's all sex, and drinking, and gambling and fate and not a "deus dominus" or "jesu christe" or "agnus dei" in sight. Plus, there's shouty bits and pretty slower bits and bits that are very catchy. And who doesn't love O fortuna? For those of you who think you don't know it - you do. And here's the proof.



So yeah. I'm hoping I'll grow to like them more as I learn them better. And if I don't... well it's no big deal.

Sorry no London pics yet. Because I still can't be bothered.

Oh, and I finally read the last Harry Potter book the other day. It was okay.