AMSTERDAM (29th November 2008)

from left to right: Micaela Haslam, Andy Busher, Amanda Morrison, Gerry O'Beirne

Amsterdam Concertgebouw

"We flew to Amsterdam early on 28th for a rehearsal that afternoon. The Concertgebouw seems like an old friend now. We've performed here many times over the years and it's always nice to come back. It's a wonderful hall, though the acoustic is rather live which makes it a challenge for our sound engineer. Still, we were once again in the capable hands of Ian Dearden of Sound Intermedia so no-one was particularly worried.

We had the luxury of an entire afternoon's rehearsal for one 30 minute piece (Daniel Variations), with Brad Lubman who knows the piece probably better than anyone else. The London Sinfonietta players were incredibly professional and patient, and as keen as Brad to attend to the details of the piece, which they did extremely well.

We started rehearsing the piece in the usual set-up, with the singers stage right of the ensemble, but it was proving difficult for the strings to hear us (important when there are so many doubled passages). The suggestion was made that we stand in between pianos 2 and 3, in the centre of the stage on a small riser just in front of the vibes. This was much better all round and I think we'll stick with this layout in future. I suspect it just wasn't possible at the first rehearsal with Steve Reich in 2006 because of sight-lines for the vibe players. With the vibes on tall risers, there's no problem at all. It's funny how we so often stick to tradition without question. Anyway, it's great that the issue arose, as I think the presentation of the piece has been improved as a result.

Tenors & vibes

String quartet & clarinets

The day of the concert began VERY early with a rehearsal at 9.30am (=8.30am in UK!). The first thing Andy, Gerry and Mandy have to sing in Daniel Variations is a long sustained top A - hurrah for singing 2nd sop! After the general, we four had an interview for a TV documentary. Fortunately, we do know quite a lot about the piece and its background, so hopefully we came across as reasonably sensible. Then we had a long wait before the concert at 2.15pm. It's always weird hanging around on a concert day when you've already checked out of your hotel, but we managed to lose 4 hours or so doing very little and going nowhere much.

We enjoyed the first part of the concert from our dressing rooms, then Daniel Variations went down fantastically well with the audience. A standing ovation for the Dutch premiere - it doesn't get much better than that. Then straight to the airport and home after a cleansing ale or 2 in the airport bar. Good for 'la voce', don't you know!"