Jeff Stewart’s Blog

Here we are at the beginning of the year. Feeling good and ready to go.

Christmas was great. I spent much of December suffering from the same bugs as everybody else, but somehow managed to fulfil all except one of my engagements. Christmas itself was hectic but fun and Melissa was just wonderful to watch. She was in her first nativity play, on a farm in Bledlow, dressed as an angel-of course.

The choir did fabulously at their carol service and are now rehearsing for our trip to Norwich later this year. Last night I started looking at the Palestrina Missa Brevis with them, which I though might cause problems, but no, the rose to the challenge, as ever.

I’m really looking forward to whatever this year brings. I’m launching myself back into opera and will hopefully audition for all the major companies again in the next few weeks. I should also have some sound tracks on this site before long so watch this space. I’m thinking long term at the moment rather than short, but the future looks very exciting.

A fantastc 2008 to you all.

This last couple of weeks has flown by. I got very excited by the prospect of conducting Bledlow Church Choir in choral evensong. I find working with them so rewarding. It’s lovely to be working with a group of people who just do it for the fun of it and don’t have to worry about a bad performance effecting career prospects. They’re a really good bunch and, three years after taking over the 7 members, there are now 30 of them. I remember John Hosier interviewing me for my place at Guildhall and asking what I would like to give back to music. Well for me, Bledlow Church Choir is what I give back, corny though that may sound. I just get so much out of helping people to enjoy the music I first came to love as a boy. Also the effect that doing things like our cathedral evensongs has had on many of them is something that will touch me forever.

So the choral evensong was terrifc, including two lovely soloists, one of whom ,the soprano Holly Nicholls, is a pupil of mine, which made it even better. We sang Dyson’s Mag & Nunc in F, Ley’s “Prayer of King Henry VI” and Balfour Gardiner’s wonderful “Evening Hymn”. Sadly it was pouring with rain and Saunderton Church was less than half full, but that still represented about a ten fold increase on the normal evensong attandance.

This weekend I had a performance of Elijah with the Sudbury Sympfony Orchestra and Choral Society. It was lots of fun, with really  nice soloists, (lovely soprano) Melanie Cotton, Elaine Henson and Glyn Paul (Still in possession of a great voice even if he hardly sings in public these days). For my part, I think it was one of the most realxed and complete oratorio performances I have ever given, which is not me being arrogant, just thankful that I seem to be going in the right direction after all these years. Lets see where it leads.

All the best.

Had a fun day yesterday at an Opera on the Run training day. It was great to have all the various singers there and to have a laugh together. One of the acts we often do is singing waiters. we go in and pretend to be waiters, usually from a foreign country and mostly incompetent. Then we make some excuse to start singing and the audience usually goes nuts. Yesterday was about getting to know eachother and also getting to know exactly what they want in terms of a script. If ever you get to see these acts you will love them. I did a singing policemen gig recently at which I ended up doing a scene with David Jason, and then another one recently where I was a waiter  at Coleen Nolan’s wedding. All the sisters were there, it was great fun. I know, it sounds like the sort of thing a serious opera singer shouldn’t be doing, but the truth is, it’s in these sorts of gigs that people really learn how to relax in performance and to communicate. Regular readers will know I’ve been restructuring my vocal technique and these gigs have really given me the chance to try things out and to really relax in a way that I’ve not been able to do fro a long time. I know for sure that the jeff Stewart who finally steps back on the operatic stage next year will be so much more technically assured and so much more relaxed and the result wll be that you will hear & see a far better musician and performer than you have seen in me previously. Thanks Ian Bloomfield and Tim Taylor for giving me exactly what I needed! 

It’s been a lovely weekend. Yesterday I had the very great pleasure of singing the Mozart Requiem with the St. Michael’s Singers and the ESO. Both fabulous. Among the other soloists I was delighted to have Kate Manley alongside me on the platform. Those of you who know Kate will know of her very brave fight against breast cancer, which she is clearly winning, and I’m happy to report that she is looking and sounding super. The concert was in Tewksbury Abbey which is such a beautiful church. I’m just coming to the end of Ken Follet’s wonderful book “World Without End” which is the sequal to “The Pillars of the Earth”. Both books (as I find with most of his works) are unputdownable, and the action centres around a Cathedral in a place called Kingsbridge. Whether Follet had Tewksbury in mind or not I don’t know, but certainly the abbey there is almost exactly the way I imagine Kingsbridge Cathedral, which added to the evening for me.

This morning it was back to Bledlow, to conduct my choir in the Remembrance service. We sang two pieces “For the Fallen” by some guy called Jeff Stewart and “Turn Back O Man” by Holst. The choir were on great form, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them better. It’s truely been a Remembrance weekend to remember.

Hi All,

Well it’s been all action since I last posted although I haven’t set foot on stage in an opera (unless you count Trial by Jury) since July. I started working with Noelle Barker in April and she asked me to try to keep off the boards for six months or so in order to get myself back in shape without constantly having to get through performances.

Noelle was Audrey’s suggestion, as they work together a great deal, and she has proved a God-send for two reasons. Firstly, I can’t imitate her: I have found that I have ended up imitating the sound of my teacher on a number of occasions, including David Maxwell-Anderson, who I really rate as a teacher, but going on stage and instinctively trying to reproduce his sound rather than using what he says to produce my own was fatal. Secondly, Noelle actually seems to know exactly what she’s doing,  a trait all too rare in singing teachers these days I find.

Anyway, she’s pulled me apart and put me back together, and very shortly we shall have some recordings to show for it, along with a relaunch of myself as a singer.

In the meantime, I’ve been having fun working for a company called opera on the run who, as the name suggests, specialize in doing short opera pops gigs and getting out asap. They’re really fun and have really kept me going and helped me to really enjoy performing again. Their performances are almost without exception, rapturously received (one gig was a bit duff but it was for the samaritans, and they had just heard a role play where  the samaritan had just tried to persuade a caller that they were scuicidal).

We’ve also just come back from a cruise on the Aurora which ws wonderful (Thank you Stephanie Williams). Apart from the delight of working with Audrey, and being able to dust of the “Be My Love” show for a couple of performances, it was lovely to meet up with old friends baritone: Mark Oldfield, Soprano:Sally Harrison and the outrageously hillarious Linda Ormiston. It was also wonderful to work alongside the wonderful Brazilian pianist Clelia Irazun and the sickeningly talented Linden Trio, all stars individually as well as collectively.

November & December are now looking really busy. I have a Mozart requiem on 10 November in Tewksbury, an Elijah on 25th in Suffolk and return to Leighton House on 5 December for the usual Soiree. On top of this there will be loads of Opera on the Run Gigs.

So all is exciting in my world at the moment. Watch this space and see how well the rebuild works out.

Adios! 

Hi Everyone,

Well here we are in the middle of June and I alresdy feel like I’ve done 2 summer seasons.

Easter was mostly taken up with my choir. We had a performance of Stainer’s Crcifixion in which I both conducted and sang the Tenor solos. Simon Thorpe sang the Baritone solos splendidly and the choir were great. We had a scare on the day as the organist was taken in to hospital. Sometimes it helps to be married to a fabulous pianist, and, even though she doesn’t really do organs, Audrey sight read it wonderfully. Three days later we were off to sing choral evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. I’ve done that sort of thing many times but for many of the choir it was totally new. It was lovely to see the effect it had on some members. It’s a different kind of scary being a conductor, but the more I do, the more I like it.

I finished my covering with Covent Garden and went up to Opera North to cover the Duke in Rigoletto. I had mixed feelings about covering there but it was a good chance to get the role learned in Italian (I’d only done it in German & English before), and it was nice to make contact with that company again. It was lovely to see some old friends and great to hear Linda Richardson (Gilda) sounding so beautiful. During the rehearsal period I popped off to Macedonia to sing the same role for Macedonian National Opera. It was really interesting, 1 music call, 1 staging rehearsal, 1 General & 1 performance. Lovely country, lovely people, a Gilda in Ana Durlovski who had recently sung Queen of the Night at the Vienna Staatsoper (and sounded like it) and Mark Holland in terrific form as Rigoletto.

Since then I’ve been down to Truro to do my first Cavaradossi. Duchy opera is small, but my friend Eddie Wade, who was a great Scarpia, got me involved and it turned out to be great circumstances in which to try the role out. The Tosca was a local girl called Suzanne Manuuelle who proved that she should be far better known than she is and made a wonderful heroine.

Since we came back from there I’ve been concentrating mainly  on concerts and supporting Audrey. Her mother died suddenly in April, which couldn’t have come at a busier time. She was coaching playng for Jaques Imbraiglio in Cardiff singer of the World, who won the audience prize, and also managed to fit in a bit of coaching for the wonderful Liz Watts, who won the Lieder Prize and whom I personally think should have won the whole thing.

Well that’s probably enough for now. I’ll see you next time you log on.

All the best!

Well I’m already coming to the end of my time in Coburg. It’s been fun and, as usual, I have met some really nice people. For once the production didn’t follow the famous list of “How to Opera Germanly” and was fairly standard, although we all felt that much more time could have been given to developing the characters.

A few lessons have also been learned. On one occasion I phoned up to give 3 days notice that I was sick and might need a replacement. I was told that, as our version was a bit different to the original (although it really wasn’t that different), it would be impossible to find another singer and I would have to do it, with an announcement if necessary. I turned up on the night feeling really rough and was duly promised an announcement. I got on stage and found myself getting sicker by the second and losing my voice very rapidly, but I carried on, knowing that the audience knew I was sick. But they didn’t! Someone had decided that I wouldn’t need an announcement and so it wasn’t made, at least not until after the interval, by which time it was all a bit too late. Singers take note. If you are ill and need an announcement, don’t set foot on the stage until you are sure it has been made.However, it’s been a successful run, and it was nice to be working in such a gorgeous theatre.

On a slightly different note, I sat on the panel for the first round of RCM auditions for a couple of days before Christmas. It was really interesting. There were, of course, one or two heartbreaking situations, one or two funnies, and the odd extraordinary case like people who came thousands of miles to audition but hadn’t bothered to learn their music by heart. But what was most striking was the standard of some of the people we had to turn away. It is staggering how many really good singers there are out there who now aren’t able to make it into college.

We have a new head of singing at the RCM, Nicholas Sears, who seems as if he will be great, although he has big shoes to fill in following Neil Mackie. I must say I’m loving teaching there.

Finally, Audrey & I are giving a recital at Holy Trinity Church, Church End, Bledlow, Bucks, to raise money for the Choir to get new robes. It should be a great event. Tickets are 10 GBP each. We would love it to be a sell out.

Addios

Well, here I am, back in Germany after a two year break. After I finished my my last stint here I swore I would never go back, especially since the birth of our daughter, Melissa. So what has changed? (Apart from the obvious appeal of being allowed to sleep beyond 5.30 on a regular basis)

One of the reasons I went to Germany in the first place, apart from building up my repertoire, was because the opera world in Britain was getting smaller and smaller. I thought broadening my horizons would be a good thing. However, I came back to England a virtual unknown. People in England tend to assume that if they haven’t seen your name there for a while, you must have given up. I also had to deal with the fact that, owing to the hugely diverse repertoire that I had been doing simultaneously, and a bad case of what turned out to be acid reflux, which was regularly robbing me of my voice and my confidence, I probably wasn’t singing that well.

I’ve been very blessed over the past few months to have found some really fabulous people to help guide me back to the right path. Most notably my wife, Audrey, and David Maxwell-Anderson, my singing teacher. Although I’m not yet as good as we believe I can be, I’m certainly a lot nearer than I have ever been before. I took my first tentative steps back on stage with a small tour of the Pearl Fishers, which is never an easy role, but turned out to be fun, and now here I am, actually having fun on stage again in a small theatre in Coburg, where the pressure is off and I can just learn to enjoy being on stage again. That’s what I’m here for. I will only be here for a few months but I hope it will be a period which will help me to get to where I should be. Sometimes one needs to take a step back to go forwards again.

Finally, just a word about my blogs. It won’t always be about me or necessarily about singing. I hope that people will visit my site on a regular basis, either to catch up on what I’m up to or just to check out what I’m babbling about this time.

See you soon!