VocalEssence in the UK: Day 7 - Ely

Posted at 5:30 PM on January 23, 2009 by John Birge

And I don't mean Ely, Minnesota. Unless they have a cathedral there that looks like this:

But more about that in a moment. Today started on the radio.

Philip Brunelle was invited to the BBC Cambridgeshire, the regional BBC radio station, to promote the concert at King's College Chapel that evening.
He spent a lively ten minutes on "Cambridgeshire Breakfast with Jeremy Sallis". I even got corralled into being interviewed for a minute or two; it seems that morning radio is unavoidable.

At 2pm, I was talking on another morning radio show -- morning in Minnesota time, that is. Had a quick chat with my colleague Steve Staruch back at MPR, and was speaking to him from here:

Ely Cathedral, about 40 minutes drive from Cambridge, is having it's 900th anniversary party this Sunday. That makes Cambridge University a mere tot; it's celebrating it's 800th this year. Meanwhile, VocalEssence continued its 40th anniversary tour with a noon concert in the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral. Oh, and who's that chap kneeling, setting up the mic stand on the right?:

That's the famous English composer, John Rutter! He offered to come and record the VocalEssence concert, which I hope to be able to share with you upon my return next week.

For the evening, the singers were back to Cambridge for a magnificent evening performance at King's College Chapel. Tomorrow, it's back to London for more radio, and one more performance before heading home to MN on Sunday. It's a joint concert with the BBC Singers at the storied Maida Vale studios, home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Stay tuned; meanwhile, check out the VocalEssence photo blog to view more pictures, and the tour blog for the singers POV.