Voces8 Education Day at Bedford School (5.10.09) - Preamble

This turned out rather longer than anticipated (I suspect this pattern may continue for the rest of this blog, so apologies in advance) so I have decided to split it into parts. So that which follows is the preamble:

Voces8 did an education day (well, afternoon) at Bedford School the Monday after the first session of Take the Lead!, followed by a free concert, and we were invited to observe the afternoon (workshop and/or masterclass) and of course to attend the concert. Initially I hadn't been sure – mainly because I was scared, I will confess! - but after being so impressed by Paul and Charles I decided to Google Voces8 and was blown away by what I discovered. So I decided I ought to at least give it some serious consideration, and eventually decided to go (if the invitation were still open – happily it was). I am so glad I did!

Monday morning I wasn't feeling too well. My IBS had been playing up over the weekend and was still giving me grief; all the while I was in Luton I was quite apprehensive about the afternoon. I also had no appetite whatsoever, so was feeling a bit dizzy but could manage barely more than an inch of baguette. So er, I was altogether not feeling great and quite scared still about the afternoon. My two main fears were that I'd get to Bedford School in plenty of time but end up finding out that the location of the workshop had changed and end up being there ~only just~ on time; and that I'd be the only one there observing.

Well, I got to the Erskine May Hall at 2.40pm (the workshop to start at 3pm) ... asked a few teachers if they knew where Voces8 were but nobody had a clue. It got to ten minutes to ... five minutes to ... almost 3pm ... and nobody came for the workshop. Eventually I noticed a stream of boys (most of whom looked young enough to be in the Prep School) plus teachers going past, so I decided to enquire. It turns out the workshop was in fact in the Great Hall. Stupidly somehow I got to the main building but was totally disorientated; I had NO IDEA where the Great Hall was (had totally forgotten since the BYO concert 2 ½ years ago) so ended up feeling a wally before having to wait to ask the secretary for help. Oops. So, fear number 1 was realised!

Fear number 2 was realised when it became evident that nobody else was coming to observe. Where I'd chosen to sit (whilst simultaneously flustered and trying to work out the best place to stand a chance of being able to lip-read whomever was leading) I felt hideously exposed but got myself too flustered to move. Gha, I hate being a phobic wimp! (I also hate the way being a phobic wimp makes me self-centred so my apologies to whomever may be reading this. I just find myself having to mull things over.)

However, I survived. And had a jolly fun time too! It was also exceedingly useful, as both Paul and Charles used warm-ups that were almost identical to what we'd done the previous Wednesday, so we could see how it works with the children.

Workshop to follow ...