January 16, 2019

London, UK

What an exciting first few days of term it has been! Amazing, yet slightly scary, to have had our first concert of 2019 featuring this new line-up in the beautiful setting of Versailles yesterday; Nick and Eddie both did an excellent job! It was heart-warming to have that typically generous and enthusiastic French applause come crashing in immediately following the end of Bob Chilcott's 'We are' early on in the concert, as if a change to the line-up and high nerve levels on stage hadn't been perceived. Phew! Very encouraging too to have such lovely feedback after the concert from the audience and to see some of our biggest fans, as well as new manager, Kate Caro, smiling away in the audience.

It's funny how last month, we had such an incredibly busy tour of North America which somehow didn't feel all too tiring; and yet after just one concert this term, I already feel super tired! I think it's just a case of getting back into the swing of things as usual. We always plan way in advance to start terms or seasons off with some extra breathing space in the diary to allow us gradually to wind things up again following a relatively relaxing and unwinding holiday for this reason, thank goodness.

We flew back from Paris this morning, straight into a whole afternoon of meetings with our new, full-time artist management agency, Intermusica, as well as a meeting with the board of our KS Global Foundation. Lots of exciting projects in the pipeline which we can't wait to announce in due course! Read more about it in the link above, if you like. Looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight ahead of our rehearsal day at Pat's house in Richmond tomorrow - apparently he's making curry!