January 28, 2019

London, UK

Greetings from London, and from one of my favourite types of day: cold, but crisp, bright and sunny. Ellie and I are actually both a bit ill today, and she's off work as a result. I felt a bit sniffy and clogged up towards the end of last week, but thankfully managed to hold out to finish our run of concerts before getting properly poorly, and now we have a few days clear, so I've thankfully got time to shift the illness before we head to the USA!

It's been a wonderful start to term. Eddie and Nick have done a great job jumping in at the deep end, and we've had some really enjoyable concerts so far. I was particularly excited to visit a 'new' country for me (finding new countries is increasingly difficult). We had a great time in Russia, and I was fascinated to spend a few days living in -15/-20C temperatures, and getting a flavour of the city of Moscow. We'll be returning to Russia in a few months to sing in St Petersburg, which I'm told is very beautiful.

Whilst we were out in Moscow, we met up with Steve Rosenberg -- the BBC Moscow correspondent. As well as being one of the UK's foremost (and busiest) journalists, he is a keen musician, and so he had his first live King's Singers concert experience hearing us in the Moscow International House of Music. He also recorded a feature about Finding Harmony, our new initiative which combines our love for high-quality music-making with our belief that music could play an amazing role in finding unity where it seems absent. Steve's feature was aired on the BBC's morning current affairs programme 'Today' on Radio 4. You can listen to it here (starting at 1hr21m). To be honest it contains an awkward amount of me speaking, but probably just because I spewed stuff which could be easy sound-bites!

For now, I'm going to get on with preparing some music, answering some emails and taking my meds, but next time I write, we'll be on the west of the USA, starting a long tour which encompasses the Grammy awards. How exciting :)