Valentine - Richard Hawley

What a song! What a singer! What a video!
Another great Yorkshire artist of course ...

Price Tag - Barcelona Messengers #choirs

Bé, un cop acabat el concurs del Oh Happy Day, encara que tradicionalment no he sigut gaire fan dels cors de gospel, hem seguit alguns dels grups que més ens va agradar durant el programa. De fet, gràcies al programa hem vist que no tot és musica d'esglesia, i els xiquets van guadir aprenent noves cançons i cantants de l'historia recent - cançons que anaven des de Video Killed the Radio Star fins al Rossinyol!

Un dels grups que ens va agradar més, per casualitat és l'unic (a banda dels Flumine) que ha vingut a cantar a les Terres de l'Ebre, Els Barcelona Messengers. A nadal els vam anar a vore a Ulldecona i vam gaudir d'un concert excel·lent.

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As you may or may not remember, before Christmas we were following one of these TV show/competitions to find the "best" choir in Catalonia. Our local group put on a good show but unfortunately got eliminated in an early round - but we kept watching the show week in week out. I've never been much of a fan of gospel or church music but these were choirs for the modern age, churning out pop, rock, folk songs and doing a bl**dy good job of it. Anyway, we really liked this group and actually got to see them sing live in a local concert over the Christmas holidays ...

Excerpt from a Teenage Opera

Legend has it that you are allowed to break the Golden Rule of "Don't re-post the same old songs on your blog" when it's your birthday. So, happy birthday to me and today I'll repeat one of my fave tunes. I don't have just one favourite song, but there are a few which go round and round my "top 20" for different reasons - usually a mixture of bringing back great memories plus having everything I like in a decent ditty (in this case, simple understandable lyrics, great chorus to hum along to, trumpets, violins, children's choirs, a certain touch of strangeness and/or originality ...).

 So here goes ...

Bohemian Rhapsody - The Muppets

Bloguear o treballar, aquesta és la pregunta. En fí, poc temps per bloguear ultimament, això de tornar a treballar té els seus pros i contres. Entre classes, traduccions, i altres temes - estudiant sobre el cargol poma, posant la meva gra de sorra en "el process", llegint una bona novel·la, gaudint de bona musica, barallant-nos en els petits de la casa,  i visitant metges continuament, pos, una mica de tranqulitat per escriure les entrades que vull fer (tinc almenys 20 temes apuntats!), pos, no ho trobo. Però no passa res.

Vinga, una mica de musica maestro :)

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To blog or to work, that seems to be the question. All this "return to work" lark has its pros and contras, one of the downsides is that suddenly your days become a rat-race. Not that it's just work filling up my time of course (I didn't choose my life/job here to be stuck in a 9-5 stress bucket), but between teaching and translating, and living - theatre (more later), writing about apple snails (more later), being with the family, a good book (more later), searching out great music, seeing one doctor after another, and "investing" time doing nothing really productive on the internet - I'm finding it hard to find the "quiet hours" in a day which I need to write a half-decent post (and I've got a least 20 written down in a "to blog" list!). But, that's life folks.

So, music maestro.