¡Qué bueno! (Chuffed of Chueca)

I did my audition for the Coro de Mujeres de Entredós (women's chorus - soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto) - a dauntingly large turn-out for half a dozen places, and I got in! I am thrilled to bits. I've wanted to join this chorus for so long, bought a CD, been to a concert, practised songs from both - and now I'm in!

Entredós is a women's centre with a social, cultural and political agenda.

There's also a percussion workshop on Friday evenings, and I'm hoping I can afford to do that as well. I've seen the percussionist in action, and we're not just talking djembes - though they're deeply satisfying - but all sorts of percussion instruments.

However, there's something else to think about too. One of our friends is an expert on medieval musical notation, and is happily obsessed with the Cantigas de Santa Maria, a 13th Century collection of songs celebrating the Virgin Mary (also catchy Christian propaganda in a country still divided between Catholic and Muslim rulers). The collection was part of a vast canon of work commissioned by Alfonso X, or Alfonso el Sabio (Wise - or, more accurately perhaps - Learned) king of Castile & León, and what makes this so very appealing is that a lot of the cantigas have been set to traditional Galician (i.e. Celtic) folk tunes, rather than the more elegant court music of the time. So there's a bunch of us getting rather excited about the prospect of learning to sing and play some of these. Our little corner of Chueca was rocking to our stomping singalong to 'Quen quer que na Virgen fia' on Sunday afternoon, which my husband says in 27/13 time. Great fun. Sorry neighbours! So my Spanish may not be all that brilliant, but my medieval Galician Portuguese is going to improve no end!

Oh, and at Entredós this evening, we worked on a lullaby written in Catalan, Cançó de Bres per a una Princesa Negra, and Spain's summer hit of 1986, A Quién Le Importa. And in case you're not familiar with the latter, here's a video I smuggled out of rehearsal.......... Altos rule!
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Esta noche he ido a las audiciones por el Coro de Mujeres de Entredós ¡y he tenido exito! Me gusta cantar, ¡tengo que cantar! Sin embargo, es siempre mejor a cantar entre otros, y me encantar cantar en armonía de tres o quatro partes. He buscado un coro desde otoño pasado, y he descubierto el Coro de Mujeres de Entredós, el Coro Universitario Complutense, y el Coro de Cámara, pero mi horario ha hecho todo imposible. Me gusta música clásico, pero otros tipos también: swing jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne), la música folklórica europeana, arabe, y africana (me gusta la música japonesa también, pero sólo a escuchar, ¡no a cantar!) y cuando estaba socio de 'Dubai Harmony Chorus' he cantado pop, y gospel, y 'barbershop' - ¡qué diversión! No he elegido Entredos sólo para su repertorio - lo que es muy variado y divertido -sino también para compartirlo con otras mujeres - españolas y otras - por fin para ser socio de un grupo.

¿Y nuestros primeras canciones? Cançó de Bres per a una Princesa Negra - en catalán, y ¡¿A Quién Le Importa?!

¡Qué alegría!