“If you can, try to stand next to a different person at every rehearsal you go to. Make sure you can hear them as much as you can hear yourself! ”
When did you first become involved with the Rodolfus Choir?
I first heard about the choir when I was on my gap year as a choral scholar in Portsmouth. They needed some extra voice for bumping the Philharmonia Voices for a concert at the Royal Festival Hall and my friend sent me the email to help out.
What do you remember about your first concert singing with the choir?
It was Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé with Philharmonia and Philharmonia Voices at the Royal Festival Hall, a stunning 1-act ballet, and it was totally thrilling being part of it. It has no words, just various noises like 'ah', 'ng' and 'ooh'; Ravel just paints the most amazing pictures with nothing but music... and right at the end after building from pianissimo to fortississimo and getting faster and faster to finish on the final huge climax someone in the audience couldn't contain themselves and yelled "BRAVO!!" and the whole place erupted with applause.
Can you pick one highlight of being a member of the choir?
It has to be when my Christmas carol was debuted at St Martin-in-the-Fields at the New Year concert in 2017. It was all very surreal... I had only written it a few weeks earlier and gave a copy to Ralph for some feedback and the first thing he said to me when he saw me before the first rehearsal for the concerts was "I like your carol! We're going to do it."
I had tried to save paper and ink by condensing the opening phrase (which is a simple descending scale, sung in canon by four soprano soloists entering in shortening intervals) from two pages to one, but unfortunately when we came to sing it for the first time, Ralph and the singers didn't quite understand how I'd written it on the page, so I got up to talk through it and conduct that bit, and as I went to sit down, Ralph said "well carry on then", so he gave me a sort of on-the-spot conducting masterclass, and come the concert I was the one stood in the middle of the church with the singers around the audience, conducting the world première!
It was truly amazing hearing my music come to life and being sung by such exceptionally good singers.
What are you up to now?
I'm completing my final year of the Tonmeister course at the University of Surrey. After that I'll be working at Chandos Records - they just offered me a job!
If you had to pick only one song to sing for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
I had to think very hard about this... Since we're going with songs and not pieces and I'd be singing it rather than listening to it, I'd say ‘And So It Goes’ by Billy Joel. I'd want to sing something that really makes me feel something, and singing that alone makes me quite emotional and makes me consider a lot of things and people in my life... it sounds weird but it makes me feel human
Who are your top three composers, musicians or bands from the past and present?
Rachmaninoff, Anna Lapwood and Vulfpeck
Can anyone else in your family sing?
Not really! My grandma used to sing but doesn't anymore.
Where would you like to be in 10 years time?
I'd like to be a freelance producer and recording engineer of classical music, and I'd also like to teach kids about recording and getting into that side of the industry.
Have you any advice to give to our junior singers?
If you can, try to stand next to a different person at every rehearsal you go to. Make sure you can hear them as much as you can hear yourself! Eugene Corporon said "You don’t come to rehearsal to learn your part, but rather to learn everybody else’s part."
We have three office dogs at The Rodolfus Foundation. What's your favourite animal and why?
I absolutely love dogs, but it would be too easy to say they're my favourite so I'm gonna say octopus. They are SO cool. They have three hearts and blue blood, they can change the colour and texture of their skin instantly, and they shoot INK to confuse predators (can you imagine?? Like, uh oh I might die here.. go write a book, ya dummy. Zoom zoom)
They're also crazy intelligent, and their intelligence is distributed throughout their arms. They can have over 2000 little suction cups on their arms, and each of them can rotate, grasp, taste and smell independently. They've been seen to voluntarily remove an arm so it'll wriggle away on its own to confuse predators! They'll also use tools to protect themselves and carry out complex tasks... They're just seriously fascinating. Anyway that's enough about octopuses.
Thanks for taking the time to speak to us, Alex! Don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list to keep up with the latest news, project information, and great content from Rodolfus HQ.