Iestyn Edwards Part Singing, Part Dancing

Please follow the link at the end of the blog...

   Nicely...She's a terrific host...lovely spread she laid on: self-potted shrimp!  We've known each other since 1993 and have been in the business a combined eighty-odd (years). There might be some gleanable nuggets.

  I'm also hoping it will make clearer what I do. From my Harvest Night corporate Saturday, some lovely - though bewildered - audience comments.

'Loved it - but how to explain it?'

'Can't possibly follow that next year - committee take note. One minute we were discussing mushroom compost - then the sudden ballerina! My face ached, though at times I couldn't quite have said just what I was laughing at.'

'Unexpected. Bonkers. Inexplicable.'

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bunny-galore-zero-filter-ep2-madame-galina/id1281757804?i=1000393741123

Channeling my inner Julie Christie as Lara...


  In 2005, the then First Sea Lord booked me to sing for Her Majesty, and afterward put me onto Combined Services Entertainment.
  They didn't want me to sing in Iraq, but asked for my drag ballerina act, Madame Galina Ballet Star Galactica.
  Now, RSM 'Pam' Ayres, peerless Regimental Sergeant Major, who looked after the C.S.E. tour in Basra, is these days a director of the Ulster Orchestra. One of life's one-offs, you can read/hear all about him in My Tutu Went AWOL.
Pam thinks we must recreate the moment when Royal Marines Commando Stacks took all the umbrage in Iraq, hoiked me offstage by my tutu skirt, onto a tank turret and made me sing opera to be lifted down again.
  Stacks himself puts it, 'Taking you from A to B of your full schizosis, chick.'
  WTS...

#mytutuwentawol #iraq #CSE #forcesentertainment

Years ago, my singing teacher, told me to entertain myself till I was in my late forties: my voice wouldn't arrive till then.  She said this after my performance with British Youth Opera in 1994.
  And she was right.
  I'm currently one of the oldest auditionees ever. Or rather, these days: self-taper/sound-clipper, what you will. I'd never have dreamt back in 1994 of singing lessons via WhatsApp.
  But also - how lucky am I?  As the psychotherapist said after she'd sat decoding the material in my WI Lecture My Tutu Went AWOL: 'You must embrace the newly arrived voice. Not many get such  a gift. Particularly at your age.'

#bassvoice #amsinging #singing #singingstudy #opera #classicalsinging #gratitude

www.gsmd.ac.uk/about_the_school/news/view/article/then_now_iestyn_edwards

  I missed this till now...

...but having leaped, maybe don't piss off that Royal Marine in Basra so he stops play when you've barely landed your gargouillards!
  See My Tutu Went AWOL for more.

#monday #mondaymotivation #mondaythoughts #lgbtqia #leapoffaith

The Christmas corporate bookings are coming in. As Madame Galina, I'll perform the Sugar Plum Fairy; then when I've told the story of the Royal Marine taking umbrage at me onstage in Iraq and running out of the venue with me over his shoulder to dump me on a tank turret, I'll sing a big operatic number.
  Over the years, as my voice has gone up and down in range, the sung pieces for corporate bookings have changed. In the past, I've sung "Bill", "Auld Lang Syne", "Fly Home Little Heart", and others. Most recently, in Aldeburgh, I sang Wolfram's "Song to the Evening Star".
  In June this year, I sang Hunding in Die Walkure with the Mahler Players, conducted by Tomas Leakey.Claire Rutter was Sieglinde, Peter Wedd Siegfried.  Both were wonderful.
  I'm studying now with Peter.  He teaches me to sing in as relaxed and natural a way as possible, and has anchored my voice in its true bass-baritone range.  Unhinged by the …

Looming without zoom...

  Listen to me with the film speak. Sonder Films have chosen me as their next documentary project.  We'll be covering run-ins with a Royal Marine in Iraq, yodelling as a four-year-old with a strip-a-gram giraffe, being late onstage for Tesco Clubcard because the marquee erector forgot precisely which bit of garden wall he'd hoiked Humpty Dumpty onto. Usual.
  WTS....

www.sonderfilms.com

@SonderFilms #SonderFilms #documentary #amwritingmemoir