The Young Georgians
visit
Hatchlands and the Cobbe Collection

 Robert Adam's Hatchlands from the park



Alec Cobbe very kindly welcomed the Young Georgians on saturday to his home, Hatchlands Park in Surrey. Hatchlands is not only a fine Georgian house with a magnificent array of art and furniture,  but it is home to the World's largest collection of historic keyboard instruments. These include those once owned or played by Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Marie Antoinette, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Mahler and Elgar...the latter has writing inside in pencil by the composer denoting which pieces were actually composed on this instrument.

Alec Cobbe plays an early keyboard instrument with an exquisite case below murals, which he painted, in the Dining Room

The usual array of cars arrived at Hatchlands in the usual Young Georgian way...slightly in dribs and drabs! On arrival we had coffee in the Dining Room and Alec gave us an introduction to the house and its amazing collections, almost all of which were collected by him in his lifetime. Hatchlands is very much a living house, and the Etruscan style murals in the panels around the Dining Room, by Alec, confirmed this.

We were treated to music played on instruments ranging from the 1620's to the big Edwardian Walker organ in the music room, which I attempted to play. We also heard a Schnetzler chamber organ, which was utterly magical in its original tone.

Afterwards it was to the pub in East Clandon for a very good lunch after what had already been a true feast for the senses.

                          Assorted Young Georgians, including self

For information on Hatchlands visit: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hatchlands-park/

All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish

Toni Castell's
Life from Light
at
The Union Chapel Islington
15th November 2012


I was greatly honoured to be asked to sing in this modern opera, songs from which I had already recorded on Toni's Momo album. Billed as a 'controversial Wikipedia inspired sexual education opera' this was a real change from my usual repertoire and I enjoyed it massively. To work with synthesisers, drums, electric guitars, a harp, trumpet and visuals altogether was pretty awesome.

          Roberta Howett, Susan Jiwey, Simon Desbruslais and Momo's Band


Toni Castell's is a master of image painting in music, from the environs of a nightclub to the battlefields between North and South Korea.

Self singing 'Never be afraid to say I love you'

Susan Jiwey was the star of the show. She not only had to sing notes that only dogs can normally hear, but she also saved the night when singer Camilla Kerslake dropped out of the project the evening before after being poached for the night by Andrea Bocelli. Susan's voice filled the great gothic space of the Union Chapel and was also extremely effective when combined with the stunning, but modern, timbre of singer Roberta Howett.

The opera was very slick and ran smoothly under the expert directing of Toni, while he played keyboard, guitar and sang. My brilliant girlfriend, Alice Thompson, turned her stud (haha!) in to more of a stud by putting a line of said studs down a black shirt I own...so I looked, as my Grandfather would say, like a real 'Dickie Dazzler'!

                        Self in my McQueen/Thompson shirt


Carolina Busina was a brilliant stage manager amidst the sort of stressful situations that only come with getting an extremely disparate group of musicians, artists and techs together at the right time and making sure they were all calm and collected.


Everyone on stage felt hugely honoured to be involved and a tour is on the cards, so watch this space!

Roberta Howett

                   A triumphant Toni Castells


Live recording of 'Fake Boobs' at The union chapel:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSWx3MbqNGA

For more information on Momo and Toni Castells please see
http://www.momomusic.net/momo/Home.html




                         All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish



Harrow School Churchill Songs

at

The Royal Albert Hall



Last night was spectacular and made me feel very proud to be an Old Harrovian. I think that in today's society, where one has to play down everything, having gone to an old fashioned public school is very hush hush. I was thrilled last night, not by the grandeur or the pomp and pageantry, but by the familial way my old school looks after its old pupils and by the brilliant new headmaster's speech, which stressed that education is not all about grades in academic exams but a way of building on one's own God given talents, whatever they may be. The fact that the evening was compered by actor Benedict Cumberbatch (or Benedict Scamblesbitch, as mispronounced by Field Marshall Lord Guthrie), who shared the stage with said Army giant and OH astronaut, Dr Nicholas Patrick, showed off the school's variety. While one can spot an Old Etonian a mile off, Harrovians are a more mixed bag. I was allowed to do so much, may be too much, music and architectural study at Harrow, but now, as a professional singer and an architectural historian, I am supremely glad of that...

                        Bagpipers in the rain

The evening started with Walton's 'Crown Imperial'. The school orchestra was brilliant and the roof was literally lifted when the organ thundered in on the last phrase. I was sat very high up, so the view of the arena was wonderful. Lady Soames, Churchill's daughter, glowed in emerald green in the box below. Five and a half thousand Harrovians!! Most people's nightmare, I imagine, but what a sight AND sound, for it was Songs we were there to sing. Our school prides itself on these songs and really there is nothing quite like them. People often say they rose tint the Old Harrovian's specs but, whether this is true or not, they sing of old fashioned and good values, courage and faith in the face of adversity and the regret of Youth's passing. For the two hours in which we were all under the cavernous dome of the Royal Albert Hall the modern World stopped for a little and many of us were taken way back beyond our own childhoods at the school and in to comfortable and heady realms of history and nostalgia.

The arena filling up before songs

Benedict Cumberbatch did a very good job of MC. He managed to combine being down with the kids with keeping the grandees in laughs. He managed to confuse swinging with singing a couple of times and he was wearing the wrong sort of tie, but apart from that he was perfect for the job.

From the imperial grandeur of 'Stet Fortuna Domus' to 'Good Night', there was something for everyone at Songs, which is why these rose-tinted secular hymns are as bewitching today as ever.

Follow Up! Follow Up! Follow Uuuuuuuuuup!

                      All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish



A little about me...

My name is Oliver Gerrish and I am a professional singer and an architectural historian. Architecture and music have been my life since as early as I can remember. I used to be pushed in my pram around Regents Park as a three year old and remember the impression to this day that the great terraces by Nash gave me. Once I visited Bath as an 8 year old and got home and the babysitter had a fit because I had made a mini-Bath on the floor of the Drawing Room out of paper and card...my Mother thought it was 'wonderful' and I was very relieved I wasn't in trouble for making such a mess!!

Me on a roof in Marylebone

While at school I got obsessed by Victorian gothic architecture and did a thesis about George Gilbert Scott, with particular reference to our chapel. From there I got a choral scholarship to Lichfield Cathedral and had the delight of being able to run riot in a great Mediaeval cathedral, which was such a thrill after having read so much about them. After Lichfield I won a place to study singing Countertenor at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and while there I set up The Young Georgians, the under 35 (as I am now just over 30!) wing of the Georgian Group.

Young Georgians at Bishton Hall, Staffordshire

It is now the tenth year of the Young Georgians and since starting it I have taken trips to houses, churches, factories, field barns...you name it, and there have been too many fun times to remember.

Young Georgians at Island Hall, Godmanchester

In this blog I will be chronicling these trips and my mad musical/building obsessed life in general.

Sophie Edmonds and I have also started 'Georgian Townhouse Parties', so keep an eye out for those too...!

Georgian Hosts with the Most...Self and Sophie Edmonds

Self waiting to go on...!

For more information on The Georgian Group please see:-
www.georgiangroup.org.uk
and on me:-
www.yellowpoppymedia.com





All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish

Hampstead - a country idyll on our doorstep

My dear abode for half a year...

Hampstead, to me, is a very special place indeed. I had the honour to live there for half a year in a house that was all that one would want of 'Old Hampstead'. This house is on Cannon Place, a grand Victorian row of houses on what was once the grounds of Cannon Hall. The house had been in the hands of our friends since they had moved there from Moscow in the early 1930's. It was a house with a character as tangible as the various characters that had inhabited, the last of which being a very dear and old friend of my family, who had recently died. My Grandparents had laughed and danced here when they were studying at King's London in the 30's, my Father and Uncle had caused havoc there on numerous occasions and my cousin and I moved in for the princely sum of £40 a week, which covered bills...these were mainly for the heating, which could either be all on or off, so the house with its nine bedrooms and high dusty ceilings was a like a hot house throughout the early wintry months of 2010. There were various discoveries in the first few days of living there; a death mask belonging to some long gone inhabitant, some ashes (ditto), a machine gun, another machine gun and many other long forgotten things. These prototype weapons were moved to the Imperial War Museum I believe.

                                   Machine gun and other forgotten things in the south attic

The real honour of living in Hampstead was having this extraordinary survival of a country village on the edge of London on one's doorstep. I delighted in the hidden architectural treasures all around; the tiny Italianate frontage of the St Mary's Catholic Church on Holly Walk, the front of Fenton House down it's avenue, the Georgian Lock-Up within the great brick garden wall of Cannon Hall, the Lilliputian streets of the Vale of Health, the crooked vistas across the High Street to the spire of Christchurch and the skyscrapers of Docklands, which served as a reminder to me of the preciousness of this little village on a hill above the rat-race of London.

The approach to Cannon Place



Fenton House

St Mary's on Holly Place

                        All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish