Post by John on Apr 27, 2012 18:37:52 GMT
After my wife died in August 2009 I found myself living alone for the first time in my life. For the first few months I tried to fill every hour of every day with activity, in an attempt to keep my mind away from actually acknowledging my situation. I couldn’t have kept going very long at that rate.
I grew up in a musical family; music has always been part of my life but I had never been a great one for just listening. I don’t know what prompted me, but one day in early November I decided to look through our small CD collection and found a couple of Katherine Jenkins albums. I started listening and the effect was amazing. I began to see a way through my troubles, but those two albums were not going to be enough. A memory of a voice I had heard years before came into my mind and I knew without a doubt - that voice was what I needed.
Thus I entered “Hayley Westenra” into the search box on Amazon. One thing led to another as Amazon’s clever marketing strategy led me willingly to discover other similar artists and my classical crossover music collection began to grow rapidly.
Hayley and All Angels became my first loves within the genre; their voices providing much needed comfort and singing me through those dark days. I found that it was okay to be alone without keeping frantically busy the whole time. I started looking for ways to experience the music live, and my first classical crossover concert was All Angels (with Camilla Kerslake) at Epsom in April 2010. I went with my mother-in-law as I didn’t want to go alone.
Meanwhile, I had discovered a website www.classical-crossover.co.uk where there was information about most of the artists I had been discovering through Amazon, plus a whole host of others that I had never heard of. There was also a tab labelled “Forums” which I viewed with great suspicion as it was an alien concept to me. One day while investigating this strange place, I came across a discussion about All Angels and their appeal to different age groups. Based on my recent experience, I felt that I had something worthwhile to add to the discussion, so I very tentatively entered some of my thoughts. This was my first post on any internet forum. Someone called “nicola” soon replied, welcoming me to the forum, agreeing with much of what I had said and adding some of her own views.
I was encouraged to write more and it soon became a regular habit. Fairly quickly, I began to think of the regular posters as friends and started to get a feel for how they might reply on any particular subject.
Although many artists offered “meet and greet”s after their concerts, I never dreamt that I would ever have any sort of personal relationship with any of them. That perception began to change when Nicola invited me to accompany her to interview one of my favourite artists for her website. I met two other artists that day and they were all really friendly. That day I also succumbed to Nicola’s persistent attempts to persuade me to join facebook and I discovered a whole level of communication that I had been blissfully unaware of before. Amongst the flood of friend requests I received were several names that I recognized from the classical crossover website.
The majority of my facebook ‘friends’ are either artists or fans and all seem to get along well together like one big community. Many nominal friends have now become real friends, even though I have never met some of them. I have also enjoyed meeting fellow forum members and facebook friends in person at concerts and other events. Although I wouldn’t class any of the artists as really close friends, it is a wonderful feeling to be greeted after a concert with a “Hello John!” and open arms to give me a hug.
I have discovered so many wonderful artists over the past two and a half years, but my love for All Angels and Hayley is no less now than it was at the time when I so desperately needed them. I was in an altogether happier state of mind by the time I discovered Mary-Jess, but she has made just as deep an impact on me. She has a beautiful voice and a beautiful face – I can watch that official video of Glorious over and over again without ever tiring of it. More recently I have also discovered that she has a beautiful character (though her interviews had already given more than a hint of it). One wonderful moment at the first Northleach concert last month was when she walked past me in the audience while waiting for the opening act to arrive. I didn’t know if she would remember me from Gloucester, but she came right up to me and took my hand, saying how pleased she was that I was there. If any of you wondered at my silly grin that evening, now you know the reason why, but I don’t think mine was the only silly grin that night.
I have rambled on too much, but I have one more thing to say. I have participated in many forums since that first post on Nicola’s forum two years ago, but this one is where I have felt the greatest sense of community. Thank you all!
I grew up in a musical family; music has always been part of my life but I had never been a great one for just listening. I don’t know what prompted me, but one day in early November I decided to look through our small CD collection and found a couple of Katherine Jenkins albums. I started listening and the effect was amazing. I began to see a way through my troubles, but those two albums were not going to be enough. A memory of a voice I had heard years before came into my mind and I knew without a doubt - that voice was what I needed.
Thus I entered “Hayley Westenra” into the search box on Amazon. One thing led to another as Amazon’s clever marketing strategy led me willingly to discover other similar artists and my classical crossover music collection began to grow rapidly.
Hayley and All Angels became my first loves within the genre; their voices providing much needed comfort and singing me through those dark days. I found that it was okay to be alone without keeping frantically busy the whole time. I started looking for ways to experience the music live, and my first classical crossover concert was All Angels (with Camilla Kerslake) at Epsom in April 2010. I went with my mother-in-law as I didn’t want to go alone.
Meanwhile, I had discovered a website www.classical-crossover.co.uk where there was information about most of the artists I had been discovering through Amazon, plus a whole host of others that I had never heard of. There was also a tab labelled “Forums” which I viewed with great suspicion as it was an alien concept to me. One day while investigating this strange place, I came across a discussion about All Angels and their appeal to different age groups. Based on my recent experience, I felt that I had something worthwhile to add to the discussion, so I very tentatively entered some of my thoughts. This was my first post on any internet forum. Someone called “nicola” soon replied, welcoming me to the forum, agreeing with much of what I had said and adding some of her own views.
I was encouraged to write more and it soon became a regular habit. Fairly quickly, I began to think of the regular posters as friends and started to get a feel for how they might reply on any particular subject.
Although many artists offered “meet and greet”s after their concerts, I never dreamt that I would ever have any sort of personal relationship with any of them. That perception began to change when Nicola invited me to accompany her to interview one of my favourite artists for her website. I met two other artists that day and they were all really friendly. That day I also succumbed to Nicola’s persistent attempts to persuade me to join facebook and I discovered a whole level of communication that I had been blissfully unaware of before. Amongst the flood of friend requests I received were several names that I recognized from the classical crossover website.
The majority of my facebook ‘friends’ are either artists or fans and all seem to get along well together like one big community. Many nominal friends have now become real friends, even though I have never met some of them. I have also enjoyed meeting fellow forum members and facebook friends in person at concerts and other events. Although I wouldn’t class any of the artists as really close friends, it is a wonderful feeling to be greeted after a concert with a “Hello John!” and open arms to give me a hug.
I have discovered so many wonderful artists over the past two and a half years, but my love for All Angels and Hayley is no less now than it was at the time when I so desperately needed them. I was in an altogether happier state of mind by the time I discovered Mary-Jess, but she has made just as deep an impact on me. She has a beautiful voice and a beautiful face – I can watch that official video of Glorious over and over again without ever tiring of it. More recently I have also discovered that she has a beautiful character (though her interviews had already given more than a hint of it). One wonderful moment at the first Northleach concert last month was when she walked past me in the audience while waiting for the opening act to arrive. I didn’t know if she would remember me from Gloucester, but she came right up to me and took my hand, saying how pleased she was that I was there. If any of you wondered at my silly grin that evening, now you know the reason why, but I don’t think mine was the only silly grin that night.
I have rambled on too much, but I have one more thing to say. I have participated in many forums since that first post on Nicola’s forum two years ago, but this one is where I have felt the greatest sense of community. Thank you all!