The Rabbit and Macbeth

No, not the name of a new pub venue for our song-&-booze-fest; rather it relates to the brilliantly bonkers night we had in

Crouch End on Monday night.

But before we talk about that, let me first thank everyone who came to Polyphony Down the Pub Brighton on Sunday. We were just a little bit late in celebrating May-themed madrigals and chansons but that didn’t seem to matter to the assembled singers.

And then the next night came our first Counterpint in North London. We were there by kind invitation from the Stroud Green Festival, which each year puts on a wonderfully diverse celebration of classical music.

We were in the shabby chic Earl Haig Hall in Crouch End, a slightly more glamorous venue than we’ve been used to:

It’s fair to say that the evening was something of a triumph; the varied set-list of music by Byrd, Aichinger, Aleotti, Victoria (double-choir!), Palestrina, Josquin, Padilla, Bennet, Zielenski and Manchicourt proved to be no challenge to the 60 or so excellent singers who attended.

So how did Macbeth come into it? Well, the Earl Haig, being the hipsterdrome that it is, was simultaneously hosting an immersive production of the Scottish play next door in the main space. Which meant that anytime one of our crew wanted a drink, they had to walk through the performance to get to the bar. (I understand that one particularly thirsty alto almost averted Duncan’s murder in her mission to obtain a G&T, which would certainly have made the play shorter.)

Here’s a FB video with a brief taster of what this cultural mash-up was like:

And the rabbit? The rabbit belonged to someone who became unwell and was taken to hospital (you can see the ambulance in the video above); as her furry friend wasn’t allowed to accompany her, it remained in the care of the Stroud Green Festival team for the rest of the evening, undoubtedly the oddest non-singing guest that we’ve ever entertained.

So there you have it – another superb night of singing with new friends in a new venue and I hope we’ll be back again at some point soon.

In the meantime, there are loads more great events going on as part of the Stroud Green Festival so get yourselves along to them!

Cheers

Kevin