Put on Your Tata!

These last couple of days I’ve been busy organising my diary and planning for the month ahead which is going to be a jolly busy one. I’m off to the Isle of Wight on Friday for the Victorian Festival and then on my return I head off over to Norfolk for a 1940s photo shoot. I’ve been planning this shoot for ages and it’s going to be wonderful working with photographer Angela Adams on location. The last time I had the pleasure of working with Angela was a few years ago at Earsham Hall when she photographed some of my 1920s and 30s dresses. This time we shall be capturing a behind the scenes look of the 40s. I don’t want to give too much away as these photos are for a magazine but needless to say I know we will capture something very special from the eye of a woman! Much planning has gone into the shoot and for some of the shots I don’t want everything to match too perfectly. It’s important to get everything just right and I’m looking forward to going in front of the camera and being creative.

Taking of being creative I’ve been working on my new on-line vintage magazine. It’s all very exciting and really started out as nothing more than a scrap-book idea. However after talking to Rachel my web-designer she suggested other ways of presenting my material and I rather liked the idea of designing my own magazine. It gives me a opportunity to publish some of my larger photographs just like a glossy magazine might and present them in a way which Facebook and Pintrest can’t. I’m going to start small and build up gradually. In time I will be adding in articles, vintage fashion – how to get the look ect but to begin with I will only have a few pages. The wonderful thing about this project is I can start a new and give the magazine a completely new look taking inspiration from Tatla and Vouge. So keep watching and I shall keep you posted!

Towards the end of the month I’m working in Wales and heading up to Scotland and Gretna Green for the WW1 Pack Up Your Troubles Festival. On Friday 28th August I shall be joining forces with The Scottish Academy of Music for a Good Old Days concert. On this occasion I will be accompanied by a trio so it’s important I look over my sheet music.  All my backing tracks have been created from my original sheet music but sometimes I have key changes put in to make the arrangements more interesting. This is why it’s important to go over my dots and check the arrangements. Some Music Hall numbers work best with live backing which is why when you adapted to backing tracks medleys can sometimes work better with modern audiences. I call this “cut to the meat”. I’m looking forward to going back to basics and performing the numbers with live backing which is how I always use to do it back in the day and of course how they were played in the Music Hall era. I have two 10 minute sets to fill in the concert which work out to be around 6 numbers – 3 per set. I would like to do something different from my own Music Hall show I’m performing on the Sunday night but at the moment I can’t make up my mind although I would like to include “Put on Your Tata” and “Vilia” from the “Merry Widow”

which I shall be singing this weekend in the Isle of Wight.

That’s all my news for now. Thank-you for following and Toodle Pip!