by Graeme Stevenson
Following a very successful year, where all the university groups have received very warm reviews, both in the press and from audiences, where do we go next?
Planning is at an advanced stage for next year's performances with the new committees working hard to have everything in place for the start of term. Venues are already being booked and music ordered - it can be quite off-putting sitting in bright sunlight in the middle of May trying to think of Christmas Carols for December!
Our evening concert series will be starting again in October and the first concert looks to be quite special. We will be welcoming to Dundee Piers Adams, who is widely regarded as the world's greatest recorder player. He will be in Dundee for a couple of days to run a series of workshops with local school children who will then take part in his concert on the Thursday evening.
The big event of the coming year will be a 24-hour spectacular at the end of September. You may remember we staged the Mikado with 24 hours preparation in 2001. However, this was a namby-pamby version with all the principals well briefed in advance. This time every associated person will hear of the title, script, music and set only 24 hours or, more accurately, 23 and a half hours before curtain time. We've been in touch with Guinness and, in association with Apex Productions, we will be going for the world record for the fastest theatrical production.
The crux of this is that absolutely nobody knows what the production is until we start - the clock starts as soon as the production team finds out what the show is. In this time we have to build a set, run auditions, rehearse the band, print the programmes, learn the libretto, the songs and the dances. We've already had expressions of interest from television companies in filming this and it should be a big event. Obviously we will need a huge number of people involved, both onstage and backstage so please get in touch if you'd like to participate. Over the coming weeks, more information will be on the music website www.dundee.ac.uk/music/ - but not too many details or our record attempt will be foiled.