Chinese New Year

[John]

Mary-Jess Leaverland
I will be performing in London on the 29th of January for Chinese New Year! More information to follow soon! Mary-Jess x

[John]

Mary-Jess Leaverland
I will be singing in Trafalgar Square on Sunday 29th as part of the Chinese New Year Celebrations! Expect an amazing show 12-6pm!

That's one I will have to miss .

[John]

Mary-Jess will be singing at about 15.30 on Sunday afternoon.

[Nigel]

When I read your news that Mary-Jess would be in Trafalgar Square on Sunday I thought it would be nice to spend a day in London, see the festivities for Chinese New Year and see her live performance. Right up until the last minute (well it's Saturday night now) I was ready to go. Then I checked the train times for tomorrow and realised I'd forgotten something. It's Sunday and the trains are all replaced by buses. Now there's no way I'm going to pay rail fares to go by bus and there wouldn't be time anyway. I went down last October to see Hollie and a normally comfortable two hour journey took seven and a half hours standing in a dirty hot double-decker bus.* To add to the problem on that day most of the tube system was out of action too. I'd forgotten that these weekend closures on the Norwich line have been going on for maybe ten years now. Goodness knows what they're doing since it took less time than that to lay the original lines in 1840.
I would never recommend to anyone that they use the railway from here to London at the weekend, nor the tube system. I wonder if any performing artists have lost any audience numbers and revenue because of it.

*Have to add this because it's sort of ironically funny. I've driven over 300 miles across the width of Britain from here to the Welsh coast in less time than that 60 mile 'train' journey took. I flew from Heathrow to NewYork in less time too!

[John]

Owww! I feel for you, Nigel.

Thankfully, living that much closer to London, I can usually find an alternative route even when the trains are disrupted.

Funnily enough, a train failure on the Norwich route once had the opposite effect for me. It was a steam hauled excursion and the first stage from London to Norwich seemingly went very well.

Here is the locomotive taking on water at Colchester on the outward journey.


After a couple of hours break in Norwich, we returned to the station ready for the next leg, returning via Lowestoft. Then it was announced that the locomotive had failed on arrival at Norwich. We were given the choice of waiting four hours for a diesel to arrive from London to haul our train back, or taking a normal service train back to London. I chose the latter and arrived back in London just in time to get to The Royal Albert Hall for a concert in which Hayley Westenra was performing.

I am reminded of that occasion every day, as I have this photo taken afterwards as my desktop background.


Okay, totally off-topic. Let’s get back to Mary-Jess......

[Nigel]

Wow John, that's a great picture of you and Hayley. No wonder you have it as your desktop picture.
Ha ha, I was going to say the same thing as you did. Apologies to Mary-Jess because I sort of hijacked the thread and turned it into a moan about the railways. Now I'll go back to what I originally said - if she performs somewhere within reasonable travelling distance I'll definitely go and see her.

[John]

Jan 30, 2012 20:03:38 GMT Nigel said:

- if she performs somewhere within reasonable travelling distance I'll definitely go and see her.

Mary-Jess is performing in West London on 9th February.
classicalcrossover.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=mary&thread=128&page=1#760
I'm still waiting to hear about times.
Might only be two or three songs though

[Nigel]

Jan 30, 2012 23:22:49 GMT John said:

Mary-Jess is performing in West London on 9th February.

Thanks John, I did see this but on 9th Feb I'm already booked to see Kina Grannis perform in concert at the Union Chapel in Islington. Can't see both at once, so once again, another time will have to do

[John]

There is an all-too-short section of Mary-Jess singing 'Glorious' in this video of the Chinese New Year celebrations.



Watch from 4:03 to 5:35

[John]

Found this photo and short write up about Mary-Jess on a blog about the Chinese New Year celebrations.
lucieslondon.blogspot.com/2012/02/chinese-new-year.html

The singer in the photo above is Mary-Jess Leaverland, who was a winner on a Chinese version of X Factor. I really loved her story. Mary-Jess was studying music and Chinese and Sheffield University when she went to Nanjing for her year abroad. While there, she entered the TV singing competition and won. It’s not that common for English people to speak another language, so I’m always amazed when I see someone who has made a real effort to go out of their comfort zone like this. Her singing is quite an unusual mix of Chinese pop melodies with English and Chinese lyrics. Plus, she is this really sweet and humble kid who’s had her dream of becoming a recording artist come true and she speaks in this incredibly grateful way, like she can’t believe her luck. No arrogance, no celebrity. It’s really refreshing.

[John]

Just found a new video with Mary-Jess singing in Chinese (I guess ). One I haven't heard before. From 5:00 to 6:45