Canada preparations

And so it is time for Rock to go over the water for the first time (that we know about!). On Thursday Roger, Mary and a small team of soloists are heading to Ontario, Canada. And as Ontario is such a huge place, I should narrow it down - they are effectively going to Ottawa and its surrounds. As well as Roger and Mary, the team comprises of Devon, who played Peter on the Rock tour, Richard Harvey, who understudied the role of Cornelius as well as playing Andrew on tour, Catherine Muggleton, who understudied the role of Miriam and played lots of other parts including one of Philip's daughters, and one of the servants at the High Priest's house on tour, and Amy Walters, who trained the Keighley choir for the tour and has been involved with CMM for years. Over in Canada they will be joined by Sarah Bowers and David Black, who will sing the parts of Zillah and Jesus.

But in the last couple of months as preparation, the British part of the team have held a couple of practice performances - firstly at Richard's church in Nuthall, Nottingham (photos are from this performance), and then at Catherine's in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire.

It was really great to be performing Rock again, albeit in a very slimmed-down format. The last time Rock was performed by CMM it was at Symphony hall with over 1100 in the choir. For these two occasions we had 6 or 7 singers only and a couple of instrumentalists. Needless to say - the musical sounded completely different!

So please pray for the team in Canada and also for their friends, family and churches they are leaving behind for a couple of weeks.