On Monday evening (10 February) members were privileged to have the opportunity of attending a Masterclass hosted by former IDG member Francesca Leyland. It has been wonderful following Francesca's journey since leaving Shetland and of course we have all been very proud her West End musical career, in particular being with the cast of Les Miserable.
Francesca started the evening by running a number of warm up exercises and "games". These were fun to do, but more importantly really focused our minds on working with each other.
We then started preparing characters for the piece from Les Mis - At the End of the Day (You're Another Day Colder) - feeling the cold and creating poor downtrodden characters!
Then it was down to learning the words - a bit of a mouthful at times!
Francesca explained that it was important not to "sing" the words but really force them out to create the feeling of hardship and resentment.
Then Francesca choreographed our moves as if we were in the show (how fantastic!)
This is the opening of the song.
The Workers
With the Foreman
Will Fantine be paid ? (not if Carol has anything to do with it!)
After running the piece a number of times we then watched the 25th Anniversary Concert rendition of the song (Francesca being part of the cast of this very special event). It was extremely interesting seeing the way the cast members sang the words and the expressions on their faces - we knew the song by now and could relate so well to what they were portraying.
The evening ended far too quickly and everyone just wanted to do more!
Thank you Francesca for a most fabulous evening - we do
hope we can do it again sometime!
Photos: Jean Sinclair