Blake's Blog Posting

xantha · Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: Blake's Blog Posting

Blake have launched their own series of Blogs on their official website, this week, Stephen writes about what the group are up to...

"After seven months of singing, rehearsing, recording and performing, Blake has finally been given the chance to let all our wonderful supporters inside our world, via our very own personal blog, right here on our official website. We'll do our best to ensure that what ever goes on, you will be the first to hear about it from us. Without the kind support of friends and fans alike, we would never have reached No.1 in the classical charts, or been given the chance to perform on so many great TV shows. We all log into the official website on a regular basis, so be sure to visit the forum and tell us all about what you're up to, and what Blake means to you. We read everything

Over the last month, our CD launched in the UK, and we've all been sitting at home, every Sunday, waiting to see how it does in the charts. Through the amazing hard work of our record company, our friends and fans, we've managed two weeks at No.1 in the classical charts. You can't believe how this feels for 4 friends who only got together 7 months ago, and originally without any more expectation than to sing at a few weddings. Without any primetime television, the support of our fans has helped to keep our debut album in the top 40 UK album chart for 3 weeks, well done guys!

So how does this all feel? Well, I think its fair to say that every day when I wake up, I have to make sure it hasn't all been some long and wonderful dream. As 4 trained singers and actors, we've all dreamt of performing to thousands, entertaining on television and talking about our experiences on the radio; so to actually be here takes a great deal of getting used to. We're just 4 normal guys on a journey. We have no idea where this is taking us, but we're smiling everyday and enjoying the moment. We love the simple fact that people are enjoying music that we enjoy making.

We all wait in anticipation to see how the Christmas month turns out. Our little album will be sitting in a UK chart with over 50 major POP acts, which means we need the strong support of our fans more than ever. Your support got us to number 1 in the classical charts, and gave us a UK album chart entry at 14, which is amazing. The real test is still to come though, can Blake keep classical music in the top 40, even with all those established POP acts trying to push us out? We don't have a television show or big flashy advertising on TV, all we have is an album which we lovingly created, our voices and your support. We're proud of our British roots, we're proud of our debut album, and we are especially proud to have you as one of our fans.

Let's all work together, to spread the word about Blake's music, and see if we can use the power of the people, to keep modern Classical music alive in a POP music world!

Thank you for all your support, we look forward to hearing from you via our forum in the coming weeks and months as we work hard to keep classical music in the charts!

Stephen, Jules, Dom and Ollie

BLAKE."

xantha · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:59 pm Post subject:

This blog was posted on 12th Dec on Blake's official website...

"With only a few weeks left till Christmas day, its starting to feel like the same hectic rush that we all associate with the festive season. As we mentioned before, we have have 7 important TV appearances this month, so that's a lot of rehearsal time and planning involved. We'll do our best to keep you, our special friends and supporters, constantly updated on what's going on. If you've ever got any questions for us, be sure to post them in our forum.

This past week has been a blur of amazing events and experiences. We sang for Princess Anne for a second time, having first performed for her at the BBC Festival of Remembrance along with the Queen and Prince Phillip. We were performing at her huge "Save the Children" event at the Natural History Museum in London. The beautiful museum hall held over 1000 people sat at tables to watch the performance. Princess Anne very kindly met with us prior to the performance and told us that they had all enjoyed the BBC Festival of Remembrance performance hugely. She stayed on for an extra hour just to listen to our performance, during which she swayed in time to the music and smiled. It was lovely to be able to perform our classical and popular tracks for the Princess, and we're happy she enjoyed them too. It was also a pleasure to be able to help the "Save the Children" charity raise over £800,000 for children.

We recorded our Christmas special edition of the Alan Titchmarsh show, alongside special guest Cliff Richard, who Alan interviewed just before us. It will be remembered as a truely magical setting for a very special "White Christmas" performance. We had crowds of children with lanterns around us, as snow fell in a moon lit setting behind us. Honestly, I can say that this was a very moving performance, and I had a tear trying to leave my eye as we finished. After the recording of Alan's show, we jumped back into our blacked out people carrier (why they are blacked out I have no idea, no one would recognise us anyway) and we headed for our next TV recording. This was for UKTV and was an exclusive Christmas recording of "O Holy Night", arranged by Mark Williams just for BLAKE. Those of you that went along to our concert with Hayley Westenra, will recognise this version, so we hope you really enjoy it.

We had huge fun performing at Harrods, and signing albums for friends and supporters. Even though we were performing so early in the day, we created a crowd of around 200 people in HMV, which was wonderful. The performance was very intimate and really allowed us to enjoy the moment with all these very special fans. After performing we spent about an hour signing albums from fans, many of whom were from various parts of Europe. Special mentions to fans who came from Sweden, Italy, Norway and Germany. Thank you so much for coming and making it a truely international affair. We really enjoyed having photos taken with you all, and a huge thank you to everyone that brought Christmas gifts. The wine was lovely thank you! The Christmas cakes were great too! If I'd known that bringing out an album would result in more Christmas present, I would have got started much earlier! It was a lovely experience for all!

We performed at the Magic FM "Local Heroes" awards in Liverpool. Over 2000 people attended a night of wonderful charity, bravery and unity. We performed a number of our lead songs from the album, along with a sneak performance of our White Christmas single. The reception from audience, both whilst performing and whilst we were speaking between songs, was amazing. The people in Leeds are so friendly and warm; we can't wait to return next year. After the performance, all the performers were invited to a big vip party at a club in Liverpool. This was excellent fun. BLAKE were given a lovely table and so many new friends and supporters came up to give us compliments about the music. All the BLAKE boys really appreciated the kind words of everyone in Liverpool that night. One guest that evening gave a wonderful compliment, he said "Alright mate, just wanted to say, I'll not admit this to most of my mates, but when I'm at home doing DIY and the girlfriend is away, I put on her CD of BLAKE and really enjoy it - your music is so inspiring and new, I love it". That was a great moment for me to know that our music can even touch the hearts of DIY fanatics from Liverpool. So you see, everyone can try classical music.

Back in London town, the BLAKE boys do get out to a few parties each week, and a few film premiers too when we have the time. It's a little talked about element of being a performer, but you do need to get out into the world and meet other performers too, it's a good way of meeting like minded friends. All the guys attended the Premier of Kenneth Branaghs new film, "The Magic Flute" - a truely beautiful remaking of the classic Mozart opera. Going along to fun events like this, the BLAKE boys get to walk the red carpet and chat with journalists about our views on modern classical music. It's lovely to stop for a few photos along the way, especially when they get used in magazines like OK! as they did last week. Being stopped by fans of BLAKE for photos is also a real pleasure - after someone has gone out to buy our album, the very least we can do is give them a nice photo to take home. Stop us whenever you see us.

We also went along to a wonderful Elton John charity evening, where one bumps into lots of interesting characters, like Liz Hurley, David Walliams (Little Britain!) and Kelly Osborne. As a special treat we were invited along to a fun afterparty at another nightclub, with Kelly Osborne. Kelly has been singing in the stage musical Chicago for the last few months, so it was a pleasure to spend a little time at the bar with her, talking about how to look after a trained voice. She was really sweet and we wish her continued success with her wonderful music career. It so good to see people in theatre music with real talent.

This week we attend a number of very prestigious events in London, including the Princes Trust carol evening in St.James Church, with Rowan Atkinson and Jeremy Irons (I'll be sure to say hello to both at the reception before - Jeremy is a fantastic actor, and as for Rowan Atkinson, Black Adder is just the best!). We will also be attending a special evening hosted by the BBC to thank all the performers who've helped them this year. After our performance of "God Only Knows" on BBC Children in Need last month, we were sent a personal invitation, so we are extremely honoured to be invited along. We really enjoyed performing on Children in Need, and it was great to add an extra £1.5Million pounds to the total this year during our performance, well done to everyone who pledged that little bit more! Singing at 1am in the morning is pretty tough, but it was all enjoyed in the spirit of the night. Terry Wogan is a total gentleman and it was a humbling experience to meet him too, after so many years of watching him on TV. How does he stay so alert throughout such a long show???

As for all the little things that go on in our BLAKE lives, the toughest thing is making sure you are constantly fit and well to perform. When you have such a hectic schedule, and you are always using your full voice (remember, classical singers use much more of their voice than pop singers) your voice can get a little tired. As such, we all try our best to live healthy lives, lots of good food, trips to the steam room at the local gym for Jules and Stephen and early nights. Well, that's the idea. Living in London, there is always something to do. Since our record reached Gold and the album has been at the top of the classical charts for a month, we do get some lovely offers to go to events in London. We do have to be sensible though, so we pick these wisely. It's great fun going out as a group. We all went along to a club called Mahiki in West London, where McFly and Prince William were on the same night. It's great fun going along to these fantastic nightclubs, but sometimes, you just want to relax with friends at home, drink a few glasses of wine and watch TV. It might not be quite as glamorous, but then, we are just four normal guys, who enjoy friends, family and quality time with both.

Well, there's a little account of what's been going on this last week or so, and I hope it had a few things you didn't already know. We can't wait to get out and perform at all the gigs and TV appearances coming up this month. As classical singers and performers, being out there entertaining you is what means the most to us. Our friends and supporters are the most important people in our lives, without you, there is no pleasure in what we do. You are the real stars.

Here we wish you all a very merry Christmas indeed, and remember to do one thing, make sure you pick up lots of copies of our Christmas single for friends and family - its fits in any Christmas stocking, is assured to make you feel in the mood for Christmas and features a really fun "pop" version of the track.

Take care and we'll write again soon,

Stephen, Jules, Dom and Ollie.

BLAKE. xxx"

xantha · Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject:

I'm sorry, I guess in the excitement of Christmas, I omitted to post this recent blog entry from Stephen......

21-12-2007
FINAL BLOG OF 2007

What an amazing couple of weeks its been for Blake. Counting down the days till Christmas has meant we have got busier and busier, which is just how we like it. In the last 10 days we've performed for so many TV shows, radio shows and events, that its all become a little bit of a blur as I try to recall it all for you guys, but here we go!

The recurring theme for Blake at this festive time, has been 'White Christmas'. Our charity single for the British Legion and Classic FM Music Makers Charity has been in huge demand, so its lucky that we love performing it. Over the last few weeks we have performed it on GMTV, The Alan Titchmarsh Show and BBC Breakfast, along with further performances at evening concerts, including the Prince's Trust Christmas concert at St.James Church in London. It was at that wonderful evening that we met with the actors Jeremy Irons and Rowan Atkinson. Both were there to provide readings between the performances.

Ever since seeing Jeremy Irons in films like Chinese Box and The Mission, I'd always wanted to meet the actor himself. He was extremely complimentary about our voices and the harmonies in our performance, and was quietly humble about his own career. His speaking voice remains my favourite of any male actor around today. Rowan Atkinson was very shy, quiet and polite. As photographers from Hello asked Jeremy Irons, Rowan Atkinson and Blake to pose for photographs, we could tell that this side of the industry wasn't Mr Atkinson's favourite. He assumed a dignified position of quiet appreciation for the moment, which was mirrored by all for those photos.

Performing on breakfast television shows is probably one of the toughest pieces of promotion that a group can do for their music. Taking GMTV as an example, the day starts extremely early (although spare a thought for the poor studio staff that start even earlier, do they ever sleep?). For Jules and I, a car picked us up at 5am, taking us via the other singers houses, to ITV's studios on the south bank of the Thames. One of the most amazing things you find outside the gates of the studio at that time, are people who are actually waiting to get your autograph and have pictures taken with you. We feel that 5am is an early start, but for those there when we arrive, that's dedication!

For most television shows, we have around 3 hours of time in the studio, for around 5-10 minutes of on-screen time. This is essential in live television, as the studio can't take any chances that people aren't there in time for the show, and they also need to be sure that people are rehearsed, made up, and ready to perform on the spot. For 4 classical singers, the hardest part of what we do, is getting our classical voices ready to sing for as early as 7am in the morning.. All our studio performance are sung live.

For those that know, classical singers are more likely to start their singing day around mid to late morning, giving the voice time to warm up naturally. You can 'jump start' the voice with special warm-up exercises and plenty of warm drinks, but it never gets any easier. Where as pop or show singers tend to sing off the voice, classical singing requires full connection with your head and chest voice. The dark, richer sounds that classical baritones can make, are based on the type of training we have and on a particular set of techniques that we use. The advantage is that our voices are very resilient, have a great deal more power and provide us with quite a wide range very important when most music we perform is in 4 part harmony most of the time. Classical voices improve greatly with time and training, so hopefully when we read this in a year, our voices will be that little bit better still. As young classical singers, we still have a very long way to travel vocally. It's exciting.

Returning to television performances, the subject of communicating with an audience is pretty interesting. Most television studios for morning shows, are actually very small indeed. The set that you see on the screen can often represent up to two thirds of the space within a room, the rest being taken up by cameras, lights, cables, monitors and assorted studio equipment. The result for a performer, is a very cosy performance space indeed. It's best not to think too much about the black emotionless camera lens that stare at you whilst you perform. With all the powerful studio lighting, the cameras often blur into the backdrop of the backstage area. In some respects, this means that you very much have to imagine an audience in front of you as you perform. There are red lights on the top of each camera that let you know when they are taking the picture from that angle. We've been told that the best approach is to ignore the red lights as much as possible, and direct your performance to that imaginary audience. If you want to see the result of following the red lights too closely, watch different singers eyes between camera angle changes. As the natural urge to direct your performance to camera occasionally kicks in, you can see people's eyes darting from side to side as they search for the red lights. We try to avoid this habit though. It takes practice and we quickly get better with each performance.

Aside from performing on TV shows, within the music industry there are plenty of types of performance involved. We love the opportunity to appear on radio shows in person, to talk about our experiences, the music and very often, to sing acapella. As four ex choristers, singing in harmony without backing is something we really enjoy. We work with our musical director to create new arrangements of our album tracks, which can be sung without backing in this way. A great deal of our music is written natively in 4 part harmony, so acapella performance works well in some cases we use the spare voices within a phrase or section, to fill in any required harmonies that featured in the backing itself. Learning lots of new arrangements is pretty tough, but its something that's required of trained singers, so we do our best to learn quickly. On the subject of sight-singing, some of us are better than others, but there's no denying that we all improve greatly with the requirement to learn lots of new arrangements in such little time. Sight-singing is a very useful skill. For some it's a technique that is picked up at an early point, for instance as a young chorister for others, its something that requires lots of work to improve at a later point. I represent the latter.

Once the harder work of learning new material or performing live on tv or radio are completed, there are certainly a few enjoyable perks involved in what we do. When our album went Gold a few weeks ago (meaning that 100,000 albums had been sold in the UK) there was a quite a lot of interest from people who were throwing parties or setting up events in London and beyond. Well, Blake are four guys in their mid twenties, so we enjoy a few drinks as much as the next person our age. Depending on how well a group are doing at any time, reflects on the types of events and parties that they are invited to. Blake have been extremely lucky to be invited to some fantastic parties during the last few weeks. Since people have seen a few photos, I'll write about the two most notable events. We certainly know how lucky we are to have been invited, and its not something we ever take for granted. We enjoy every moment as if it were all going to be over by tomorrow. We also work hard to make sure its not.

We were contacted by one of London's most noted party organisers, to see if we would like to serenade a birthday girl who was apparently a fan. When the birthday girl happened to be Dame Shirley Bassey, you can imagine how excited we were. The birthday was to be held at Cleveden House one of the UK's most beautiful stately homes, and now part of the Von Essen Hotel group. Andrew Davies the Chairman and owner of Von Essen met us as we entered the hotel, an amazing man who has achieved a huge amount his hotels are the amongst the finest in the UK. We had the schedule for the evening explained to us, and then relaxed with champagne as the evening unfolded. Dame Shirley is known for her theatrical appearances, and she didn't disappoint on this occasion. She descended down the huge staircase to the party, announced by a trumpet fanfare and accompanied by 6 topless male models. She was greeted by her huge array of show business friends in the main hall characters like Bruce Forsyth, Joan Collins, Rolf Harris, Honor Blackman, Cilla Black and Christopher Biggins, took it in turn to greet her individually as the mass of party-goers, press and photographers looked on. An amazing moment to behold.

The evening progressed through a fantastic meal of lobster, caviar, roasted meats, chocolate fondue fountains and more champagne. Meanwhile, elegant statuesque performers on stilts, dress in white with ethereal blue lights hanging from them, slowly moved between the guests. For a while the front of the stately home was bathed in coloured light, as carefully manipulated hot air balloons drifted back and forth, whilst filled with pastel coloured lights - all the time with acrobats swinging from beneath them. Huge explosions of fire and Japanese dancers accompanied by drummers exploded into action at random intervals. Every guest was enthralled.

Finally, awaiting our signal, Blake were asked to wait alongside a huge stage that had been set up within a night club that had been built specially for the evening. All 500 guests were asked to make their way into the club (resplendent in red velvet drape, chandeliers and a huge glass bar at the cenre), ready for a special surprise. The party organiser, Lix Brewer came onto the stage and announced that she had a personal birthday present for Dame Shirley she announced that with a Gold selling No.1 album, she was proud to present..Blake!.....with that, all of Blake appeared on the stage, with Dame Shirley and all her best friends only feet away clapping and whilsting. We announced that we had a special present for Dame Shirley. Taking a moment to pause, we then sang a very special 4 part classical arrangement of 'happy birthday', written just for Dame Shirley. As we finished, the 500 strong audience burst into applause, all the press photographers set their camera flashes into a frenzy. Dame Shirely stepped up onto the stage and proceeded to kiss each member of Blake in turn. She took a microphone and thanked Blake for the surprise. We then stayed on stage with the Dame, as she cut her huge birthday cake which she then proceeded to feed to each of the singers in turn - all this whilst the photographers kept on taking pictures. (Take a look at our facebook group to see the results). We then joined Shirley at her table for champagne and lots of fun conversations with all her closest friends. Quite an experience for a group of singers that came together only 7 months ago, thinking that we'd only be performing at weddings. Everyone really enjoyed it!

So finally, to our final big event of 2007 attending the after party and performance for Will Smiths new film 'I am Legend'. Blake had a wonderful time walking the red carpet and stopping for photographs before the film, but the real pleasure, was attending the private after party once the film had finished. As we walked around the party, chatting to people about the film (which is excellent fun if you like scary thriller movies) we were asked by one of Londons best photographers to wait aside in the main hall of the party. With that, we saw Will Smith walking towards us. He was introduced to us and we briefly complimented him on the film, as well as explaining that we were involved with UK classical music. With that, we were asked to pose for some photos with Will as he chatted and joked with us about the film and the UK. He was a very friendly and charming guy, who shows absolutely no signs of his huge world wide fame. He's a true example of how a person should be when they do attain that level of celebrity as friendly and as humble as a person who has none at all.

We danced the night away till eventually we thought it best to get home, as our BBC performance was only days away. I guess that we are about as Rock&Roll as classical music gets, but then, if we weren't professional about our voices and bodies, we wouldn't be giving people our 100% with every performance. That's important to us.

So there it is. We have a few more private performances and radio interviews to complete before the 25th, but essentially, the year is closing to an end. We have had an amazing year, and we know that none of it would ever have been achieved without our fantastic group of loyal supporters and friends. For those that bought the CD, those that came to concerts and those that braved the early morning cold to catch us as we entered TV studios a HUGE thank you. We know how lucky we are to be in this position, doing the work we love and enjoying the public eye. We're having to learn quickly and work extremely hard, as there are always those who seek to imitate and compete with you. As classical singers, we have much to learn. As young performers we have much improving to do. As the component parts of a group which is now followed by so many kind and appreciative people, we have a huge amount to give.

For everyone that's with us, and continue to follow our progress, please have a very merry Christmas, shared with friends and family. We hope, that with you, the year 2008 will be a wonderful one for all of us to share together.

With warm regards as always,

Stephen, Jules, Dom and Ollie.

Yours,

BLAKE. xxx

xantha · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:11 am Post subject:

Stephen from Blake has posted the groups first blog of 2008 on their official website....

20-02-2008
FIRST BLOG OF 2008

A huge thank you to all our friends and supporters for being so patient as Blake ready themselves for their first headline event in London this month. With only a week to go till the concert, huge preparations are under way to make sure that this is a truly memorable event for the whole audience. Everything from subtle lighting, to choirs, string sections and new outfits are being arranged as you read this. We will be performing fourteen songs during the evening, whilst our beautiful guest singer, Natasha Marsh will be providing her stunning voice for four solo numbers and a special final duet with the Blake boys. Favourite songs from the album will feature alongside unique pieces arranged by Mark Williams just for Blake. There will be some big musical surprises for everyone!

Within the group we continue to enjoy the fun side of living in London, attending a few of the shows for fashion week and some of the after-parties too. With so much rehearsal time going into our concert this month, we are taking care of our voices and keeping healthy. Singing for over an hour and a half is very demanding on younger classical singers, so we have to make sure that our training stands up to the job. To give you an idea of what a Blake week is like, we currently take part in at least 10 hours of a rehearsal a week, alongside individual singing lessons. Each of us spend at least an hour a day, warming and training our voices for our individual parts too. Producing big moments and singing powerful high (and low) notes for long periods, requires a lot of practice!

Blake will be pushing ahead into this year our newest single release; a very unique a capela version of the popular Hallelujah song from our debut album. Going back to this song and singing it in such a naked way, really showed how amazing the Leonard Cohen version was. We hope you enjoy our own special take on this beautiful song. Be sure to catch the first TV performance of Hallelujah on Alan Titchmarsh' show, on the 25th of this month at 3pm. We will be doing this to also help raise awareness for the British War Widows Association. We are proud to be official ambassadors for the War Widows Association and are keen to do all we can make the public aware of this extremely important charity. We are also looking forward to an exciting summer of outdoor concerts at some of the UK's most prestigious venues, details will be announced soon.

We're sure that we will see many of you at our concert on the 28th. It's going to be a very busy night, but we will certainly be staying behind at the end of the show, to sign autographs and have pictures taken with those that come along. Just give us five minutes to change out of our performance outfits first! We can't wait to meet you all, specially as we have fans coming all the way Sweden, Italy, France, Austria and even Dubai! It's going to be very international audience.

We hope that all of you are having a great start to 2008. It's going to be an exciting year for all of us!

Take care and see you on the 28th,

Stephen.

To keep up to date on all of Blake's news, why not join up to their mailing list, for details see www.blakeofficial.com.

xantha · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject:

07-04-2008
NEW BLOG ENTRY

Where should I start? There is so much to tell. I am currently sitting on a train on the way up to Liverpool for a gig this evening with the guys and this is the first moment I have had to write to you all (and it is my turn...!) so I am so sorry it has taken me so long...!

The last time we wrote to you we were preparing for our debut concert in St. James'. Thank you to all of you who managed to make it to that very special evening and sorry to those who were not able to come - next time! We were thrilled by the turn out (I think there were almost 700 people there) and the response from the audience was overwhelming. The guys and I saw it as a huge milestone and all the work we put in seemed to pay off. It was great to see some of the familiar faces in the audience (as well as ALL of our families and friends) but it was also great to meet some new people as well. I think you'll agree that Natasha Marsh was on stunning form (vocally as well as physically!) and we were so happy that she agreed to sing with us. The War Widows seemed to enjoy the evening as well and as I said we were pleased to be able to put on the concert in recognition of our friends and family and all those who are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let's hope there'll be many more concerts!

What else have we been up to? Well as you may know we are very excited at being nominated for Album of the Year at this year's Classical Brit Awards. This is a huge honour and a real surprise and as it is the only award that is decided by public vote so we have been busy doing our best drumming up support! We went on another radio tour of the South of England doing lots of local press and TV as well. I was particularly happy to be able to take the guys down to Devon (where I am from) for a few days. I should say thanks to my Ma and Pa for putting us all up and feeding us so well. It was good to take them around where I grew up and to the Old Ship Inn in Noss Mayo where I had my first 'legal' pint! On our travels we also managed to visit lots of schools and talk to the pupils about the music we sing and how we all got started. This has been really interesting for us as we seem to have made a good impression in schools. They all like the music and we have had many messages from the pupils thanking us for introducing them to a different style of music which is fab. We are all very grateful for the education we had and owe a lot to good music teachers and so feel it's important to give something back. We are hoping to visit some more schools later in the year.

We have just spent the weekend working with the beautiful Hayley Westenra recording a track in Abbey Road, Studio 2. That's the same studio that The Beatles and other artists used back in the day. That was really exciting to be using the same space as they did! Our album is being released in Japan in May and so we are working on a collaboration with Hayley as a bonus track for Japan. This means that we will be heading out to Japan for a few weeks in May. None of us have ever been to Japan before so we are really excited. The Japanese are really pleased about us coming over so hopefully they will like the album and us! On top of this Toyota have asked us to sing on a commercial for a new car that they are launching. Ewan McGregor is the 'face' of it and we are the 'sound' of it so we are in good company! We will get to perform our new track with Hayley as well who will fly out to join us and we will be traveling around to Osaka, Kobe and Tokyo giving a series of concerts. I think it will be hard work but very rewarding!

Then when we get back we will be busy touring with Katherine Jenkins over June and July and a few dates in August as well. All concert venues are on the website so we hope to see as many of you there as possible. You must tell all your friends as well! It's really good of Katherine to let us tour with her - I think we are going to learn a lot from her and it means that we will be performing to lots of new people who we can then convert to BLAKE!! Amongst all this we have been told that we will need to RECORD A SECOND ALBUM!!!! We are so pleased about this - we are busy getting song suggestions together. When we are going to find the time to rehearse and record we don't know but we are very excited... We all know each other much better now and what our strengths are so can't wait to channel all this into the second album! It will be out later in the year, so save up!

As I mentioned before the Classical Brits are coming up in May so we have that to look forward to - we're up against some pretty good acts but we're going to give it our best shot. If you haven't voted yet you've still got until 11th April and this is where we REALLY need you tell all your friends to help us out as well. We are so grateful for all the support you give us, please don't let it stop because we wouldn't be able to do what we do without your support.

Hope to see lots of you over the summer and out other dates we have. Keep checking the website for news and dates and I promise it won’t be so long until the next blog!

Look after yourselves.

Love from DOM xxx

For more information on any of the news mentioned in this blog, keep visiting Blake's section on here and of course their official website www.blakeofficial.com

xantha · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject:

The following blog was posted by Stephen on Blake's official website today 25-06-08.

The Last Few Months
It is truly amazing to think that this time last year, we four members of Blake had only just started recording our debut album! We had never sung in professional studios before, we’d never performed to the public as a group before, and we had no idea what was in store for us over the next 12 months. A year ago, we were 4 friends that shared a love of crossover music, and a vision to bring this musical style to a much wider audience than ever before. Sitting here now, a year later, I think we’ve made a good start on our intentions. After our debut album reached the top of the classical charts, and proceeded to hit Gold Disc status, we didn’t think it could get any better. With all the amazing support that we received from our kind fans, we weren’t sure we could impress you any further either. Over the last three months, I think we’ve proved to ourselves and everyone else, that Blake can indeed go much further indeed. We owe all our success to your amazing support, so let me take you through the last few months to show you what you’ve helped us achieve.

3 months ago we found out from the Classical Brits committee that Blake had been nominated for Album of the Year, an amazing honour, but a sudden realisation that our work had only just begun. We knew that with tough competition from the likes of the Hayley Westernra, The Scots Dragoon Pipers and Alfie Boe, we would need to work our hardest ever to achieve the public votes we needed. With your help, we toured the UK spreading the word about the Classical Brits and Blake’s nomination. We visited over 20 radio stations, appeared on 6 regional TV shows, performed at over 15 schools (to pupils from 6-18 years old), performed for the War Widows, appeared at the Bath rugby ground with the Bath team, gave interviews for 20 local newspapers & magazines, and performed to thousands of city financial workers at Liverpool street on two occasions. We emailed, we facebooked, we texted and phoned, until we were sure that there was nothing more we could all do to secure every last vote. Once the voting closed on the 11th of April, we had to endure over a month of waiting to see whether our and your efforts had paid off. As the day of the Classical Brits awards loomed, we crossed our fingers.

It was so reassuring to see so many of you at the Classical Brits awards to support our nomination. I can honestly say that one of the most touching moments of my life so far, was when our nomination was read out by Simon Bates and hundreds of people screamed in the audience. You guys really are fantastic in how your support us, and believe me, we absolutely couldn’t do this without you. When, Simon Bates opened the envelope to reveal that Blake had won, I think our reaction said it all. All I could do was jump for joy and give Ollie, Dom and Jules the biggest hug ever. What you might not have noticed in the TV footage of the event, was that as I jumped up, I actually kicked my chair over on to some poor person sat behind me. So many friends have commented since, that I was smiling so broadly from ear to ear that I must have been drunk – as our ever supportive management will tell you, I was so nervous during the evening I didn’t even dare to drink a thing! Being up on that stage in front of 3000 people, to pick up such a prestigious award counts as one of the most overwhelming moments of my life so far. Knowing that friends, family and fans were all so proud of us, but also that Blake had finally made a big impact on the classical music scene, really made the moment special.

Within days of letting the hangovers from celebrating fade, we were already being prepared for our next big adventure. After seeing how much music lovers liked Blake in the UK, executives at Universal Records in Japan, requested that Blake come over to Japan to launch our debut album there too. This was a massive surprise as we really didn’t expect to be taking our music to an international audience for years to come.

During the 2 weeks that Blake spent in Japan we got to experience the huge range of food, entertainment, luxury and scenery that this amazing country has to offer. We visited Osaka, Tokyo and Kobe, but also many other districts outside these major cities. As a result of performing prestigious shows for Cartier, Blake were treated to some fantastic luxury Hotels, including the Ritz Carlton in Osaka, and the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo. Staying in such amazing hotels certainly helped to ease the awful jet-lag which we were all suffering with for almost half of the trip. During our stay we experienced every type of traditional Japanese cuisine available, from bizarre seafood (including the very unusual brown sea urchin) through to the delicious but extremely expensive Kobe Beef. The Japanese are amazing hosts and made sure that Blake experienced everything possible. You’ll be happy to learn that Japanese music lovers enjoyed our music, almost as much as you tell us you do! By the end of the short two week trip, we had performed on 8 radio shows, been interviewed by 10 newspapers and had been shown on a number of breakfast TV shows. We were invited by Universal records to go into a typical Japanese record to see our CD’s on sale. It was so strange to see our CD’s stacked in rows, with big marketing boards all around them, so far from the UK where we had recorded the songs. It really brought home how far we had come.

Looking to the coming months, we’ve got lots of concerts with Katherine Jenkins, at venues across the UK. We’ve already performed two concerts with Katherine at Hampton Court Palace, which was a superb venue for a show. Katherine is an amazing performer and we feel honoured to be sharing the same stage with her. She even went as far as to introduce Blake as being “four boys who aren’t too hard on the eye”, a sure-fire way to flatter us four. Her concerts are full of wonderful songs that show off her amazing singing skills, whilst totally involving the audience in her special endearing way. We’re so proud to be sharing the stage as special guests again, when she goes on an even bigger tour in December. We can’t wait!

Last night we attended the film premier of Prince Caspian, at the O2 Centre in London. We spent time chatting to journalists and interviewers on the red carpet, before being ushered into the centre to watch the film along with 10,000 other guests. Dom actually performed with the lead actor of the film, whilst he was part of the National Youth Music Theatre, so he was very proud to see his friend doing so well. We took some time at the after show party to have some photos taken with Ben, they should hopefully be up on our facebook group soon.

Thank you again for all your collective support of Blake, this year is going to be quite a ride for all of us. Please excuse us if we go a little quiet over the summer though, concerts aside, as we are spending all our free time in Notting Hill recording the second album – it’s out in late September and you’re in for a real treat; more on that in our next blog. Look forward to seeing you soon as a summer concert.

Stephen.

I know the guys from Blake would love to hear what you think of their music so, if you have seen them in concert recently, or bought their first album, do go over to their website forum and drop them a line.They do read all the postings regularly(and make a few themselves!) and the forum is very friendly place (as many of you know).

CLICK HERE FOR BLAKE'S FORUM