Ending on a High Note

Once again this week Jonathan tops the Classical Album charts (for the third week running) and Classic FM’s chart too (for the second week running).  A marvellous achievement - I’m sure you all agree.

Another exciting piece of news is that there is now an Official Fan website for all you lovely Fantoines so I see no need to continue with the blog.  

On the new site there is a forum, which is an area for all to discuss past and future events and all things Jonathan, but please remember it is a public forum.  In other words anyone who has access to the internet will be able to read what you write.  Do think twice before you contribute anything personal to it because once it’s on the internet it’s there forever.

I wish the new site every success and hope it goes from strength to strength - which I’m sure will be the case.  There will be one last post in the future when I will close the poll and let you know the results, but I will leave it open at the moment because TENORE is released today in the US!

So it’s cheerio from me and thank you all for your support in the past year.  It’s been fun and hopefully helpful to those of you who don’t use Facebook and/or Twitter.

Note:  This blog will not be deleted but left online as it is a record of Jonathan’s early journey in his professional career. Tweet

London Poppy Day and Reviewing

Yesterday Jonathan took part in London Poppy Day which is a fantastic annual event organised by the British Legion.

He started his day on a London bus visiting No 10 Downing Street (home of the British Prime Minister) and images of him flew around the television channels during the morning.  The above was captured by Jan Smith Head Fantoine who keeps us on our toes!

Following his chat with the Prime Minister, the bus left for Covent Garden where Jonathan did a special Balcony Show on the Uk release day of his album (13 October in case you’ve forgotten).

We’re very lucky to have a recording of his performance at Covent Garden taken by one of the Fantoines, but I’ve been a little remiss and not asked her permission to use it - although I’m sure she will be thrilled - so ‘tune in’ tomorrow, by which time I will have her assent. It’s certainly a video you won’t want to miss.

The photograph to the left is a sneak preview of Jonathan on stage at Covent Garden yesterday afternoon.

There were lots of photographers there so other photos are bound to appear on the internet. Try ‘googling' for them.


Another subject altogether: Reviewing on Amazon 

The following is part of an email I received recently from a delightful Fantoine marketing expert, Sue Zange, who asked if I could explain the importance of Amazon reviews on Tenore.

 I know we are all loving the wonderful success Jonathan is achieving with this first solo album Tenore. We Fantoines can help even more in keeping the momentum going.  Let’s keep the pace up with letting everyone know how wonderful it is and post our reviews on Amazon. #telltheworldaboutjonathan

Amazon reviews are a critical part of ensuring Tenore stays high in the charts. Of course not all of us are wordsmiths and even those who like writing reviews can find it slightly difficult finding enough adjectives to describe Jonathan’s exceptional talent and personality.  One word will suffice if you’re stuck, because now Amazon don’t insist upon a defined number of words in a review.  You can write a review on Amazon even though you purchased Tenore elsewhere.

Here is the link for the CD on Amazon UK.  Once you’ve finished your review on that page, please go to the Tenore MP3 page and do another if you don’t mind. Not tired yet?  Then scroll down the MP3 page and review each track by clicking on the name of each track (not the ‘play’ arrow).  If you have problems please email me.

If you do read other reviews please click the YES button at the side of ‘do you find this helpful’.  All these actions are collated by Amazon and will keep Tenori high in the listings.

Once you’ve done all that, sit back and relax in the knowledge that you’ve made a great contribution towards keeping 'our boy' up there where he belongs.  In a couple of days your help will be needed all over again by reviewing on Amazon.com once Tenore is released in the US.

Thank you all so much.  Every little helps and remember, your review is as important as every other one.

Should anyone have any questions about reviewing please email me and I’ll do my best to help. Email address is over there. >>>




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TWO Number Ones This Week!

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For the second week running Jonathan is top of the UK Classical Charts. He deserves such an accolade and his place within the music scene in the UK.

The radio station Classic FM published their weekly music charts earlier this evening too.

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You can read a short article about Jonathan’s achievement here.  Classic FM is a very popular media outlets for classical music and is highly regarded in the music world, so achieving immediate Number One status is great news.

Another exciting start to a new week.

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Number One

We all knew Tenore would be a smash hit but it’s good to see it in type on your screen.

The weekly UK Music Charts were published earlier this evening and Jonathan is No 1 in Classical Albums.

Such a marvellous achievement and a worthy reward for all his hard work.  I’m sure you will agree with me that he has worked tirelessly promoting his album in the past months.

Oh, below is a photo from his appearance, with Sara and Mario, at The Last Night of the Autumn Proms in Manchester last night. Another standing ovation I’m told.  Bravo!

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TENORE Celebration Video

One of our lovely Fantoines is putting together a video in celebration of the release of Tenore.  Her message is below and details of how to join in the video above. Let’s all make it a great success and remember - there’s room for everyone!

Please replace the AT with the @ symbol in her email address.  Thanks.

If you want to be included in the Tenore Celebration Video please email your photos with the album, name and town/city to ducky.fantoineATgmail.com .. I know some albums won't arrive till mid November so the video won't be completed till early December. Tweet

Fame At Last?

Is the blog famous now that Jonathan Shalit has tweeted the link last week?  

Jonathan Shalit OBE@jonathanshalit

Jonathan Antoine’s Fantoinesjonathanantoinefans.blogspot.com via@TheFantoines

	07:37 AM - 11 Oct 14

I feel all Fantoines do their utmost to promote Jonathan as much as possible and prior to the release of the album in the UK, Sony have made tremendous efforts to ensure it is available worldwide, but I’ve never been too impressed by ROAR’s part in the promotion of Jonathan. With the exception of the odd tweet they’ve been invisible.  (For those of you who don’t know, ROAR is Jonathan’s management company and Jonathan Shalit is his manager.)  

What do you think? Have you noticed any promotions or promotional material  from ROAR for Jonathan - other than a few tweets from Mr Shalit?

I’m not going to let Mr Shalit’s tweet go to my head although I thank him for his recognition and suggest fame would have reached our magnificent young tenor with or without the help of ROAR, but it may have taken slightly longer.

As Chris Needs says: “The cream always rises to the top.” 

What a delight it is to be part of the incredible musical journey of Jonathan Antoine.  His album is breathtaking and I cannot find enough adjectives to describe how I felt whilst playing it for the first time.  It will be winging its way to you soon if you haven’t received it already. 

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TENORE Party Sydney Style

Two lovely Australian Fantoines, Allison Gentle and Kath Christensen, decided to have their very own Tenore release party on Monday (UK time).

What a great idea and it looks so much fun.  Perhaps some of us can think of something similar for Jonathan’s next album?

Thank you ladies for allowing me to post this here.  Much appreciated.


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Interview With Radio Essex

An interview with Radio Essex earlier today. Tweet

Oh Happy Day!

photo courtesy of Fantoine Pam Rose

Since early morning the internet has been buzzing with praise for Jonathan and his fantastic 12 track CD.

I received some of mine but not all.  Disappointing really because I ordered mine in batches so as they would fit through my letter box in case I wasn’t at home. Amazon are usually very efficient with delivering here in the Highlands of Scotland, but my sympathies lie with those of you outside the UK who can’t even download the MP3s as yet.  Please believe me it’s so very, very worth the wait.  Today I ran out of adjectives for Jonathan’s album - I’m sure you can understand the reason.  It’s so good.

Unfortunately I’ve not been online tonight until now so have had little chance to see much of the excitement since morning and the latest wonderful graphics which have been produced by Fantoines, but here is a link you may find very interesting. (For some reason I’m unable to download it directly to the blog).

Here is another link to the Classic FM (radio) where John Suchet is playing Jonathan’s album as 'album of the week' on his show just after 10.00am (GMT) from today until Friday.  Please try and listen although I know it’s the middle of the night for many of you.  

Some Fantoines have suggested Filmon is a good way to access such programmes outside of the UK.  A comment below mentions Hola as another way to access programmes from abroad. These are not recommendations from me but I hope one of them works for you.

I’ll post more news tomorrow but if you have anything you would like posted on the blog please let me know.  My email is over there >>> and I am on Facebook as Subrosa Blonde. 



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Hours, Not Days, To Wait!

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The lovely Debby posted this super graphic on Facebook just after midnight last night and I couldn’t resist posting it here.  Isn’t it so apt for today? Thanks Debby.

It seems a few UK Fantoines have received their signed copies of the CD but they live around the London area.  The rest of us will have to wait until at least Monday for the postman, but I’m hoping the Amazon mp3 will be released at midnight tonight.

Jonathan returned home from Finland yesterday.  He’s posted an item which was on Finnish television news (there’s a short video accompanying it for you to enjoy too).

Don’t forget, when you do receive your album, please write a review on Amazon and/or iTunes.  The reviews are important and will be used by Sony to gauge the success of the album in the UK and to plan Jonathan’s future appearances.  There are many loyal Fantoines who live outside the UK who are desperate to see Jonathan sing live in their countries and your review will help their dream.  Thank you.






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A Message from Jonathan

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Special Balcony Show, London

On Monday, 13 October, Jonathan will be singing from the above balcony at 1pm.

The venue is overlooking the famous Covent Garden Piazza (opposite St Paul’s Church), London.

The performance is to celebrate his album release and also to pay tribute to Pavarotti whose birthday would have been 12 October.

If any of you are in London this coming Monday perhaps you may manage to go along and give support to ‘our boy’.

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Destination? Finland!

After hours of frenzied guesswork by Fantoines, this morning Twitter revealed Jonathan flew to Helsinki in Finland yesterday and performed at the Nordic Business Forum 2014.  The above photograph was sent, via twitter, by an enamoured member of the audience.

Another photograph via twitter:

The Events page has been updated. Tweet

Television, Recording for Charity and Heathrow

Jonathan is to appear on the Lorraine Show tomorrow (Friday) at 8.30am on the UK channel ITV1. I do hope the iPlayer makes it available for all of you overseas. It would seem he has pre-recorded his performance as the above photo is captioned ‘Jonathan Antoine leaving the Lorraine studios (in London)’.  It was taken this morning.

This afternoon he took part in a charity recording, at London’s famous Air Studios for Global’s Make Some Noise charity. 

The photo shows him with Anna Berry (who produced his album) and Julian Reynolds (head of the Royal Academy in London), listening back to the charity single “Steadfast’ which will be completed later tonight and available on iTunes from midnight.

If you do use Twitter look under the hashtag #makesomenoise for further information.



Then, when we didn’t think we would hear any more from Jonathan (as he had tweeted he’d left home at 5.30am this morning), another tweet appeared a couple of hours ago.
                           

Jonathan Antoine @JonAntoine · 5h5 hours ago

At Heathrow airport xx 

Where is he going?  Who knows?  The suspense is thrilling though!


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More Pre-Release Excitement

I’m a bit late with this news but have only heard Jonathan will be appearing on QVC UK tomorrow morning at 9am.  Hopefully a Fantoine will manage to record it and if so I will post it here.

Other news involves the a Tenore Launch Party pack.  You can download it from the link on Jonathan’s website (on the home page there is a red box on the bottom right and the party pack is the revolving 4th image).  The pack includes the lyrics to all the tracks so no matter where you live, be it Europe, Australia or Japan, we can all sing along when we receive our CDs, mp3s or vinyls (although I think the signed vinyls will become works of art rather than being played on a turntable.

Chris Needs has been fantastic in his support of Jonathan and all this week he’s playing tracks from Tenore on his nightly programme.  It is accessible from most countries.

A little fun from Jonathan can be seen on YouTube.  He posted the video on his Facebook page and on YouTube but, as it’s unlisted, he has asked for consideration to be given to it being shared.  I decided, under the circumstances, not to embed it here but to provide a link instead.  Do view it. It’s the first time we’ve seen his playing guitar and singing.  I’ll let you discover the song for yourself.





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Pre-Release Excitement

Picture:  Paul Marc Mitchell

Isn’t this a super photograph?  This past week has been so busy for ‘our boy’ as he promotes his album and he will be as busy this week.

The Daily Telegraph was very complimentary about Jonathan’s performance at the iTunes Festival last week, but I was slightly disappointed with the lack of other reviews from the main stream media.  It seems few leading newspapers employ journalists who specialise in the arts these days which forces people online.  Sadly quite a few of our older generation now miss out because, for one reason or another, they do not use computers. Throughout the UK classes are provided for anyone who would like to learn about IT (Information Technology) so please try to encourage the older members of your family to ‘have a go’.

There was an excellent interview with Jonathan in the Yorkshire Evening Post a couple of days ago, plus Sony released a super video in which Jonathan discusses each track of his album.  Unfortunately it is too long for posting on this blog but it can be seen on YouTube. Don’t miss it because those of you who have yet to meet Jonathan will finally hear him talking and it’s a wonderful insight into his reasons for his track choices.

Tenore, as well we now being available on Amazon Germany (release date 21 October), is now available for pre-order from the US iTunes store for those of you residing in the US.  The release date is still early November but it will be worth the wait as we all know.

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Core n’grato - English Translation

Isn’t this a wonderful illustration and it includes the English translation of Core n’grato as you can see. To enlarge it just click on the image.

It was designed by the lovely Debby who has given me permission to reproduce it here.  Thanks so much Debby. Tweet

Jonathan Guest Of Placido Domingo

Today’s the day!  This evening, at 9pm UK time, iTunes will broadcast live the finale of the iTunes Festival starring Placido Domingo. Have a told you he’s my second favourite tenor?  Possibly!  As we already know Placido has invited Jonathan to be his special guest so Fantoines are very excited.  Many have managed to get the free tickets and will be travelling to London for the event.

For those of you who are having difficulty accessing the live broadcast let me help if I can.  Firstly you need to download the iTunes app because you won’t be able to access the broadcast without it.  Apologies for the link applying only to OSX (the operating system for Macs) but because I use a Mac it tends to automatically send me to the Mac site.

If you use a PC, Android device or iPad just google ‘iTunes for xxx' (your device) although I’m not sure it will work on devices. Desktop computers and laptops are your best bet.

Don’t forget to register the app as I don’t think you will gain access without doing that.

Once you’ve downloaded the app then all you have to do is google 'iTunes festival 2014’ and you will automatically be directed, through iTunes, to the page. At 9pm the live broadcast should appear on the main page.

If anyone is unable to view it live, I understand iTunes will make it available to all, free of charge, for a few days after the event.

May I wish all the Fantoines, who are lucky enough to attend, a wonderful evening.  At times like this I regret living 500+ miles from London but we can all join in the fun with this free broadcast.

I do hope it works for all of you.


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Interview in the Sunday Express

Another fabulous photograph from Jonathan’s publicity photoshoot.  It’s fast becoming a Fantoines favourite. I think the photographer is Darren Bell but hope to have that confirmed shortly.

Did you see the Sunday Express today?  It had a super article about Jonathan.  You can read it here.

I had a wee smile when I read his Mum Tracy ‘sits in quietly on the interview’.  Tracy, along with his sister Charlotte and his Dad John, have taken on the role of Jonathan’s unofficial managers - in the absence of any official management - and are doing a splendid job. Well done the Antoine family who are loved by so many of us.

This week brings more excitement.  Post to follow. Tweet

Balcony Shows Wow The Public

Apologies for not keeping you all informed daily of Jonathan’s travels but I’ve a wee retina problem in one eye and am trying not to spend much time on the computer.  (Trying being the word!)

Jonathan’s Balcony Show tour of England and Wales this week has been a massive success.  Well done to Sony for organising this so well and congratulations to Jonathan for magnificent performances on each occasion.

After Manchester he travelled to Birmingham where he sang from the balcony at Pizza Express in the Bullring. He’s pictured above with the manager of Pizza Express, Sam Rahman, who posted the photograph on Jonathan’s Facebook page.

Onwards to Cardiff on Saturday where many fans had gathered to hear his last balcony performance.  The wonderful Chris Needs was there to rally the crowds while Fantoines rushed around distributing flyers to everyone.

In the coming week I hope to post a video or two if I can get permission from the owners.

There’s no doubt Jonathan’s first CD is going to be a sell out and signed copies of it and vinyl are available here. These are limited editions and selling very fast so get your orders in now.

If you attended any of the Balcony Shows it would be good to hear your thoughts so please comment at the end of this post.  Thanks.


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