just another morning here » music

Done Gone

Sarah — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:50:29 +0000

I am still slightly overawed every time we attend ‘just a school concert’, and it’s in the Cathedral. It was a brilliant concert – I do have to pinch myself sometimes to remember that they are only primary school aged children – most pieces tonight were really very good and not too painful to listen to at all! The singing was especially remarkable – I love Joe’s music teacher and somehow she manages to get the best out of every group – they all sang beautifully.

Anyway. Steve accompanied Josiah’s solo tonight; I think he was far more nervous than Josiah. I’ve been trying to record this at home while they’ve been practising but Joe wouldn’t let me – he couldn’t stop to tell me off tonight!

God in the small things

Sarah — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:09:27 +0000

This post links with one of the journals that we’re doing in our church life group; finding God in the things we do every day. I have written something there as well and I *was* going to include an iPod with these tracks on in my journal entry, but someone has used my shuffle and now it seems to be lost. Anyway that’s beside the point.

I consider myself so lucky that the regular (not quite daily, but almost!) ‘school run’ that I do is to collect boys from evensong – and if I can make it there in time, I attend the service – I actually love evensong. The ritual, the ceremony, the music, the space, the time for contemplative thought and prayer – it is easy to find God in the words of psalms, anthems, and the readings too.

Anyway. Last night was a mayoral service and Josiah was honoured to be chosen to sing a solo in the first performance of the Magnificat by Jonathan Lee. Definitely a proud parent moment.

Magnificat Sancti Petri Exoniensis by Jonathan Lee by tworedboots

Other clips from the service are here too …

First week of the Easter holidays – invasion of the Russians!

Sarah — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:56:33 +0000

I had better write something before the second week of the holidays is over! The first week of the school holidays had long been booked out for The Russian Visit. When we went to Russia with Exeter Children’s Orchestra in 2010 it was always with a view to receiving a reciprocal visit in Exeter, and some of us had been planning it for about a year! We hosted a group of dancers ‘Dans-Capella’, as well as an accordion & bayan orchestra ‘Yaroslavichi’, all young people from Yaroslavl, Exeter’s twin city in Russia. There were a few accompanying adults too; dance tutors and musical director, as well as the Principal of Art School No. 1 – Yaroslavl’s top school for the arts, one of the venues we performed in when we visited.

The Russians were hosted in families from the orchestra, or families who had travelled to Russia with us in 2010, and that all seemed to run smoothly – a lot of people relied heavily on google translate, what a wonderful invention. One friend of mine even gleefully used it, along with copy and paste on her phone, to send texts to her guests *in Russian* – very impressive. I confess we didn’t have to use it that much – one of the girls who stayed with us understood enough English to relay everything to the other one, and between them they managed to gesticulate and use enough English to make us understand most things!

Over the first weekend they spent time with ECO in rehearsals and then on the Saturday night we got together with a couple of other families within walking distance for an evening meal – one of them was hosting the bass balalaika player so we had some fun playing with that!

On the Sunday they performed together at our Spring Concert – EYO managed to accompany some of the dancers, and the accordions played with ECO in one of their pieces – as well as separate performances from everyone.

On the Monday, the dancers spent the day at Exeter College, with the performing arts dance students there; they exchanged traditional folk dances – the English taught the Russians some Maypole dances, and the Russians taught the English a traditional folk dance as well. We also had a civic reception from the Mayor in the middle of the day – in Russia the culture is very different and everything is controlled by the city council, so this was a diplomatic effort on behalf of our Lord Mayor – even though ECO organised and paid for everything, she was wonderful at ‘officially’ receiving the group.

Back to the college for rehearsals in the afternoon, and tea laid on by the college catering students, then a performance at Exeter College in the evening. It was actually incredible to see the dancers ‘close up’, having seen them on the big stage the night before – a totally different experience.

Tuesday was a day trip for the Russians, down to Dartmouth then a boat ride to Greenway (Agatha Christie’s house). Tuesday evening was meant to be with host families; we’d planned fish & chips but then our girls wanted to explore the city instead, so they did – on foot – and got the bus home! They seemed to get on fine, although they did end up eating in McDonald’s, but I shouldn’t mock as I remember some of our party eating there when we were in Moscow (not us, I hasten to add )!

Wednesday was a partial day out – we visited the Norman Lockyer Observatory in Sidmouth. I confess to sleeping through most of it (well, these presentations happen in darkened rooms and I just can’t help it) but the telescopes were interesting. From there we went to a hotel in Sidmouth for a lovely lunch, then the Russians shopped in Sidmouth while we sat and had tea in the hotel After that we travelled across to Exmouth Community College, whose deputy head teacher was a member of ECO in his youth, travelled to Russia with them back in the 90s, and still plays the balalaika now – so he had offered to host a performance as well.

We were worried that we might not get much of an audience but we ended up with a full house which was brilliant. The dance and music was incredible all over again, too – we were just blown away by the accordions – videos don’t do them justice!.

Thursday was a day trip to the Eden project for the Russians, and then a Ceilidh for everyone. Excellent fun here – by now everyone had relaxed and made friends, even the adults – there was some vodka consumption in one corner No photos of this from me unfortunately!

Friday, their last full day in Exeter, was spent mainly shopping! The day was broken up by lunch, some gift giving, and an afternoon concert for the accordion players, and then we arranged for them to go and busk outside as well.

More shopping after that, and then a final evening with host families before setting off on Saturday morning for some time in London before going to Heathrow for an evening flight.

An amazing week really – as I have said in other places, I am so proud of ECO all over again, for being the sort of organisation that can pull off hosting such a brilliant week for people. It was very interesting to watch how the Russians relaxed as the week went on – from some tricky negotiations over the concerts/rehearsals on the first weekend to them being completely at home by the end of the week and not worrying about the details because they trusted us more (I felt). Host families were wonderful, as were key people playing organisational roles. Still, it was good to get to the end of the week and breathe a sigh of relief to send them on their way, in the knowledge that they’d had a brilliant time – there were tearful farewells between some families and their guests on the last morning, which just went to show how amazing an experience it had been.

France (being hosted by the OJHB) next Easter, that might be a little bit easier

A free weekend

Sarah — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:19:01 +0000

Every term, the choristers get a ‘free weekend’, where the girls cover the boys’ duties and vice versa. This weekend is the boys’ free weekend, but I have discovered that the notion of a free weekend is as much a misnomer as that of a sleepover …

Today we were as busy as usual – I tried not to go to orchestra but failed since the person on duty had car troubles so I had to go anyway – and the children were all there as usual too. Josiah usually fits a choir rehearsal in as well as orchestra but just had the one thing to do this morning.

We did actually have time to come home for lunch; sometimes we don’t do that as we don’t have time, but today we did. Then dashed back out for an afternoon of music – Suzuki Group lesson, Hannah’s pupil concert (was meant to involve both girls but Abbie chickened out of her piano piece!), and rehearsals for the DPAF next week. Here is a condensed version for the grandparents’ benefit

We did have to laugh at Anna, who had the same mishap with her cello spike that had happened two years ago - hopefully she’ll learn that lesson thoroughly before she’s on some famous stage somewhere

This evening we went out to Great Aunty Jacky’s birthday party – the children plus Abbie’s friend Riona who’d joined us for the night, dressed up in Lord of the Rings theme as requested; Steve and I were very bah humbug about costumes (can you believe it?!) and just went as ourselves.

Tomorrow I’m out all day helping with a school dance show. At some point over the weekend we are also cleaning out the fish and guinea pigs as usual, folding/ironing about six loads of laundry, cleaning the bathroom and hoovering round, etc. etc., it never ends. So, er – free weekend, anyone?!!

The weekend before Christmas – past and present!

Sarah — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:57:44 +0000

Thankfully schools here had all finished on Friday, so this weekend we only (ha!) had all the Christmas performances by the extra groups. It’s always a manic weekend but lots of fun.

All credit to Josiah, who had the busiest day of all of us. He was out of the house around 8.40am for a choir rehearsal 9-10.30. He then had a service to sing from 11am-12.15pm. Then came a brief break while we collected the girls from Orchestra, dropped Abbie to a friend’s, and made it into town with half an hour to grab MacDonalds before he played violin with the Suzuki Group for the best part of three hours. I walked him back to the Cathedral at 4.45pm where he had a rehearsal from 5-6pm before tea in the boarding house and then the Cathedral Choir’s Christmas concert from 7.30-9.30pm. The choristers were given £5 each for having sung the extra service in the morning so he dashed off to buy sweets in each break from the violin playing and enjoyed sharing them during the busking. We’ve been doing this busking each Christmas for five years now, and it’s quite interesting to see how much Josiah has grown up since we started! And Anna too … we had to drag her away from her friends at the end, as they’d started improvising around various pop songs and would happily have carried on for hours I think, but the Harlequins Centre had had enough of them by then

The first pic is from 2007 and the second one from this year. I did have photos of 2008, 2009, and 2010 too, but thought you’d probably get bored by all of those

The Choir’s concert was excellent too, we really enjoyed it. Josiah is definitely more confident now and it’s lovely to watch. He’s signed up for an extra choir jaunt to support a choir in North Devon this week, so that shows how much he enjoys the choir aspect of his life – it’s VERY hard work but it is fun too.

Yesterday we had the ECO Christmas concert – very enjoyable as usual and we particularly enjoyed having the Ockment Valley Handbells performing both separately and with the orchestra – I wish I had video-ed some of it but I only have photos I’m afraid. Again fun to see the pictures from Christmas concerts in years gone by and compare them to this year’s!

Again the first pic is Anna’s first year at ECO in 2007, and the cello section this year, with Anna as the new section principal. 2008 was Abbie’s year since the concert was actually on her birthday, 2009 is best forgotten because of the junk band we shared with (ow), and 2010 is memorable for having NO photos probably because I was more worried about getting there safely in the snow than remembering the camera!

We now have a week off school, where I’m trying to be as productive as possible so that we can have a proper break from Christmas Eve onwards. Time to stop blogging, have lunch, and get on with some school-work …

Choristers at Darts Farm

Sarah — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 18:55:54 +0000

Today some of the Cathedral Choir were shipped out to Darts Farm for some busking. They sang well even if they were a bit squashed! Hope they will do it again next year, it was a good place to go

The Straight Bow Song

Sarah — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:47:35 +0000

It’s not every day that someone brings you a gift when you sell them a car

Over the summer, however, we sold a car to Josiah’s violin teacher, Mr Featherstone – who we have known and loved for 6 years now. On the day that he collected the car, he handed Steve a piece of music that he’d written for the children to play – it was an exercise that he’d given Joe beforehand to practise having a straight bow, but he’d extended it and written a piano and flute part for the girls to join in with. What a lovely man!

The Straight Bow Song (mp3)
I absolutely love hearing them play together, although getting them to practise together and let me record it is like getting blood out of a stone – but the less said about that, the better

Not really crying over Spilt Milk

Sarah — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:57:56 +0000

Thanks to Emma, who came and stayed over with Abbie and Joe, Steve and I were able to get to Dorset Youth Orchestra’s formal concert last night in Bournemouth. We weren’t going to bother going, we were simply going to attend the informal concert today, but we figured that since Anna had had a bit of a funny start to the week, we’d make the effort. I think she appreciated it – she spent all of the interval sitting on Steve’s lap (don’t tell her I said that ) Funny though, we are so used to her playing the cello that Steve went and chose seats with a great view of the cello section, sat down, then remembered that she was on bassoon. Couldn’t see her at all! But I don’t think we’d have been able to wherever we had positioned ourselves. Ho hum.

Anyway, it was a good concert, then we stayed in a cheap but perfectly nice hotel for the night, ate sandwiches and drank wine bought from the shop on the corner, oh yes, we know how to live it up! We had had lunch out in Exmouth with my parents during the day beforehand though so weren’t hungry enough to eat out again!

Today we were meant to be going to see the car in the recovery depot, but we missed it by 10 minutes. Steve was very disappointed (I wasn’t!). Picked up all our CDs which they’d extracted, bar the one which was in the CD player – Spilt Milk by Jellyfish, luckily looks like it won’t be too expensive to replace!

After that we had some time to spare before going back to Bryanston, so we found a little geocache circle to follow. It was a brilliant set of caches; each container individually made into a different animal/bug, and one of them was really tricky to find – really enjoyed them, they’ll get some favourite points from me. My favourite was the one in the first photo, which was made from a tape measure. Very creative. And then we had lunch

The informal concert was due to be held at Bryanston’s ‘Greek Theatre’, but it was raining, so they moved back into the lobby area of the main school. Some parents sat around in the corridors while others went upstairs and hung over the gallery to watch. I just kept gazing around at the building, I must admit – it is such an awesome place! I wonder in how many schools can you fit an orchestra into the hallway?!! Music was good too, all different sorts today, some solos and small ensembles; Anna played with the Wind Orchestra as well as doing a Samba piece that they’d obviously done as a fun workshop to end the week with. Oh yes, and she did it all in her pyjamas They are musical ones I suppose, but honestly!

Everyone else had had photographs taken in formal concert clothes on Monday morning; Anna was standing on a grass verge taking photos of our wrecked car in hers – the police did wonder what she was doing in a long black dress at 9am on a Monday morning! So, since we didn’t have a posh photo we persuaded her to get her friends together for a photo instead

Anna managed to make a good impression on the Dorset Music Service people despite the dodgy start to the week (which was my fault not hers, of course!), so hopefully she’ll get invited back again another time, she had a whale of a time after that first wobbly evening which was totally understandable after the accident.

We asked her how she felt about cello vs bassoon having just done a week there with on the bassoon and she really struggles to decide … best news of all on the way home though – the bassoon that was in the accident will be mended by tomorrow – for less than the excess on our insurance. Really impressed with Griff who took the job on and sorted it so quickly. Other good news during the week were Anna’s music exam results – two distinctions and a merit – excellent!

Abbie and Joe have done an excellent job of being home alone all day, with the occasional phonecall of support. I’d totally forgotten to book Abbie in for a week at Haven Banks that I’d said she could do (bad mummy), but luckily she phoned up today and there are still places and we can hand forms and payment in on Monday morning! Suzie has kept them busy – she’s currently asleep in a drawer, which is very cute

Out of the ordinary

Sarah — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 21:05:11 +0000

It is exceedingly rare that Josiah will allow me to take a photo of him, but he was obviously very pleased with the trophy he received at ECS Speech Day this evening – awarded for the most promising young musician. There are a string of names we recognise already on the trophy, children who have gone on to be inspiring people with their music – and, apart from that, it was the THIRD BIGGEST trophy of the night! (Obviously the most important thing )
I was hoping to escape having to attend the event, I confess, but actually it was worth it – we are very proud of him and also really grateful that he is part of such a wonderful school. I’m a sucker for being over-emotional at events like that but that is honestly how I feel!

Came home supposedly to plan lessons for tomorrow and have ended up falling asleep in front of the computer. Early morning instead I think …

Recording for the Light Fantastic

Sarah — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 06:31:59 +0000

While we were at Josiah’s birthday party last week, the girls were involved with Exeter Children’s Orchestra, who had a date with the BBC! A while back we put in an application to record a piece of music for Radio 3, for their Light Fantastic festival which is airing at the end of the month. I, pessimistically, didn’t think we’d get picked (hence I booked Joe’s party for the same day!), but we did!

It was very exciting – not only for the children to be involved with the professionals for a morning, but also because we were recording a piece that Richard Bowyer, our musical director, wrote himself. It’s called the ‘Exeter City March’, and was written for Exeter City Football Club – the piece features football rattles and whistles in the percussion section. Richard likes to call them hooligans; we call them supporters

Anyway, I was gutted that I couldn’t be there in the end, but one of the other parents kindly took some photos for me

Now all we have to do is listen to Radio 3 on the 24-26 June, and hope that we actually hear it. We’ve already played the piece as far away as Russia, as well as in our more local concerts, but it will be pretty cool to hear a proper recording of it on the radio. Hopefully the producers will tell us if and when we’re likely to hear it.