Performance Collective Evening Concert

London Performance Collective
7.30pm Evening Concert
Tuesday 18th August


An Evening filled with music, wine and cake

* Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumble Bee for bassoon and piano
* Otar Taktakishvili - Flute Sonata
* Handel - Sonata in G minor Op. 1 No. 6, violin and serpent
* Schumann - Fantasiestucke, Op. 12
* Beethoven - Trio - for flute, bassoon, and piano

Tickets: £10 (Conc. £6)

The Space (directions and map)

The London Performance Collective is a new ensemble which presents classical and modern music in new ways to help audiences to experience it afresh. We perform good music from all historical periods, but aim to present it in ways which open ears anew to its impact.

Results, moving on and settling in...

Where to start?

I got my degree. Specifically, I have been awarded a Bachelor of Music (Hons), Second Class Honours, Upper Division. In ordinary terms that's known as a 2:1 in the British system.

I had a celebratory recital on 10th July. I'm listening to a recording now, to try and make a CD to hand on to someone who couldn't be there. It's interesting... a note in the Mozart that I had pegged as 'always a bit sharp' is flat in both the exam and the recital. Clearly I should have recorded more of my practising for troubleshooting purposes. Overall, the recital went well and I think I played better than in the exam, so I'm very glad I did it. Also, there's little better than playing with friends and family for a large group of my friends and family.

I've also moved house. No more shall I wander along the Roman Road, at least not in order to get the bus to take me to Trinity in the mornings. The new house has a music room, which means I don't actually need to leave to practise. I don't need to book a room, either. This is most excellent. The house even came with a piano, which, although in need of some work, allows me to put off the expensive decision on buying one for myself, at least for a few more years.

So, I've been doing some practising, some small bits of composing, and rather a lot of packing and unpacking. In an unprecedented fit of being rather more organised than usual, most of my existing teaching schedule for the autumn is sorted out. I do need to find more students locally, but I also know it will take time to build up a class in this area.

The next few weeks bring a performance on 18th August (I'll play serpent and Anna will play violin), a trip to deepest darkest Somerset to unwind for a few days, and rather a lot of unpacking. I also need to start doing some arranging and transcription of popular works for horn, violin and 'cello, as it looks like a group of us are doing some of that. I also want to get going again on putting together a horn and organ concert, but I may need to wait a little longer and get some job applications out of the way, first. A website wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

In future summers I hope I'll be able to have a longer rest in August, but as so much is in transition and there are so many new starts, this one is turning out to be mostly one where I keep my head down.

How about you?

Final stretch

Over a month since posting, again!

I have my end-of-degree recital on Tuesday next week. That's, er, a week from today.

Right now, it's all about the practising. And the programme notes... sadly I'm not allowed to have a ghost writer for my programme notes!

I'm hoping to get back to writing some more here when I have recovered from the recital.

Concert diary

Some more performances coming up!

Tomorrow lunchtime I'll be singing at Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street, London W1K 2PA.

Friday 8th May, 1pm
King William Singers
directed by Hilary Campbell
present a lunchtime concert of contemporary choral music.

Programme:

Lauridsen O Magnum Mysterium
Brown o sapientia
Whitacre Water Night
Campbell the isle is full of noises
Whitacre Lux Aurumque
Weir Vertue
Campbell the hand that made us is divine

There will be a retiring collection for the CYM Library and for the Grosvenor Chapel Foundation.

----

On Sunday morning the London Gallery Quire will be singing Mattins at St Mary the Virgin Church in East Barnet. The service begins bright and early at 10am. I will be playing the serpent. I'm quite enjoying playing the serpent.

I haven't thought further ahead than that just now. I think there are Wind Orchestra things coming up at some point.

Mozart KV 370b+371

I'm learning some Mozart I've never learned before, for my end-of-year exam. What's this, you say? How can a horn player get this far and not have learned all the Mozart solo repertoire there is?

Well, simply put, when I started learning the horn there were fewer known fragments of the work. Even now it can be difficult to get hold of. Some recordings I have seem to mis-label the first movement as being KV 307b instead of 370b. I've been able to find two published editions, reconstructed by two different people. The manuscript for 371, the Concert Rondo, was only completed in 1989 and previous editions are missing bits.

This morning I have been looking at the score of 370b in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe Digital Mozart Edition, and comparing that to my Brietkopf edition, completed and edited by Robert D. Levin, which arrived in the post yesterday. In bar 67 I don't know that I agree with the scoring of the piano reduction; I would put a concert E in the bass and in the second half of the bar the horn plays a concert B-flat which is lower than any of the piano notes. This is easy enough to change, but it will have to be the piano part that changes. And in bar 128 there is a quaver-and-two-semi-quavers figure which is written as a triplet in the score. Not sure which I'll do there.

I'm still waiting for the Sikorski edition and the Birdalone edition to arrive. It will be interesting to compare them. I'd love a facsimile of the manuscript but I don't quite want to spend $125 on it.

The Garlickhythe Occasionals and the London Gallery Quire

Long time no post, I know! I've been working hard and learning a lot... and recently I've been having internet problems at home, which tends to scupper posting a bit.

I will be playing the serpent twice this weekend! Once will be with the Garlickhythe Occasionals, at a Ceilidh in Highgate on Saturday night.

For the more devoutly inclined, on Sunday at 6.30pm I'm playing with the London Gallery Quire at Choral Evensong in Dulwich at the Chapel of God's Gift.

Concert tonight

I've put together a small choir to explore the legal and ethical issues involved in copyright and publishing of sheet music, and raise awareness of the resources currently available for accessing works in the public domain. We've rehearsed for the last few weeks and tonight we'll be putting on a concert of some of the repertoire we looked at.

Songs of Freedom
a choral exploration of law and liberty

20 March 2009, 8pm

St John On Bethnal Green
(right by Bethnal Green tube station)
200 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA

Tickets are sold on a pay-what-you-will basis and the funds raised will go to support the Open Rights Group and the fund for building restoration at St John on Bethnal Green.