Bring back Minsrels galleries!

I have just spent two days adjudicating for the Mid Somerset festival. One of the days was the chamber music classes at the beautiful Guildhall in Bath ( complete with minstrels gallery). It was so inspiring for the young performers to play there, and the standard of ensembles was very high. I have had a mad few weeks of (among other things) festivals and writing. All has been very interesting and inspiring, but why does everything happen at the same time?. Hopefully now I have a little time to do the washing, and empty the bins!.

Lovely pictures of Avril Dankworth.

I have just come across some lovely pictures of Avril taken in the sixties when she was doing teacher training all over the world. She did a lot of music Education workshops in this country ( I went with her sometimes). She had many visits to Hong Kong, and did teacher training for music teaches in the British forces bases abroad. That was in the days when money for education was plentiful. There were such exciting things happening then. I would have LOVED to go on one of the Hohner courses for teaching recorder and harmonica. Beautiful pictures Avril!

Cecil Sharp House

An inspiring day on Friday mentoring for "Music For Youth"at Cecil Sharp House in Camden. The day was filled with such a wonderful variety of music, played by young people in a very exciting venue (Music For Youth provides great opportunities for young people to experience things like this.)Cecil Sharp House is the headquarters of the English folk dance and song society. It is steeped in years of great music making. There is also a very nice cafe!

Not enough music in schools

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17226187
From the BBC website . Makes interesting reading.

New Music camp video

Very pleased with our new music camp promo video. worth a watch!

That was close!

AUGHHHHH!!A great day rehearsing in London with the Shrimp band, but then we left the bag with instruments and (hours of) arrangements on the train home!!. The day was saved by a very helpful ticket man who had the whole of the network rail looking for "mouth organs"!, and Mr Shrimp who did a heroic tour of the Birmingham to London line to collect the cargo!. I was so worried about how I was going to find the time for arrangements again. PHEW!!!

Spooky!

I have just rediscovered these pictures. The first is me (playing bassoon) and my friend Alison Tumber at music camp in the 70s. The second photo is of our daughters at the same music camp about five years ago (!).