Have we met before?

Just thought I'd do a post about two chance meetings that occurred when I went to the SMA conference to do my workshops. I had never been before, so it was a joy to meet lots of new people from the Music Education world.

I kept being introduced to new people, but on two occasions I had a strange feeling of "Ive been here before".

The first meeting was with Kate Baxter a well known name in music Education who I thought I had never met, and the second with Reg Fletcher an ex chairman of the SMA who I also thought I had never met.

It turned out that I had met Kate and Reg through Avril Dankworth, and had even stayed at Reg's house!!.

When I was a student, Avril used to take me to various places in the country where she was running teachers courses or adjudicating. It was always inspiring, I used to run her book stall and be her assistant. Avril was innovative in her day, and lectured on music education all over the world.

Another workshop leader at the SMA who was responsible for the set up of the Associated board jazz exams said it was Avril who was one of the first to introduce Jazz into education ( not many people know that!) .

The picture is of Kate Baxter who was keen to hear how Avril was doing as they had worked together often and had lots of good times. She said to give Avril a hug from her.