It’s been great to have the music corridor alive with music again this week. Welcome to anyone new who came along to try out our clubs. We hope you enjoyed them.
Coming up this term:
Please make a note of these dates and let your family know to save the date.
Trip Survey
Please complete this very quick survey to help me plan a trip to see a West End musical at some point this academic year. Thank you.
Whole School Musical – Oliver!
Thank you to to those of you who are helping out at BYMT’s Try a Musical Instrument day tomorrow. BYMT are really grateful for your help in inspiring the next generation of BYMT musicians.
Fab opportunities
Visit Guildhall School of Music & Drama on Sunday 15 October 2023 for our BIG Double Reed Day.
Our BIG Double Reed Day offers an exciting opportunity for musicians, teachers, and parents to meet and engage with a community of oboists and bassoonists from across the country.
Join double reed players of all ages for a day of masterclasses, small group ensemble coaching, technique classes, performance confidence workshops, pedagogy discussion sessions and a grand finale concert – which will be hosted in our Milton Court Concert Hall.
You will get the chance to learn and play alongside world-leading Guildhall tutors including, Alison Teale, Dan Jemison, Gordon Hunt, Helen Storey, Richard Ion, Steven Hudson, Bob Porter, Fraser MacAulay, Rachel Broadbent, Rosie Cow, Rebecca Wood, Adrian Rowlands and Stuart Russell. Guest tutors include Michal Rogalski and others to be confirmed.
Our event will allow visitors to participate and perform in a newly commissioned work for massed double reeds by award-winning composer, Peter McGarr, as well as the opportunity to browse trade stands hosted by Howarth of London, Crowthers of Canterbury, Double Reed Ltd, OB3, Reed Machines, Wonderful Winds and many more.
A limited number of sponsored places and bursaries are available to assist those on low incomes, towards the cost of attending. Contact BigDoubleReedDay@gsmd.ac.uk for more information on funded places. Places for those aged 10 and under are free.
Music Leaders
Thank you to those of you who applied to be a 2023-2024 Music Leader. We will be in touch to let you know if you have been selected.
Try playing your part along with these videos:
The best bits of the 2023 Proms
This year saw the Proms spread its geographical wings further than before, with concerts in Londonderry, Great Yarmouth, Perth, Truro, Aberystwyth and a weekend-long residency at the Sage Gateshead.
Overall, there were 84 concerts, performed by 37 orchestras, featuring more than 3,000 musicians.
Ticket sales rose above pre-Covid levels, with 350,000 people attending a show.
Highlights of the season included:
- Mariza sings Fado: A passionate and fiery evening of Fado music, otherwise known as the”Portuguese blues”. The concert was fronted by Fado legend Mariza, whose agile vocals and sparkling charisma lit up the Royal Albert Hall.
- Chineke blow the roof off: The Chineke! orchestra’s youthful energy brings a whole new energy to well-loved classics. This year, the ensemble played Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Haydn’s exuberant Trumpet Concerto. Keep an eye out for soloist Aaron Azunda Akugbo, who tackles the piece with unmissable flair.
- A night of Northern Soul: “Orchestral versions of pop music can feel a little bit contrived,” admitted BBC 6 Music’s Stuart Maconie, who co-curated this second concert of the Proms. “Northern Soul, absolutely not, because so many of the original records feature orchestration, so its in the vocabulary already.”
- Four Seasons in One Day: Well, one night to be strictly accurate, but Finnish conductor and violinist Pekka Kuusisto’s unconventional approach shone new light on Vivaldi’s masterpiece. Wearing leather trousers and radiating with enthusiasm, he gave cittern player Ale Carr freedom to improvise over familiar passages, then joined him in those improvisations – at one point riffing on Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.
- Self Esteem at the Sage Gateshead: Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka pop provocateur Self Esteem, admitted to being “quite nervous” as she began her first concert with a live orchestra, but she needn’t have worried. Her confrontational, feminist pop was somehow even more emotionally devastating with the addition of the Northern Sinfonia’s orchestral [expletive deleted] Wizardry.
- Simon Rattle’s farewell: One of the year’s most emotional Proms, as Sir Simon Rattle bowed out as Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra. He chose to depart with Mahler’s valedictory Symphony No 9. When it ended, the hall sat in silence for 30 seconds. The end of an era.
2023 Mercury Prize
And finally …
Hayes Music blog 