It never rains, but when it does...

...it pours. After one of the quietest months of my professional life in Jan, I am fresh back from a crazy schedule. From Mon 6/2 I did over 1700 miles in 10 days covering Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Helensborough, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and London.

SCO were magnificent, as ever. Andrew Manze is a wonderful conductor, so musical, and lets the players sing, he guides a talented group of musos to bring the best out of them. I will think very differently of Erioca in future. It was wonderful meeting Peter Palotai

The Liverpool bit of the tour was for an audition for no2 with the Liverpool Phil - I have been lucky enough to win a trial. Thanks Marcel. No dates yet, but am looking forward to going in and meeting the section and rest of the orchestra.
           

Cats and bass cover

Harmoniemusik - Conway Hall, 15/2/12

I have had the pleasure of playing with Harmoniemusik since around 1992. The group is a wind quintet plus piano, all of whom have been friends for 20 years or so. They resurrected St Columb festival in Cornwall after it fell into a hole in the late 80s, and set up a chamber music festival in the last week of August, which is quite nice for Nicky as I as our wedding anniversary lands in that week. So I have no excuses for forgetting!! Since 92 the group has performed 3 concerts a week. My first St C was 93 or 94, am not sure. I had a brief break of 15 years when I was in Australia, but was allowed back in 2010.

The Conway Hall concert is a sort of "highlights" of the 3 St Columb shows the previous August. I was in 3 works:-

Nielsen - Serenata Invano. I have done this piece a number of times over the years, at least 5 times, but it never gets tired. Its a quintet for cello, bass, clarinet, horn and bassoon. An odd mix, but it works. Its programmatic, in 3 sections based on a group of musos who spend the first disjointed section warming up and tuning. The next section is a serenade to a beautiful woman. The piece ends with a disgruntled march, as the object of the serenade is not impressed enough. Hence the title, which means Serenade In Vain. Its fun, with lots of solo link passages for the bass.

Vaughan Williams - Piano Quintet. I really must apologise for boring my family and friends about how much I love this piece. It is just magnificent. Its an early work that VW was unhappy with and was not published in his lifetime. Fortunately Ursula was persuaded to publish it when he fell off the perch. Paul Guinery believes there are signs of the mature composer - I am not so sure. It very approachable and a great play for all. I have to thank my in-laws Liz Kilpatrick, Kay Sobey and Howard Jones for introducing me to wonderful piece - Kay and Howard were at the concert.

Telemann - Concerto in E min for flute, violin and oboe d'Amore. Having enjoyed a slushy romantic piece to end the first half it was time to ditch the vibrato and make a cleaner, clearer sound for the Telemann continuo. Janna, Jo and Sarah played beautifully, and I followed Alec for my life!!

It was good fun, music, company, wine and nibbles. What more could you want??

After a quiet January, its back to running around the UK...

January is "dead" in the music world here in the UK. Promotors do not put gigs on, as audiences dont turn up, due to shortages of cash after Xmas. The session scene is drying up in London, the WE shows are toey about how long they will run...doom...gloom. As I result I have one gig in Jan, but it was a ripper, see below.

I have a 12 day period where I am in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Liverpool, London before returning to Bristol. And my accoutant just asked me for my business milage - 90%!!

Auditions...

I failed my trial with WNO. Onto the next auditions - there are no 2 jobs with the Royal Liverpool Phil (tutti and no2 - I have an audition for the latter in Feb) and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (waiting to hear from them). The Northern Sinfonia have just readvertised their principal bass job. Have thrown my hat in the ring, lets see what happens...

Jan is a very quiet month - good for practicing.

Ulster Principal excerpts

The Ulster principal audition was in October - the excerpts were:-

Beethoven - 9, recit

Brahms - 2, 1st mov bits

Britten - Young persons guide var H

Ginastera - Var Conc solo

Haydn - 31 the post horn, var 7, bass solo

Mahler - 1, you know the bit!

Mozart 39 - last mov, the common excerpt

Prokofiev - Lt Kije solo

Saint Seans - the Elephant

Strauss - Don Juan, four common excerpts

Stravinsky - Pulchinella

Sight reading - nasty 7/8 bit from Holst's The Perfect Fool.

It certainly main a perfect fool of me! I stuffed up the sight reading. Am not sure why we have sight reading - even in the UK surely the days of bands having to read stuff are long gone? If if a piece is put on the stand for a reh before a gig, then surely you have time to look at it and do some preparation before the gig. Or are we saying players need to sightread stuff perfectly for the rehearsal? I dont get it.

I was not offered a trial. One thing I learnt from this audition was that there is little point in doing any audition without adequate preparation, I need to be at 110% to even bother.

And it was good to meet Steve Williams, who was running the auditions in London on behalf of the Ulster Orchestra. The others on the panel with principal cello and concertmaster.

Nov 2011

The WNO tour was in full swing by Nov 2011, with the company in Llandudno, Bristol, Birmingham, Oxford, and Southampton. Am really enjoying my time with WNO, and are a fantastic company.

Earlier in the month I nipped from Llandudno to Manchester/Macclesfield, to work with the Northern Chamber Orchestra, play Brandenberg Concertos no 3, 4 and 6, as well as Stravinsky's Apollo Musagete. NCO are awesome, both musically and socially. If I could have negotiated a few of 2p per note am sure I would be in a position to retire comfortably straight off! A lot of notes and a lot of fun.