Another year, another Spode. This year was as good as ever, and extremely fantastic.
Recitals: excellent, fantastic, most enjoyable.
Lectures: this year I made two (next year, I might go to them all, it depends on the children). Mary Remnant played some most interesting medieval instruments; in another lecture we discovered some fun and interesting ways to learn about classical music (and had a great deal of fun joining in).
Liturgy: a great deal of plainchant and some other part-music (Haydn, Mendelssohn, and I forget what else). A great deal of the kind of music I don’t normally get at Mass.
Singing: we sang some cool music that I’d never heard of before, with Debbie Miles Johnson (who is fantastic) and Suzy Stranders, who was new and also fantastic.
Orchestra; we played the Concerto de orange juice (first two movements only), and it was cool; we had a flugelhorn instead of a cor anglais, but that was cool too. Rik’s guitar playing was very good, but then it probably always is.
Strings: there were strings; we did the first movement of Vivaldi’s Summer
Scratch; we scratched Alaxander’s feast, and I played in the second violins, and it was every bit as much fun as I thought it would be.
The children: sang in the younger children’s choir; John helped them to learn the songs; there they were, on stage and singing. And they played in the percussion in the children’s orchestra and John helped out by playing his bass guitar. They stayed up for the last night concert to be in their orchestra and choir, and then to listen to the Dove ‘Passing of the Year’. A quick look in their direction, I see that they are listening attentively. Sam (aged 6) said he liked it, and when quizzed that he liked the ‘where is the bee (etc.)’ bit best.
Relaxation: the weather was nice; I put aside worries and became defrazzled. The food was nice, also. John didn’t hurt his leg playing cricket this year, as there wasn’t any, but he did pedalo the children in the park.
Party piece: John and I attempted to play a duet on violin and bass guitar; I made too many mistakes, but people still didn’t seem to mind. This is because we are all friendly and disposed to be pleased.
Last night concert: some of the music was a real treat. tenor singing that was really nice (and I don’t usually like tenor singing); Sophie with band and Brother Robert gave a thrilling performance of something called Jauchzet dem Herrn; Debbie Miles Johnson sang a beatiful arrangement in the style of Handel of Old Mother Hubbard (there are several different performances of this on youtube), Francis Bevan’s arrangement of the Grandstand theme was excellent in every degree. Fr Michael Durand delivered a deliciously witty and naughty piece (the original is on youtube; has the link). I could go on, but won’t.