Stringwise

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/videos/nativity-girl-singing-loud-village-church/

#MfEMonday – 11th December 2023

11th December 2023 Music for Everyone

Huge congratulations to all our fabulous youth groups for their magnificent performances in Wollaton yesterday. The standard of playing was fantastic from all the bands and string groups. A particular highlight was the audience participation in The Twelve Days of Christmas which gave everyone a real workout!

You all deserve a rest, and we look forward to seeing you in 2024. New members always welcome – click here for more information.

Next Sunday 17^th December over 200 performers will take to the stage for our final concert of the year: Christmas is Coming! A festive afternoon concert for all the family to enjoy starring our Vocals youth choir, Nottingham Community Voices, Nottingham Chamber Singers and a visit from a special someone!

Tickets available to book online (click here) or call 0115 958 9312.

As it’s that time of year when many of us are treated to a school nativity we couldn’t resist sharing this gem. A young choral enthusiast, her school nativity play, and some very enthusiastic singing!

Nottingham Symphonic Winds have their family concert “Memorable Moments” at the Albert Hall Nottingham, 11am on Saturday 16 December. It’s a family-friendly concert with a fun quiz for the whole family to enjoy. You will hear classic movie soundtracks from Jurassic Park to Frozen and lots of festive favourites too. Tickets available to book online at: https://nsw.org.uk/nswo_concerts/memorable-moments/

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

11/12/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/reflective-classical-music-remembrance-day/

#MfEMonday – 13th November 2023

13th November 2023 Music for Everyone

Hello Everyone,

Bandwise and Stringwise were off to a great start this weekend, working on an exciting programme to perform in a Big Youth Experience Concert next weekend at the Albert Hall.

If you’re looking for an uplifting festive concert our chamber choir, the Nottingham Chamber Singers, are performing a joyful selection of Sparkling Baroque music on Saturday 2^nd December at St John’s Church, Carrington. Angela Kay is conducting the concert and here she is to tell you a bit more about it! https://youtu.be/AZo4466aMsQ

To book tickets call the office on 0115 958 9312 or follow this link: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/ncs-sparkling-baroque-booking/

Looking ahead to next year, places are booking up for our next Blow the Dust off your Instrument event (20^th Jan) and the ‘Gloria’ Singing Weekend and Concert (27th-28th Jan and 3rd Feb).

There’s time to book if you haven’t already!

Here are a selection of reflective classical works to mark this weekend’s Remembrance Day:

Did you know that 60 years after their first hit, The Beatles topped the singles chart this weekend, with all four Beatles featured on the song Now and Then. To find out more click here: The Beatles top singles chart 60 years after their first hit – BBC News

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

13/11/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 6th November 2023

6th November 20236th November 2023 Music for Everyone

Greetings MfE members!

We hope you’ve all kept safe and dry in the recent storms, and that everyone in our regularly rehearsing groups is looking forward to coming back together after the half-term break.

We’ll be excited to hear the fruits of this term’s labours in a couple of weeks at plenty of informal daytime concerts, and hoping that many of you are signing up for our Christmas is Coming! extravaganza.

You can sign-up here or by ringing the office.

This weekend and next, it’s the turn of brilliant young instrumentalists from beginner to advanced, as they will be busy rehearsing for their Big Youth Music Experience, which will be culminating in a grand showcase on Sunday 19th November.

To sign-up for Bandwise click here, and Stringwise click here.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Phil Houghton, who will be leading MfE’s two Daytime Orchestras in Loughborough and Nottingham from November.

Phil is a freelance conductor, violist and violinist, and received his initial musical training in Leicestershire. After graduating from Trinity College of Music, London, he has had a varied career of playing, teaching and conducting in many styles and genres. He currently conducts LSU Classical in Loughborough, and the Bedworth Symphony Orchestra, and regularly works with other orchestras including The Stratford upon Avon Symphony Orchestra and The Charnwood Orchestra. He was also previously the conductor of the Leicestershire Schools Concert Orchestra.

Phil had his first conducting lessons as a teenager with Robert Mandell, in return for managing the library of his Melachrino Strings Orchestra! He has also had tuition from Peter Stark, who is Professor of Conducting at The Royal College of Music. Phil lives in South Leicestershire with his wife Rebecca and their 3 children.

You’ve likely seen a lot of fireworks around this weekend. If you’d like to add some musical fireworks to this sunny Monday, follow this link for a firework and bonfire themed playlist: Classical music inspired by fire – Classic FM.

It even features the brilliant Chariots of Fire which Bandwise and Stringwise will be performing in their concert on the 19^th of November!

If you’re free on Saturday 18^th November – Charnwood Voices have a fantastic concert lined up for you. With professional soloists performing, it promises to be an inspiring event. See flyer below for more details, and they hope to see you there.

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

06/11/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/byme-bandwise-2023/

#MfEMonday – 18th September 2023

18th September 2023 Music for Everyone

It’s going to be a busy week for MfE, with not one, not two, but EIGHT Daytime groups starting their new term. Plus there is the beautiful Chamber Singers concert to look forward to on Saturday evening at St Barnabas Cathedral, 8pm start – tickets on the door!

For more information see the attached flyer, or click here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/ncs-concert/

The youth groups, all Open Voices groups, Sunday Afternoon Big Band and Flute Choir and Nottingham Chamber Singers have all started their new seasons, with the World Drumming starting next week (26th Sept). See a full weekly schedule below.

To find out more about any of these groups and how to join, please contact the office.

The next BANDWISE & STRINGWISE workshop is open for young musicians to join! We’re so excited to see many young wind, brass, percussion and string players taking part this November. Over the last few years the combined concert has been a magnificent affair with more than 150 young players all coming together to share the music making.

Bandwise: 11 & 19 November, young wind, brass and percussion grade 2+

Stringwise: 12 & 19 November, young string players from beginners

We’ve been ‘musing’ on the fantastic music chosen for the NFC workshop day in October with Sam Evans. Interesting fact about the operetta by Franz Lehár The Merry Widow – did you know Lehár was not the first choice to compose the music? Richard Heuberger was asked first, but his draft was deemed ‘unsatisfactory’ and he left the project.

The Vilja Song is one of the most well-known pieces from the score, if you’re not familiar, take a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4366WDO3jhU

Something a bit different… Pachelbel’s Canon performed by… TRAIN HORNS! This is both brilliant and hilarious and is a must-watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3QlR98–A&t=158s

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

18/09/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 11th September 2023

11th September 2023 Music for Everyone

Nottingham Festival Chorus

We are now taking bookings for our Festival Chorus day on Saturday 7^th October.

We are very lucky to be joined by the seasoned and acclaimed Chorus Master Sam Evans! Much in demand for workshops for singers of all kinds, Sam has run events for large choirs such as Highgate Choral Society, The London Chorus and Henley Choral Society. He has run numerous “Come and Sing” workshops, on repertoire ranging from opera choruses to pop music from movie soundtracks.

Get ready to sing a selection of well-loved choruses from Mendelssohn’s epic Oratorio Elijah, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach’s sparkling Magnificat and the beautiful Vilja chorus from Lehár’s opera The Merry Widow.

Booking can be made online here: Music For Everyone (savoysystems.co.uk) or by calling the office.

Autumn Term Begins

It might not have felt like Autumn with all this glorious sunshine, but some of our groups started their Autumn term this weekend.

SAM Big Band and Flutes had a sweltering start to the term, with the Flute Choir even resorting to playing outside!

To check when your group is starting, and to sign-up for any of our Adult groups, click here

Bandwise and Stringwise

For any young musicians wanting to get involved in Music for Everyone, we have the exciting Bandwise and Stringwise coming up in November.

Bandwise:

Date

Venue

Who’s it for?

11 & 19 November 2023

Course venue – South Notts Academy, Radcliffe on Trent

Concert – Albert Hall, Nottingham

Young wind, brass and percussion players grade 2 – 8

Book online here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/byme-bandwise-2023/

Stringwise:

Date

Venue

Who’s it for?

12 & 19 November 2023

Course venue – South Notts Academy, Radcliffe on Trent

Concert – Albert Hall, Nottingham

Young violin, viola, cello and double bass players beginners – grade 8

Book online here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/byme-stringwise-2023/

Did you know Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah was given its premiere in Birmingham in 1846 to an ecstatic audience of 2,000 people. It had taken him some ten years to prepare, including penning most of the libretto himself. It was very much the ‘Messiah’ of its day: hugely popular, cementing Mendelssohn’s position as one of the greatest composers of sacred music.

It will be fantastic to work through this in our Nottingham Festival Chorus day with Sam Evans next month.

According to a new study 84% of the general population want to experience an orchestral concert. Read more here: https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/survey-research-royal-philharmonic-orchestra/

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

11/09/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 4th July 2023

5th July 2023 Music for Everyone

Everyone at Music for Everyone is still on a high from this weekend’s magnificent 40th anniversary celebrations!

Nearly 1000 people descended on the Albert Hall to celebrate 40 years of music making, recounting many highs from the last four decades and looking forward to the next four.

On Saturday, we celebrated our youth programme, with hundreds of young people taking part in an impressive concert.

Earlier in the day, celebrated folk violinist and MfE alumnus Sam Sweeney led a workshop with our youth string players, the fruits of which raised the roof in the afternoon concert.

Also featured were our Youth Bands, Vocals choir, Strictly Strings training orchestra, and a wonderful line up of ‘big kids’ — alumni youth participants who returned as adult players to share in the day.

On Sunday, members of our Daytime Voices choirs, the Nottingham Chamber Singers, Nottingham and Loughborough Daytime Orchestras, Nottingham Concert Orchestra, Big Band and Flute Choir, were amassed to give a triumphant concert featuring excerpts from favoured programmes from the last 40 years.

This included works by Brahms, Handel, Freddie Mercury and, excitingly, the world premiere of a new fanfare by composer Libby Croad.

Sunday’s concert was rounded off with a performance of the Hallelujah Chorus, conducted by our incoming artistic director Alex Robinson.

We proceeded to finish this fantastic weekend with celebratory tea and cake, after a special moment on stage with Angela Kay.

Thank you and well done to everyone who participated and made the weekend so extremely special!

Did you see our Exhibition this weekend? Showcasing Music for Everyone’s history over the past four decades, it was great to see so many wonderful memories.
Thank you to Minder and everyone who helped make such a special display.

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

04/07/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 6th March 2023

6th March 2023 Music for Everyone

As you know, Music for Everyone is currently celebrating its 40^th Anniversary season. Founded in 1983 by Angela Kay, the Nottingham based music charity has long championed the voices of women within the field of music and performance. When we made the connection that our concert this weekend would fall in the week that we celebrate International Women’s Day, (Wednesday 8^th March) we wanted to celebrate some lesser-known female composers, whose works have often been underrepresented in established anthologies in the genre of sacred choral composition.

Come and join us as we celebrate women in music at St Martin’s Church, Sherwood: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/march-ncs/

Today we are musing on the INCREDIBLE Big Youth Music Experience concert yesterday at Nottingham’s Albert Hall, featuring over 160 young musicians and an amazing joint performance of ‘Feeling Good’. Here are some photos!

Flutes in Art History: Major Find by SAM Flutes Member.

Did you know that famous Derby painter Joseph Wright was a flute player? SAM flutes member Carol Craggs discovered that when she acquired a bound set of the flute duets he used to play in the 1770s with his Derby friend, Rev Thomas Gisborne. When fellow SAM flutes member Martin Gorman mentioned the duets in a blog article it was spotted by author Dr Stephen Leach of Keele University. He has recently written a book on Joseph Wright and acknowledged their help in identifying for the first time the music that Wright and Gisborne played together. Everyone had assumed the music was burned along with old family papers after Wright’s death. Dr Leach lists Carol’s collection of duets and is looking into the possibility of getting some of the music performed at the Joseph Wright Gallery in Derby.

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

06/03/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMondays are Music for Everyone’s weekly emails designed to keep you up to date with MfE events & to circulate interesting finds, special features, and musical musings for your Mondays! We are aiming to send out something new each week.

#MfEMonday – 27th February 2023

27th February 2023 Music for Everyone

We’ve had an amazing weekend of music making with over 160 young musicians at South Nottinghamshire Academy in Radcliffe on Trent this weekend with Bandwise (Saturday) and Stringwise (Sunday). Can’t wait for their families and friends to hear the result in next weekend’s concert at Nottingham’s Albert Hall!

As we head into March, MfE is looking forward to a busy month of exciting events:

NCS concert – A Multitude of Voices on Saturday 11^th March at St Martin’s Church, Sherwood. Tickets available in advance here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/march-ncs/ or on the door.
We’re excited to announce 3 of MfE’s youth groups will be ‘day-tripping’ to Birmingham for the Music for Youth Regional Festival on Tuesday 14^th March, playing in the CBSO Centre!
MfE youth groups Mother’s Day concert on Sunday 19^th March at the Grange in Radcliffe on Trent, tickets available in advance or on the door.

Music has been proven to have a positive effect on our health and some new research has shown how long it can take to feel happier, or more relaxed or even to overcome sadness.

It won’t come as a surprise that music with a slow tempo is best for relaxation, although it might be of interest to learn that 13 minutes is the optimum listening time for feeling peaceful and contented compared to 9 minutes of a driving rhythm and fast tempo to help you to feel uplifted.

Find out more here: https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/music-to-release-sadness-and-feel-happier-study/ for the stats and percentages!

Have you seen ‘The Piano’ on channel 4 as pianist Lang Lang and popstar Mika search for the top amateur pianists by listening to them perform at popular train station pianos in St Pancras, Birmingham New Street, Leeds and Glasgow? 13 year old Lucy plays a stunning version of a Chopin nocturne here: https://www.classicfm.com/composers/chopin/blind-pianist-lang-lang-the-piano/

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

27/02/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 20th February 2023

20th February 2023 Music for Everyone

Tickets are still available for the Nottingham Chamber Singers’ Multitude of Voices concert at St Martin’s in Sherwood on 11 March. Join them as they dive into the rich, exquisite and relatively under-represented canon of choral works by female composers.

The concert, in the same week as International Women’s Day, will take the opportunity to celebrate 900 years of Passiontide themed motets, both reflective and uplifting from the 11th Century Abbess and Polymath Hildegard von Bingen through to the emerging and talented Kerensa Briggs (b.1991). Throughout the concert, acclaimed Saxophonist John Barker will be weaving transcendent melodies into and around our program, culminating in a second half performance of the beautiful Son of God Mass by James Whitbourn to ease you into Eastertide.

Click here for more information and here to book.

The youth groups are gearing up for a busy month of March, working towards their Mother’s Day concert on Sunday 19^th March at The Grange in Radcliffe on Trent, an instrumental treat for all! Click here for more information

We are really looking forward to welcoming 161 young instrumentalists to our Bandwise and Stringwise courses this weekend! After a weekend of being put through their paces by our crack team of experts they will then come together for a showcase concert at the Albert Hall on Sunday 05 March. We can’t wait to hear their joint performance of ‘Feelin’ Good’ arranged by our very own Josh Goodman. Perhaps most famously recorded by Nina Simone, it was first performed by Guyanese-British singer Cy Grant on the opening night of The Roar of the Greasepaint at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham on 3 August 1964!

Click here to find out what song was number one on the day you were born. The current range in the office is Fernando by Abba to I Owe You Nothing by Bros – but we’re not going to reveal who came out dancing to Abba!

Have a great week!

Your friends at MfE.

20/02/2023

www.music-for-everyone.org | 0115 9589312

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF