workshop

Summer School Day 2: Violas, Visuals and Very energetic dancing

Music for Everyone

Here we are again! They say a picture paints 1000 words, so here’s a whole bunch! (and some video clips… yes singers, we caught it all on camera…)

All these years of Summer School have taught us to give the people what they want, and what they want is coffee before they start the day! Fuelled and ready to go, the singers decided to take their warm-up outside, while the instrumentalists enjoyed some specialist sectionals followed by wind band and strings rehearsals with Gill and Rob respectively.

The viola was the star of the show today, with special guest artist Carmen Flores giving us a memorable recital accompanied by Paul Turner – a viola recital being a first for many! We were wowed by her beautiful playing, including the Viola Sonata by Rebecca Clarke (who used a composer pseudonym Anthony Trent back in 1919). After her amazing recital, Carmen worked with the strings on Telemann’s Viola Concerto to be performed to the other participants at the end of the day.

As we can’t fit all this years repertoire into tomorrow’s Showcase Concert, we finished with a ‘sharing performance’. The choir came to listen to the wind band perform the English Dances by Malcolm Arnold and the strings accompanied Carmen in the Telemann Viola Concerto.

Instrumentalists then went to listen to the choir in the chapel, where there was actual dancing in the aisles! Not sure if there was something in the air or perhaps the effects of the hot weather, but it was certainly a fun (and slightly energetic) end to the day!

Another glorious day of summer school comes to a close… hope everyone gets well-rested tonight for the ‘big one’ tomorrow – see you there!

Simply Romantic – Saturday 3rd October

Helena Durham

The first adult workshop event is Simply Romantic on Saturday 3rd October at the Bluecoat P1110367Academy, Aspley Lane, Nottingham. It’s a day of singing just for the joy of it, no concert. We’ll be writing a few blog posts before then to introduce you to the rich variety of pieces Angela and Alex will be exploring with the singers during the workshop.

Now we hope this doesn’t come as a disappointment, but when we say Romantic music we don’t mean we’ll be singing love songs all day, rather music by composers from the Romantic era of Western classical music. This pretty much encompassed the 19th century and gave rise to music full of emotion and passion, often rich in melody. (We like a good tune.) Old forms were discarded or modified and new ones created. More percussion instruments were added to orchestras, rhythms and variation in time signatures became more adventurous, as did changes of key and harmonies.

So who are the famous composers of the Romantic era? Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Bruckner, Lizst, Borodin and Wagner to name but a few.

Click here to book for the Simply Romantic workshop. While you’re on the site, take a look at all the music making opportunities for 2105/16. There are new groups for adult instrumentalists, and plenty going on for music makers of all ages.