Author: Music for Everyone

#MfEMonday – Magic Flute Monday

Music for Everyone

On this day in 1791 Mozart’s Opera The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna.  The flute referred to in the title is a golden flute given to one of the opera’s heroes, Tamino, to protect him and help him in his search for the Princess Pamina who has been kidnapped.  This magic flute has the power to turn sorrow into joy, something that Anne and Kirstie in the MfE office do every time they pick up their flutes!

Speaking of amazing instruments, check out this impressive organisation who work to promote the use of adapted instruments for people who face physical disability.   From one-handed clarinets, to cellos that can be played with the feet only.  Mind blown! https://www.ohmi.org.uk

In the office we’re preparing for Blow the Dust in January and it got us thinking; has your instrument been missing you, is your instrument desperate for you to get it out of its case?  Click here for Classic fm’s take on ‘If your instrument could talk, what would it say?’ https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/instruments-talk/double-bass/

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

30/09/2019

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

*Support us with easyfundraiser*

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

#MfEMonday – National Anthems from around the World

Music for Everyone

With this week seeing the start of the 2019 Rugby World Cup (did you see England play yesterday?!) here are some interesting facts about some of the National Anthems you might come across!

National anthems are generally played on national holidays, but it was Wales who were the first country to start the close connection with sporting events, during a rugby game against New Zealand in 1905.

Mexico – in 1853, Mexico held a contest to see who could write the most inspiring poem to serve as the lyrics for their official national anthem. A poet’s girlfriend tried to get him to enter, but he wasn’t interested, so she locked him in a room filled with pictures of scenes from Mexican history until he came up with something. His ten verse poem went on to become the national anthem and the girlfriend went on to become the wife!

France – while lots of national anthems are about the glory of a nationhood or liberation, ‘La Marseillaise’ should come with a parental warning with gory references to blood soaked flags and soldiers slitting throats… nice.

Japan (hosts of the Rugby World Cup) – ‘Kimigayo’ is one of the oldest anthems in the world with lyrics dating back to (somewhere) around 800. A short and operatic anthem, this tune uses a pentatonic scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29FFHC2D12Q

Switzerland – the ‘Swiss Psalm’ has different lyrics for each of the countries four official languages: French, German, Italian and Romansh.

  • What do you do during your lunch break? Not getting a proper break away from your desk? A SINGING break has a host of fabulous benefits, and could help you get through the rest of your afternoon too! The Nottingham Lunchtime Voices meets every Tuesday lunchtime at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham city centre, especially designed for workers who need a break! http://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/adult-music/workers-lunchtime-choir/
  • Have you ever heard of a Hornucopian dronepipe? Or (my personal favourite) the Hyperbass Flute? Yes that’s right, they’re all instruments! Weird ones, but instruments none the less… click here to see the 13 weirdest musical instruments ever (electronic badger anyone?)

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

23/09/2019

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

*Support us with easyfundraiser*

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

#MfEMonday – All things Strings!

Music for Everyone

Our new season is getting off to a great start with all of our regular rehearsing groups getting back together for the new season. This weekend saw three of our Youth Groups starting again – East Midlands Youth String Orchestra – conductor Richard Howarth, Strictly Strings – conductor Abi Smith and the East Midlands Youth Windband – conductor Phil Smith. All three groups met at NTU, Clifton at 2:00 yesterday afternoon and more information can be found on our website – https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/youth-music/

For those interested in stringed instruments, the first clear record of a
violin-like instrument comes from paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrrari.  In his Madonna of the Orange Tree, painted 1530, a cherub is seen playing a bowed instrument which clearly has the hallmarks of violins.  A few years later, on a fresco inside the cupola of the church of Madonna dei Miracoli in Saronno angels play three instruments of the violin family, corresponding to violin, viola and cello. The instruments Ferrari depicts have bulging front and back plates, strings which feed into peg-boxes with side pegs, and f-holes. They do not have frets. The only real difference between these instruments and the modern violin is that Ferrari’s have three strings, and a rather more extravagant curved shape.

Horsehair graces the bow for violins and cellos, and each bow has about 150 individual hairs. Horsehair has many small bumps that cannot be seen with the naked eye, and those bumps create the friction that produces the characteristic subtle weeping tone of the violin. The most popular horsehair, which is said to produce a good tone, is white horsehair from Mongolia.

Yet, this claim seems based mostly on the fact that horse breeding is a bustling industry in Mongolia, and their horses have relatively long, bushy tails for their height, making them a perfect source of horsehair. Yet, the horse sacrifices the hair of his tail for the sake of the tone of the violin, which is a bit sad. Who was it that said that when they play the violin they can hear the braying of a horse?

A double bass player arrived a few minutes late for the first rehearsal of the local choral society’s annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. He picked up his instrument and bow and turned his attention to the conductor. The conductor asked, “Would you like a moment to tune?” The bass player replied with some surprise, “Why? Isn’t it the same as last year?”

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

16/09/2019

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

*Support us with easyfundraiser*

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

#MfEMonday – 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death

Music for Everyone

With this year being the 150th anniversary of the death of Hector Berlioz, we’re looking forward to performing Villanelle from his Les Nuits d’ete with Emma Brown at the Albert Hall on 12 October.

In contrast to the sinister psychopath in the BBC’s popular drama Killing Eve, Berlioz’s Villanelle is a carefree and flirtatious character who sings of love and the joys of spring!

The scoring of Villanelle is modest by Berlioz standards.  Berlioz was famed for his use of large orchestral forces (his last opera Les Troyens was so large it was never performed in his lifetime!), and his championing of unusual instruments such as the Octobass.

Click here to hear the Jaws theme played on the Octobass!!

https://www.cmuse.org/jaws-theme-octobass/

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

09/09/2019

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

*Support us with easyfundraiser*

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

If you can’t view this email properly or you would like to unsubscribe from future #MfEMondays emails, please get in touch.

#MfEMondays – Reflecting and Looking Forward

Music for Everyone

Well, what a year 2018/19 was for Music for Everyone! Here are just some of the office team’s favourite highlights from the past year:

Summer School – an amazing 3 days of music making celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, all brilliantly captured on our blog by Helena (just in case you missed it!).

National Lottery Grant for Open Voices – an incredible £10,000 was awarded to MfE to help support the future of our 3 Open Voices groups.

Big Youth Music Experience – 6 months of events for young singers and players, culminating in the BIG weekend in July and plenty of radio/tv appearances (Robin’s a pro now!)

Sherwood Open Voices: Les Misérables – Sherwood Daytime Voices joined Open Voices for a spectacular performance of Les Mis, featuring solos from the choir members and amazing costumes for Sherwood Art Week, raising over £200 to boot for Open Voices!

The office is buzzing with the excitement of the new season starting soon, if you are in one of our regular groups, check out all the term dates on the website: http://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/adult-music/ and http://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/youth-music/

The Autumn term is filling up nicely and more details for events in 2020 (…yes, it really is 2020!…) will be coming out very soon. We’re looking forward to seeing you all over the next year for more MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS!

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

02/09/2019

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

*Support us with easyfundraiser*

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

To subscribe, please email admin@music-for-everyone.org

#MfEMondays – East Midlands Music Making

Music for Everyone

Welcome back! We hope all that attended the Summer School last week enjoyed it as much as we did – what a Voyage of Discovery we had! If you missed any of the action, we had a blog running over the 3 days which can be seen on our website – lots of great photos too! http://www.music-for-everyone.org/about-us/blog/

After a few days off, the MfE team is back and looking forward to the next season of music-making, we will be bringing you full details very soon!

In the meantime… why don’t you check out some of the other musical events happening in the East Midlands? We regularly promote 3rd party events and opportunities through a special page on our website – take a look for yourself, or perhaps a family member, there are opportunities for adult and youth alike!

https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/third-party-events-and-opportunities/

  • The Great British Bake Off starts again next week, have a look at these very realistic ‘too good to eat’ musical cakes! Musical cakes
  • Musical Joke of the Week:

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

19/08/2019

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

*Support us with easyfundraiser*

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

To subscribe, please email admin@music-for-everyone.org

Summer School 2019, Day 3 Part 2: The final countdown!

Music for Everyone

There was a buzz in the air all day in anticipation of the evening’s performance. Morning and afternoon, instrumental and choral pieces were given a final polish in both the individual and combined groups.

The lunchtime recital was a real treat, given by professional guitarists Saki Kato and Hugh Milington – the Miyabi Duo. Their performance of music spanning several centuries revealed the variety of styles and sounds possible from the guitar, including the use of both body and strings as percussive elements. Like other performers at previous Summer Schools, Hugh had participated in MfE activities as a youngster, though not as a player but a singer!

As you can imagine, arranging a hall to accomodate 150+ performers in wind band, string orchestra, full orchestra and choir formation, with three conducting points, four conductors, two pianos, an organ, two sets of timpani, lots of percussion and a table for tuned wine glasses, while still leaving space for a solist and audience of family and friends, takes some time and is no mean feat, but we did it.

Getting ready for the final rehearsal.

The performance of music reflecting this year’s theme of ‘Voyages of Discovery’ – both in space (Now you understand this blog post’s title!) and at sea – was well received. Everyone sang and played with great enthusism. It’s amazing how much can be accomplished in three days of intensive rehearsal with great tutors and conductors. Of course there were a few wrong notes, but there was always the right spirit in the music and the opportunity to perform, which is what Music for Everyone is all about.

The String Orchestra enjoyed a rare opportunity for an amateur group – playing a concerto with a professional soloist. Conductor Abi Smith and leader Isobel Bounford ensured a wonderful balance between orchestra and soloist, Hugh Millington, leading to a beautiful performance of Vivaldi’s Guitar Concerto.

The concert ended with a mighty fine I vow to thee my country by all performers and audience – this was within the full orchestra’s rendition of Holst’s Jupiter, which included particularly splendid horn playing.

At every great event, much goes on behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly and each participant has a great experience. MfE office staff Amy and Kirstie packed away the urns after the final break having made and served several thousand cups of coffee and tea. (Not forgetting putting out hundreds of biscuits that always disappeared within a few minutes.) They then turned their hands to playing percussion in the evening concert, alongside ‘Events’ Anne tootling her flute and Executive Director Robin compering the evening. And somehow, inbetween and after all that, they collected, set up and served the farewell buffet, then cleared EVERYTHING away until the High School was as though we had never been there.

Huge thanks go to them all, and to conductors Hilary Campbell, Gill Henshaw, Angela Kay and Abi Smith, recitalists and workshop leaders, Richard Cox – THE most amazing accompanist, Nottingham High School for being such fab hosts, and to every participant. We hope you had a great time.

Hilary encouraged the choir to ‘be more Hollywood, less British’, so it seems fitting to say ‘It’s a wrap’ for Summer School 2019! We’ll be back next year with Summer School 2020.

Summer School 2019, Day 2: Zorro and the Bumble Bee!

Music for Everyone

Rehearsals for all groups continued throughout the day. Hilary Campbell had the singers drawing the Z of Zorro with imaginery swords – one swiped line for each triplet note to ensure the perfect rhythm of three against two.

Hilary also rehearsed the string orchestra for the works accompanying the choir, with MfE’s Abi Smith taking and inspiring the group’s other rehearsals.

Today’s recital, given by Zephyr Winds – five professional players with national and international careers – was a virtuosic display of the colour and versatility of flute, clarinet, obe, horn and bassoon. The playing was by turn dramatic, tender and comical – particularly superb were the animal sounds in Jim Parker’s Les Animeaux. Director Chris Swann dazzled on clarinet in the world premier of an arrangment by Matthew Lax (MfE’s Treasurer and Trustee) of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumble Bee. Phew!

Lunchtime recital – Zephyr Winds

Each member of the quintet led a workshop for small groups of Summer School players – brass, oboes, bassoons, flutes, clarinets and saxophones. These groups then performed their workshopped pieces to each other. This was in addition to the players rehearsing as a windband with MfE’s Gill Henshaw, and then with the strings in the full orchestra.

The visiting professionals offer Summer School participants unique access to leading players, singers and conductors. There are opportunities to ask them for advice about individual issues or technique in general. But the days are not all work – there are refreshment breaks morning and afternoon, and today’s sunshine meant outdoor lunch for many. There is time to chat with friends, meet new people and browse the stalls, including Windblowers’ array of instruments.

You can hear the improvement all the tuition and rehearsing is bringing about. Players and singers are developing confidence in performing their own lines, listening more carefully to each other to create a blended sound, and adding in not only the dynamic and expressive effects written into the score, but the emotion that turns notes into music and a collection of individuals into a band, orchestra or choir. Tomorrow’s concert audience is in for a treat.

Today’s interesting fact: Oboes are not automatically always in tune!
An oboe gives the note for the band or orchestra to tune to because its sound is clear and carries. To enure the note given is spot on, the responsible oboist must first warm their instrument and tune to a perfect A by using a tuning fork.

Click for biographies of the staff of MfE at the Summer School

Additional photos can be found on our Facebook page.

Summer School 2019, Day 1: Pastries and Tummies!

Music for Everyone

This morning Music for Everyone’s three-day Summer School got underway once more, but at a new venue – Nottingham High School. About 150 instrumentalists and singers arrived looking cheery, pleased to have overcome the absence of trams and the road closures. Or perhaps at the prospect of fresh coffee and pastries…

The day was filled with a rich variety of rehearsals and workshops in preparation for Wednesday’s concert performance. The repertoire for all groups has been themed to complement the 50th anniversaries of both the moon landing and Sir Robin Knox-Johnson’s circumnavigation of the globe.

Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars!

More about the wind band and strings tomorrow – today’s focus is on the choir. Angela Kay, Music for Everyone’s founder and artistic director, led the singers through warm ups and into Ola Gjeilo’s Across the Vast Eternal Sky (one of her favourites, apparently). Then she had everyone swinging Fly me to the Moon before ending the morning with a first go at Handel’s Let their celestial concerts, superbly accompanied by Richard Cox. 

Lunch was followed by a recital and workshop with mens’ vocal quartet Scaramella. They entertained us with snatches and glees from 18th century gentlemen’s clubs – as you might imagine, the lyrics featured much wine and were at times on the naughty side! The workshop stretched the singers physically and vocally, and everyone enjoyed exploring Pearsall’s poignant Lay a Garland.

After a cuppa, Jane McDouall, fresh from the south, returned to a warm welcome and led a singing technique session followed by a Q+A. Everyone will be breathing (inhaling, Jane prefers) with shoulders down and the right muscles in play tomorrow. ‘Basically,’ Jane said, ‘there’s no point trying to hold your tummy in and look good if you want to have breath for singing!’ The choir is looking forward to Tuesday’s arrival of visiting conductor and choral director, Hilary Campbell.

“Let those tummy muscles go!”