Blow the Dust

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 motivational moments for your Mondays! We are aiming to send out something new each week.

#MfEMonday – 21st November 2022

21st November 2022 Music for Everyone

Congratulations to all those Daytime Voices singers who took part in end of term performances last week. Not only did you raise the roof, but various cake sales also raised a very impressive £460 for their associated Open Voices groups! Click here to hear West Bridgford Daytime Voices absolutely rocking ‘Like an Eagle’. A special mention must also go to the newly formed Hucknall Daytime Voices group who were invited to perform at the Jon Godber Centre’s Christmas fair last Sunday – you were brilliant!

Coming up – Daytime Orchestra Loughborough will be performing at All Saints Church Loughborough on Tuesday 06 December at 11:30 as part of their Christmas Tree Festival. The concert is free and they will finish with a carol singalong! Please come along, it will be a wonderful way to kick off a month of festivities.

We are busy putting together the music and information packs for Blow the Dust and are particularly looking forward to hearing the orchestra perform the overture to Dr Miracle by Bizet. In typical operatic fashion, Dr Miracle is a bizarre story about how forbidden love is overcome with the use of a poisoned omelette! There is even an entire quartet dedicated to the serving of the omelette.

Don’t miss out on your opportunity to pay homage to the humble omelette – there are still places available on Blow the Dust, click here for more information and here to sign up. And don’t forget to tell your friends!

On Saturday 26 November, Bingham and District Choral Society will be joining forces with Mansfield Choral Society and the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra to celebrate their 50^th Jubilee with a Last Night of the Proms concert at Southwell Minster. Why not join them to celebrate this Golden Jubilee milestone? Full details attached or on their website here.

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

21/11/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/blow-the-dust-off-your-instrument-3/

#MfEMonday – 24th October 2022

24th October 2022 Music for Everyone

November is just around the corner, that must mean that MfE Christmas and 2023 events are now open for booking!

Concerts

Nottingham Chamber Singers present A Mystical Christmas at 3.30pm on Sunday 4^th December at St Mary the Virgin Church in Bunny.

Christmas is Coming! On Sunday 11^th December, members of the MfE ‘singing family’ come together for MfE’s annual Christmas concert at the Albert Hall, Nottingham, featuring a special appearance from Father Christmas! Children tickets are just £5 each.

Further details and ticket booking link for concerts can be found here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/concerts/

Workshops/Courses

Christmas Vocals – open to all primary aged singers, a singing afternoon on Saturday 10^th December, then join the Christmas is Coming concert to perform on Sunday 11^th December! https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/vocals-christmas-is-coming/

Nottingham Community Voices – Christmas. Members of Daytime Voices and Community Voices are invited to join Vocals on Sunday 11^th December at the Albert Hall, Nottingham for MfE’s annual Christmas concert. Optional rehearsals from 28^th November, https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/christmas-is-coming-daytime-voices/

Blow the Dust off your Instrument Saturday 7^th January 2023

Nottingham Festival Chorus workshop weekend and concert 28/29 January & 4 February 2023

https://www.music-for-everyone.org/event/nfc-course-weekend/

The Nottingham Festival Chorus will be celebrating the 150^th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams in their next event, a singing weekend course and concert in January/February 2023, performing the stunning work Toward the Unknown Region.

The anniversary itself is being commemorated and celebrated throughout 2022 (our celebration comes a little later than the actual anniversary!) with October being the anniversary of his birth.

A champion of music-making in the community, he was a central figure to British musical life. His work The Lark Ascending is regularly voted the UK’s favourite classical work, and he was well known for writing for most major forms of genre in music, including film and stage.

Have a listen to brighten a rainy Monday to The Lark Ascending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR2JlDnT2l8

Bake Off fever has hit the office again, we’ve been enjoying some musical puns linked to baking – this one in particular made us giggle!

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

24/10/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=9jqdVJI8zEG0hWyfYmdxp2Hs2Jep8tlBtMQZJDgdM15UQ0NIU083OEdWWkVIQURYT1ZHVTZNVlFPRS4u

#MfEMonday – 5th September 2022

5th September 2022 Music for Everyone

Last Saturday over 30 recorder players took part in a wonderful playing day at Wollaton Hall. The day culminated in an informal outdoor performance in the courtyard – a real treat for visitors and players alike.

We are really looking forward to seeing you all back at the regular rehearsing groups that start back again next week. We are particularly excited to welcome new singers to our first Hucknall Daytime Voices rehearsal on Monday 12 September at the John Godber Centre. All dates, venues, timings and fees can all be found on our website here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/adult-music/

Many people associate the recorder with memories of playing London’s Burning in a primary school classroom, but there is so much more to the humble recorder than meets the eye:

We are all familiar with the standard soprano, descant, treble, tenor and bass recorders, but did you know that the recorder family is even bigger: ranging from the Garklein recorder at only 16 cm long, to the Subcontrabass recorder at around 3 meters! The largest fully functioning recorder ever made was as tall as a giraffe! At 16 feet (5 metres), it has holes about 3.3 inches (8.5 centimetres) wide and is so large that despite being fully functional, it would be almost impossible to play correctly!
A recorder orchestra is a sight to behold due to the number of instruments needed. If you were going to put together a strict recorder orchestra, you would need at least 60 individual musicians and each of them would have to carry and play at least 9 different recorders, all different sizes, interchangeably. That’s at least 540 individual instruments!
Soldiers in the RAF who were held prisoner by the Germans during WW2 were given recorders to play to ease their time in prisoner of war camps.
Recorders ‘rock’! Paul McCartney integrated the recorder’s sound into a few of his solo works, but more notably, into the Beatles’ “Fool On The Hill”. Besides that, the recorder also features in the music of David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, and Lou Reed. Though plenty of rock stars used the instrument, not all of them were proud of it. Allegedly, Jimi Hendrix was so embarrassed to have played a recorder on “If 6 Was 9” that he asked for it to be listed as a flute on the album credits!

Free to a good home!
– 1 sheet music cabinet, 5 drawers. 75cm high 47cm wide.
– 1 piano stool. Adjustable, black padded seat.

Contact Liz Price at liz@air-receivers.co.uk or phone 07970789677

The CBSO Youth Orchestra is reopening auditions for our 22-3 Season in order to recruit more violins, violas, cellos, basses, horns, bassoons, percussion/timpani, and piano/celeste players. Register your interest to apply here:

The course dates are below and further information about the Youth Orchestra can be found on our website https://cbso.co.uk/take-part/young-people/youth-orchestra

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

05/09/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 15th August 2022

15th August 2022 Music for Everyone

We had a great 3 days of music making at Summer School last week. You can find out what we got up and see pictures of the sessions and amazing guests we had on our blog page, there is a post for each day of Summer School: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/about-us/blog/

Announcing 2022/23 dates!

Details of courses, workshops and concerts are now available on our website for the 40^th Anniversary season. Information for regular groups (Daytime groups, etc) will follow soon including advance booking.

Website homepage with upcoming events in the Autumn: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/
Adult workshops & courses for 22/23: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/forms/
Youth workshops & courses for 22/23: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/workshops-and-courses/
Concerts in 22/23: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/concerts/

The rain has finally arrived, bringing some much needed freshness to the air after the most recent heatwave. We decided to look at music inspired by rain, hoping a rain-dance would open the heavens sooner than expected!

Chopin’s Prelude Op.28 (‘Raindrop’) with it’s repetitive pulse through the texture is thought to sound like raindrops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVau-JRGirg

An appropriately named piece The Welcome Arrival of Rain by Judith Weir, inspired by verse from the Hindu text ‘Bhagavata Purana’ – catching the sense of sudden rain and the renewal and growth that follows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU4PBYjDtkw

And something a little different to finish, here is a choir making the sounds of a rain storm using their hands and feet, impressive! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29qaN0M0o0s

We’ve all heard music that has been described as ‘out of this world’… well here is something that was produced from out of this world! NASA have released a soundscape of the Butterfly Nebula, created from data taken from images – sounding strangely dreamlike! https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/videos/nasa-sound-butterfly-nebula/

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

15/08/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 6th June 2022

6th June 2022 Music for Everyone

We hope that everyone had a wonderful long-weekend (and take our hats off to those who had to work) celebrating the Platinum Jubilee. If the weekend’s festivities got you in the mood for all things royal and musical, there is still time to sign up for our Celebrate the Jubilee – Come and Sing event on 25 and 26 June. You can find more details and a booking link here. If you sign up before this Friday you will be able to take part in an extra zoom rehearsal too!

Mussorgsky, Dvorak, Elgar, Mozart, Bacharach… this Saturday 11th June will see the return of our ever-popular Blow The Dust event, where players of all abilities come together to form a huge symphony orchestra, wind band and string orchestra. It’s set to be a wonderful day! With a few places still available for players of orchestral instruments Grade 2+, it’s not too late to get involved. But hurry! Only a few days left to book! All info is here.

Organ Looking for New Home!

An MfE member is looking for a new home for this vintage Hammond organ… please let us know if you are interested or think you can help, and we’ll put you in touch! Picture is available here: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/instruments-for-sale/ (scroll to bottom of page)

June is LGBTQ+ pride month and we are celebrating, even more so than the rest of the year, all of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer composers and musicians who bring joy, richness and diversity to our musical lives. If you’re looking to make your own playlist of LGBTQ+ Classical Music, check out this article for inspiration!

Last Wednesday was 1^st June, which always makes us think of Leslie Uggam’s iconic and hilarious performance of Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘June is Bustin’ Out All Over’ from Carousel – it reassures us that even the greatest Broadway divas sometimes forget the words… enjoy it here

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

06/06/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 23rd May 2022

23rd May 2022 Music for Everyone

From little alien Bumblesnouts saving the planet, to trekking through the jungle, to sailing across the ocean with Moana and Maui, Saturday’s Vocals concert had it all!

Conducted by Alison and Rachel, accompanied by Angela on the piano and Alex on the drums with fantastic narrator Mark, the children showed off their hard work from the weekend before and put on an amazing performance. Here are some photos from the concert…

Coming up next… for the adult instrumentalists and singers, Blow the Dust is on Saturday 11 June and Celebrate the Jubilee with Nottingham Festival Chorus on 25/26 June, places are still available on both courses! Find out more and book on our website: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/

Occasionally there are days when we struggle for inspiration for our Monday Motivation, so this week we thought we would hand it over to you, our lovely MfE family! We would love to hear from you about what musical moments have inspired or motivated you. Email us with your heart-warming, funny or even embarrassing stories and we will share them over the next few weeks!

Speaking of embarrassing moments, here’s a round-up of ClassicFM’s followers’ most embarrassing musical moments. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/humour/musicians-share-embarrassing-things-happened-live-concert/

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

23/05/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://www.music-for-everyone.org/

#MfEMonday – 11th April 2022

11th April 202211th April 2022 Music for Everyone

The MfE groups are taking a well-deserved break for Easter after a busy Spring term.

While the groups are off, the artistic and office team are busy prepping for a wonderful summer term full of music – all the details can be found on our website, below is a quick overview of what is coming up!

Musicals course and concert – 23/24 April
Vocals course and concert – 14/15 & 21 May
Blow the Dust playing day – 11 June
NFC Jubilee workshop and concert – 25/26 June
Summer School – 8/9/10 August

We’re sure you are all familiar with the traditional Easter Egg (painted/decorated/chocolate/etc!) but we’ve found out some interesting facts about the ‘other’ type of easter egg… the ones that double as secret or hidden messages in music.

One of the first composers to do this was J.S. Bach and he hid one Easter Egg so well, it wasn’t discovered for 250 years in his Mass in B
Minor!

He would often sign his name into his music B A C H as an ‘easter egg’ (in German notation, the letter H is used for B natural, and B is used for B flat). Whether these were always intentional will never be known, but it seems to most experts that he would add them to the beginning or end of a piece as a ‘signing off’.

Do you know of any others that he hid his name in?

Bach: Mass in B Minor – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FLbiDrn8IE

And for Easter, here is Bach’s St John Passion, composed in 1724 for the Good Friday Vespers service in the same year – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMf9XDQBAaI&t=4s

Happy Easter from the MfE Team!

Quiz time! Can you work out the John Williams film from these emojis? Some are easier than others… https://www.classicfm.com/lifestyle/quizzes/john-williams-film-score-emojis/

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

11/04/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

#MfEMonday – 10th January 2022

10th January 2022 Music for Everyone

Happy New Year!

As many of you know, Angela Kay, the founder and driver of MfE for almost forty years, has decided to step down from the position of Artistic Director as from September of this year although she intends to continue with some conducting.

The trustees are now looking to recruit a Director who has both music experience, vision and strategic & managerial capacity/potential. The job advert is going out now and the trustees hope to reach a wide, national audience and we’d like your help! Have you any contacts anywhere in the UK who may be interested themselves, or have further contacts worth letting know about this post?

We would be very grateful if you would forward the advert to anyone who may be able to help get the word out. Details can be found at our website: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/about-us/vacancies

What a way to start the New Year with our Blow the Dust off your Instrument event on Saturday! Over 120 instrumentalists came along to the Nottingham Albert Hall to enjoy playing pieces including The Big Country, Moon River and Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No.4. Well done to all involved!

We are very pleased to announce that our Nottingham Lunchtime Voices group is starting up again on Thursdays, 12.30pm from 20th January. It will take place at a new City Centre venue – the Drama Studio at the NTU Music Centre. For full details please visit: https://www.music-for-everyone.org/whats-on/adult-music/workers-lunchtime-choir/

Volunteer Callout! We’re looking for a volunteer to help support our Headway singing for health sessions in Nottingham on Friday mornings between 10-11.30am from January to March. Someone with a gentle and good-humoured personality who is enthusiastic with joining in warm-ups/ brain gym/ rounds and well-known songs. Anyone interested should contact Rachel Parkes for more details: rachel@music-for-everyone.org

After the excesses of the festive season many of us will have made the usual New Year Resolutions to be healthier and get into shape. Here are some motivational work-out videos to give you some inspiration… if nothing else they will give you a good laugh which still counts as exercise!!

Workout for Classical Music Lovers: https://youtu.be/qtuVsOONKH4

Jazzercise for some great 80s leotards: https://youtu.be/LD1xSc7oRRk

Step Aerobics with Victoria Wood: https://youtu.be/ObOkhXGu7oY

Here are 10 reasons why singing is good for you… not that we need telling! https://www.operanorth.co.uk/news/10-reasons-singing-is-good-for-you/

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

10/01/2022

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

https://movementforgood.com/12days/

#MfEMonday – 20th December 2021

20th December 2021 Music for Everyone

Five Days to Christmas!

It’s nearly Christmas! And what a wonderful season of music making we have enjoyed at MfE! Another big thank you and well done to everyone who has participated in all the many groups, courses, events and concerts this term. We can’t wait to kick off 2022 with Blow the Dust on 8th January (still time to sign up – see our website!) and then welcome old and new faces to our regular groups.

LAST CHANCE to vote for us! If you haven’t already, please follow the link below and complete the short survey (takes less than 2 mins) to nominate Music for Everyone. For 12 days between 6 and 21 December, the Movement for Good are donating £1,000 to ten different nominated charities.

Our charity number is 1153412. Please select ‘Community’ from the drop down menu of charity types.

Did you know that the popular Christmas song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” has an unusual history?

Although probably based on a medieval French folksong, the famous words were first published in English in 1780. But it was English composer Frederic Austin who wrote the tune down for the first time in 1908. Unlike most folksongs and carols, this tune has irregular meters – meaning some bars are in four, some in three, some in two… very unusual!

Austin also claimed copyright for the melody of the ‘Five Gold Rings’, whilst admitting that the rest of the tune was an existing folk melody. This has led to many composers and publishers creating their own tune for that line, to avoid copyright infringement.

All kinds of interesting previous lyrics are available on the song’s Wikipedia page – so why not tantalise your Christmas guests with some nuggets of music history this yuletide?

*Piano in need of a new home* The piano is a 1934 Hopkinson upright in good working order. Please contact Cath Sutherland to discuss or arrange to see the piano: cathsuth533@hotmail.com or 07766294745.
This is the last #MfEMonday of 2021… wishing you a very Happy Christmas and Happy New Year, from everyone at MfE… hope to see many of you at Blow the Dust on 8^th Jan!

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

20/12/2021

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF