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.

https://movementforgood.com/12days/


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 8th Jan!

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

20/12/2021

admin@music-for-everyone.org

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

10 Goose Gate | Hockley | NG1 1FF

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#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.

With our Big Youth Experience officially under a week away, MfE’s Kirstie and Robin headed down to BBC Radio Nottingham this morning to chat to Andy & Sarah. 

Particularly interested in the ‘Come & Try Endangered Instruments’ fringe workshops taking place on both days, they were joined by East Midlands Youth Windband member Alistair, who explained why he loved playing the endangered Baritone Sax!

Andy & Sarah were also given a challenge – to learn the flute in a week! 

With a crash course from Kirstie, both presenters seemed up to the challenge. Find out how they get on by listening on Wednesday and hear their final performance on Friday.

More information on the BYME weekend can be found on our website homepage. Remember, BYME is celebrating the youth of Nottinghamshire, but that doesn’t mean adults can’t get involved too!

www.music-for-everyone.org
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07d4qr7 (from 1.51.30)

Pictured: Kirstie (Youth Programme Officer), Alistair (member of MfE’s East Midland Youth Windband), Robin (Executive Director)

  • Big congratulations to the participants of Saturday’s Blow the Dust off your instrument – despite the dreary weather you helped create a vibrant day of music-making enjoyed by all! See you all in 2020 for the next one! 

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

08/07/2019

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

ClarinetsWell that was quite a weekend! String, reed, brass and recorder players spent a fun Saturday learning and playing new pieces, which they later performed for family and friends. It was a great day for discovering more about playing in an ensemble, band or orchestra, and making music together. MfE’s Blow the Dust (off your instrument) day will be back early next year.

If you came along, or it sounds like something you would enjoy, the Music for Everyone Summer School might be just what you’re looking for. There is a singing option as well. After last year’s successful first School, we listened to participants’ feedback and have made some changes – longer breaks, opportunities to listen to other groups, and less repertoire so that it can be honed to a nuanced performance standard. The hour-long closing concert will showcase the best of the pieces worked on during the time together.

PatGarden2016The heavens opened on Sunday, but that didn’t deter a group from the East of England Singers from going along to sing in Pat Collings beautiful garden. Thank you, Pat, for all your hard work to put on the event and raise money for Music for Everyone. And thank you to everyone who came along, armed with brollies, to look and to listen.

Firstly, the closing date for applications for the exciting post of a Principal Youth Music Animateur is this Friday, 10th June. Information here.

And secondly, Blow the Dust is back on Saturday. This is a day for adult instrumentalists to make music together. So whether you play the tuba, the viola or the recorder, etc, now’s your chance. Book here. We just ask that instrumentalists are Grade 2 and above, and recorder players can read music and play at a steady speed in an ensemble. There is an informal concert at 5pm, lasting about an hour. Albert Hall, Nottingham.

Gardens-Open-signFinally, an extremely pleasant fund raiser. All welcome. This weekend is the Beeston and Chilwell Open Garden Trail. The East of England Singers will be giving a jolly performance at 60 Park Rd, 2pm, Sunday 12 June. Money raised by the garden owner is generously being donated to Music for Everyone – refreshments available, and a beautiful garden to enjoy. Perhaps come on the tram, Chilwell Rd stop, and then a short walk.

 

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Two hundred instrumentalists from Nottinghamshire and beyond gathered in the Albert Hall for a day of blowing the dust off their musical instruments. Participants of wide ranging experience played music selected and arranged for differing tastes and abilities.

There were more flautists than seats on a double decker bus, tootling beautifully, fine woodwind and brass sections, strings playing sensitively or with gusto (all those notes, and so fast!), and a trio of percussionists with sticks in mouths and/or on drums, triangles, cymbals and all sort. In another room the recorder group practised away on all five sizes of recorder, from sopranino to bass.

DSC01451Angela Kay, Gill Henshaw and Chris McDouall conducted different groupings of instruments. An informal concert, performed to an appreciative audience, concluded the day.

Repertoire included music for strings alone, for concert band, full orchestra, and for recorder group. The varied programme took us from Dowland to Bernstein, Elgar to Pirates of the Caribbean and, of course, Hucknall’s very own Eric Coates.

Blow the Dust will be back later in the year, so polish your trumpet, rosin your bow, search out your recorder etc. Whatever you play, there’ll be a part waiting for you.

For more photos, see Music for Everyone’s Facebook page.

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