MfE Summer School

Summer School Day 3: From RELAXED to RE-ENERGISED (and everything in between)

Music for Everyone

The final day arrives, the sun is shining and everyone is raring to go one more time! The Obolensky has transformed overnight in to our concert set up and it’s time to polish up the corners of the music ready for the Showcase Concert.

To help RELAX after the final rehearsals and before the performance, participants were invited to eat their lunch in the chapel and enjoy some special mood lighting and relaxing piano music, played by Summer School accompanist Richard Cox.

A contrast in the afternoon with Katie from Beat Goes On designed to RE-ENERGISE with a body percussion stomp-style session with creating our own rhythms (yes, bottom-patting and much laughter was involved!). A final top and tail rehearsal then it’s SHOWCASE time!

The concert started with Katie getting everyone involved, audience as well, in body percussion to make a rain storm effect (we avoided the real rain thankfully!) The concert programme this year was chosen around the Summer School theme ‘New Horizons’, celebrating women in music in this 40th year of Music for Everyone. The first piece of music was a piece commissioned especially for the 40th anniversary by Nottingham born composer Libby Croad – Hail! Bright Cecilia then each group showcased talent and hard work from the 3 days, with pieces including Hymn by Harding from the saxophones, Gallimaufry by Guy Wolfenden by the wind band, Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes by Grace Williams by the orchestra, Libby Croad’s Suite for Strings, Big Yellow Taxi (Gilpin) and Flower Duet (Delibes) by the choir and the big finale Finlandia by Sibelius performed by all 180+ participants!

Drinks, nibbles and a chance to sit and chat one last time after concert and that’s a wrap! as they say.

THANK YOUS
A huge thanks to our wonderful conductors, Keiron Anderson, Hilary Campbell and Rob Hodge for the incredible work they have done with singers and players. To our guest artists Naomi Sullivan and Papagena for unforgettable recitals and workshops. The tutors, Isobel, Sarah, Jonathan, Jenny, Tim, Rachel, Josh, Gill, Gordon, Dave, David and accompanist, Richard Cox for all their support and sectional rehearsals. The ‘behind the scenes’ staff and volunteers for copious tea/coffee making (we lost count this year!). Of course, a huge thanks goes to Trent College for hosting and being so helpful and also to Bookwise and Turner Violins for attending. We did notice one person didn’t get a mention in the concert… because he was doing the mentioning! Thank you to Robin! for his compering and everything else he did. Finally, to the participants – thank you for supporting MfE – what a 3 days!

Right, we’re off for a little lie down then start planning for next year – see you there?

#SummerSchool2023

Summer School Day 2: A Capella is the game, Papagena is the name

Music for Everyone

An incredible second day of Summer School on a (mostly) sunny Tuesday at Trent College.

Rehearsals for choir, orchestra, sax ensemble, string orchestra and wind band (busy, busy!) continued throughout the morning (fuelled by regular top ups of tea, coffee and biscuits of course!).

Today’s guests, all-female a capella quintet Papagena blew the roof off the chapel and received a standing ovation at the end of their lunchtime recital for Summer School participants. Their programme, aptly named ‘Nuns and Roses’ featured hauntingly beautiful melodies of traditional Ukrainian lullabies and Georgian hymns all the way through to ‘hard rock’ Guns ‘n’ Roses Sweet Child o’ mine and finishing with The woman’s ‘If’ – a work commissioned for Papagena and based on Caitlin Moran’s female perspective to Rudyard Kipling’s If. Many of the pieces in the programme were also arranged by members of the group. Simply amazing.

Papagena then led the choir in a workshop, teaching them one of the pieces from their recital and working on some of the repertoire chosen by Hilary for this year’s course.

Further rehearsals in the afternoon led to Tuesday’s ‘sharing concert’ – where the singers perform the players and the players perform to the singers. A short session to share items that won’t feature in the final Showcase Concert – from the choir with Hilary (with Richard’s debut performance on the drums…), the sax ensemble with Keiron, the string orchestra with Rob and the wind band, again with Keiron performing A Single Step of his own composition.

That wraps up another busy Summer School day, bring on the finale!

#SummerSchool2023

Summer School Day 2 in under 20 seconds!

Summer School – Day 3 The final leg of our European Tour

Music for Everyone

3 incredible days, 4 amazing conductors, 5 beautiful and inspiring concerts, 6 bottles of hand sanitiser, 12 pieces of music, 124 singers and instrumentalists, 184 sandwiches, 240 cocktail sausages, 425 photos and 628 cups of tea and coffee and that’s Summer School 2021!

The third and final day began with an unexpected warm up on the field for the singers when the fire alarm went off (false alarm!). After a few vocal exercises and stretches in the sunshine with Hilary, it’s back into the Chapel for performance preparation ahead of the Showcase Concert.

Meanwhile, the orchestra are settling into the Obolensky Building where the evening concert is to take place, to run through and polish their chosen performance items with Rob.
After the morning break with tea, coffee and biscuits in the sunshine, the wind band and strings focus on their pieces with Gill and Rob respectively – with some of the eager (and occasionally over-enthusiastic!) MfE team joining the percussion section for the wind band piece and Assistant Artistic Director Rachel shining on the tambourine!

Our final guest artist in the Lunchtime Recital programme is Summer School accompanist Richard Cox. We managed to coax him out from behind the choir and take us all on a whistle-stop tour of Europe with stunning performances of piano works by Bach, Dvorak, Debussy and Ravel.

The afternoon rehearsals include orchestra and choir coming together to rehearse the big finale joint item, then it’s concert time!

The Concert Programme

  • Brahms – Hungarian Rhapsody No.5 Full Orchestra
  • Trad. arr. Zimmerman – The Wellerman Choir
  • Makor – O Lux Beata Trinitas Choir
  • Mozart – Sinfonietta Strings
  • Holst – 1st Suite in Eb for Military Band Wind band
  • Pergolesi – Magnificat Choir and Strings
  • Faure – Cantique de Jean Racine Choir and Strings
  • Reed – El Camino Real Wind band
  • Hamilton – La Danza Espanol Strings
  • Strauss – Thunder and Lightning Polka Full Orchestra
  • Beethoven – Ode to Joy Combined Orchestra and Choir

An emotional end to the concert, for many, this is their first concert in well over a year, if not longer! MfE are also sad to say goodbye to Windband Animateur, Gill Henshaw, who will be leaving her role at the end of the summer to return to full-time teaching. She will be back at MfE events though, she can’t get rid of us that easy!

The performance over, it’s time to tuck into the buffet (which includes the 240 cocktail sausages!) and relax with a drink and a chat with fellow musicians and reflect on the past three days and celebrate the joyful return to music-making.

And that’s it for Summer 2021! Finally, we would just like to say a huge THANK YOU to all our guests and conductors from this week – Chris, Gill, Hilary, Rachel, Richard, Robert and Sam. This years venue, Trent College – amazing support and staff that have helped out. Also to all the singers, players and helpers that came along – thank you for continuing your support of Music for Everyone, particularly over the past eighteen months and we hope to see you all again very soon!

MfE Summer School – Day 2 in pictures

Music for Everyone
The sun shone today for another spectacular day of music making at Summer School
Our guest artist Chris Swann worked with Gill and the wind band on Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No.2, performed to the strings and choir at the end of the day in a special sharing concert of pieces not included in Wednesday’s Showcase Concert
The singers worked with both Hilary and Rachel today – and were treated to a short recital by Rachel accompanied by Richard

MfE Summer School 2021 – So good to be back!

Music for Everyone

After months of planning and wondering if it would indeed go ahead, the Music for Everyone Summer School for adult instrumentalists and singers returned with a bang today – and how wonderful it was to see everyone!

Trent College, Long Eaton – the setting for the MfE Summer School

This year seemed doubly exciting as well with a 2 year build up from the last course in 2019. We are thrilled to be back at Trent College in Long Eaton this year with 3 days of marvellous music making ahead with this years theme ‘A Grand European Tour’…

Day 1 – The best way to start Summer School is with morning teas, coffees and pastries, making sure everyone is well-fuelled for a busy day. Then it’s time to split into choir and orchestra and begin working together on the pieces that (hopefully!) everyone has been practicing at home.

We are joined this year by wonderful guest conductors, Hilary Campbell and Rob Hodge. Hilary is working with the choir, taking a tour of Europe with pieces by Faure, Beethoven and more. A final addition to their repertoire is ‘The Wellerman’ – a lilting sea shanty from New Zealand.

The orchestra, expertly led by Rob, take their European tour with Hungarian Dances, a Mozart Sinfonietta (strings) and Latin vibes with El Camino Real (windband with MfE Animateur Gill Henshaw).

Morning breaktime and the tea and coffee team have started the annual tally of how many cups will be poured this year. (results to be announced later in the week!) Luckily the weather stayed dry and the sun chose the best moments to appear as everyone enjoyed catching up.

The first guest artist of the Summer School is Sam Sweeney, local folk fiddling superstar from Nottingham and a past Stringwise player in his youth! Sam performed a lunchtime concert with many foot-tapping folk tunes and stories of music to be discovered.

The strings were then treated to a folk workshop with Sam, learning phrases by ear (no sheet music allowed!) and breaking down the basics of folk fiddling – adding a ‘new string to their bow’ (couldn’t quite resist that pun…!)

Squeeze in another cup of tea and coffee (and a biscuit of course!) and one final rehearsal and that’s day 1! So much more to look forward to with special guest artists Chris Swann and Summer School accompanist Richard Cox performing lunchtime recitals over the next 2 days, not forgetting the Showcase Concert on Wednesday evening and the much anticipated buffet! Check back later in the week for another instalment of Summer School 2021…

#MfEMondays – Keeping in Touch

Music for Everyone

KEEPING IN TOUCH

Hello everyone,

It’s MfE Summer School time! And as we come to the end of our 1st day, everyone is a little tired but really looking forward to two more days of making music together. And the sunny weather is forecast to continue over the next couple of days – hooray!

Today we all marvelled at the folk fiddling wizardry of guest soloist Sam Sweeney.  Sam originates from the Nottingham area and used to come on our Stringwise courses – it’s amazing what some of our youth players have achieved – fantastic!

We have also very much enjoyed the rehearsals taken by our excellent visiting conductors, Hilary Campbell (choir) and Robert Hodge (orchestra).  And there is so much more to come – exciting!

Here are a few photos of what we have been up to.

Angela

Sam Sweeney’s ‘tune sharing’ and folk workshop.

The singers enjoying a tea/coffee break before heading back to rehearsal with Hilary Campbell

The orchestra finishing off their first day with guest conductor Robert Hodge

Have a good week!

Your friends at MfE.

09/08/2021

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 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.