orchestra

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 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

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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.

Summer School 2021

…a Grand European Tour

Music for Everyone’s 2021 Summer School is a wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself in quality music-making in a stimulating, friendly environment.

This year we are delighted that the Summer School will be hosted once again by Trent College. Their outstanding facilities, excellent bus and tram links and on-site parking make it the perfect location for an inspiring musical experience. And for those travelling a distance, the nearby town of Long Eaton has a selection of overnight accommodation and two hotels can be found at Junction 25 of the M1, just 2 miles away from Trent College.

This year we embark upon a Grand European Tour of choral and instrumental music, singing and playing works from many countries and centuries. Enjoy the expertise of our tour guides, including nationally and internationally recognised tutors and recitalists.

Repertoire for the orchestra will include Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No 5 and to remind us all of the annual New Year’s Day concert from Vienna, Johann Strauss’ Thunder and Lightening Polka. For instrumentalists and singers, Gabriel Faure’s haunting Cantique de Jean Racine, and to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th Anniversary, a special arrangement of Ode to Joy. 

The windband, string orchestra, and choir will explore especially selected repertoire, including – for windband, Holst’s First Suite in Eb for Military Band, plus the opportunity to work with guest recitalist Chris Swann. For strings an arrangement of Mozart’s Sinfonietta K381, and for choir, we travel to Italy with excerpts from Pergolesi’s sunny Magnificat and the atmospheric O Lux beata Trinitas by contemporary Slovenian composer Andrej Makor. Add to all this workshops and recitals given by top professionals and you have three days of superb music-making.

The Summer School Experience

Playing or singing, develop your music-making through a series of workshops and rehearsals led by our expert and friendly tutors and guest conductors. With them you will explore a range of repertoire, both challenging and fun. Copies of the music will be sent to you about four weeks in advance.

All workshops and rehearsals start at 10am with registration on Monday between 9.30 – 10am. Recitals from our guest artists on each day will last for around an hour. The Summer School Showcase Concert will take place early Wednesday evening. A detailed timetable and repertoire list will be sent out with the music packs.

Gain unique insights into performance through our special programme of workshops and recitals given by professional singers and instrumentalists of national and international standing.

 

Be part of the social buzz. Extended breaks give you time to chat to tutors, browse the stands and enjoy the school grounds. There will be a welcome ‘coffee and pastries’ on the first day and a ‘farewell buffet’ after the Wednesday evening Summer School Showcase Concert – lots of opportunity to meet new people in a relaxed social setting.

The Summer School fee of £110 covers all tuition, tea and coffee at mid-session breaks and Wednesday evening’s buffet. Please bring a packed lunch – the grounds of the school are ideal for a picnic – alternatively, cafés and sandwich shops can be found a short walk away.

 

Guest Artists

Workshop sessions will be led by Music for Everyone’s artistic team and our highly talented 2021 guest artists: Hilary Campbell, Richard Cox, Chris Swann, Sam Sweeney and Martin van der Brugge.

 

Conductors – Hilary Campbell and Martin van der Brugge

Hilary Campbell is a freelance choral specialist based in London. She is founder and director of professional chamber choir, Blossom Street, and Musical Director of Bristol Choral Society, Music Makers of London and Chiswick Choir. She has also recently been appointed assistant conductor of Ex-Cathedra. Hilary has released two award winning Naxos recordings and is a published and prize-winning composer. 

 

 

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Martin van der Brugge obtained his orchestra director’s diploma from the Rotterdam Conservatory in 1990, and in 1994 his choir director’s diploma from the Royal Conservatory, The Hague. In 1996 he gave concerts with the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra as guest director, and was appointed regular guest director of the Mersin State Opera and Ballet of Turkey. Last year, Martin guest conducted MfE’s performance of Karl Jenkins’, The Armed Man.

 

 

 

Recitalists – Richard Cox, Chris Swann and Sam Sweeney

 

We are delighted that or regular accompanist Richard Cox is returning this year as both accompanist and recitalist.

Richard studied music at the University of Nottingham specialising in piano performance with Brenda May. He has combined a career of musician with that of running a mail-order and online business specialising in selling recordings of classical music to collectors all over the world.

 

 

Prize winning soloist Chris Swann studied at the Royal Academy of Music and has pursued a varied freelance career, playing Principal Clarinet with the BBC Symphony, Halle, Royal Philharmoni, BBC Philharmoni, Scottish Chamber, Manchester Concert and Sinfonia Viva orchestras.

He has made a number of concerto appearances including Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the RLPO and has performed chamber music with the Maggini, Allegri and Alberni String Quartets.

 

 

Former member of the award winning folk band Bellowhead, Sam Sweeney is recognised as one of the finest multi-instrumental English folk musicians.

Born in Nottingham, Sam won the BBC Radio 2 Musician of the Year Folk Award in 2015 and has gone on to further success releasing various albums and appearing at venues throughout the country.

The fiddler with the Midas touch… The Guardian

 

How to Enrol 

Booking for Summer School 2021 is now closed. If you would like to be on the mailing list for future events, please fill in the form below with your name, email and voice/instrument.

Concert: A Kaleidoscope of Love – Wagner, Whitacre, Orff

Helena Durham

Saturday 3rd February 2018, 7.30pm | Albert Hall

Angela Kay MBE | Artistic Director

Victoria Barlow | Guest Conductor, East of England Singers

Nottingham Festival Chorus, East of England Singers and Nottingham Concert Orchestra

What’s interesting about this concert:

  • The Nottingham Festival Chorus of 220 singers is likely be the largest choir to perform a choral work of Carmina Burana’s scale in Nottingham this year. Experiencing this music (often used in films and TV) from a seat in the audience is a thrilling and uplifting experience.
  • Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, peformed by the orchestra, and Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs, sung by the East of England Singers, are sensual works born of love: Wagner’s for his wife, Cosima, daughter of composer Franz Liszt, and Whitacre’s for his then girlfriend, now wife, the poet and soprano Hila Plitmann.
  • Carmina Burana, meaning Songs of Beuern, is the title of both the collected 13th century poems Carl Orff used as his text and of his composition. The choir sings words in Latin, Middle High German, Old Provencal and Old French. (We always provide translations in our programmes.) The themes of the poems are as familiar in the 21st century as they were when first written: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the mystery of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling and lust.
  • Singing in a choir and listening to classical music have been shown to improve mental and physical wellbeing. During rehearsals our singers are learning useful Latin phrases from the poems, such as ‘In taberna quando sumas non curamus quid sit humus’, which means ‘When we are in the pub, we do not think how we will go to dust!’

Click here for further information and tickets.

Shout out to youth string players – EMYSO is auditioning!

Helena Durham

2016-03smile

EMYSO performing in Nottingham’s Albert Hall, 2016

Are you a string player, Yr 7 upwards, already have Associated Board Grade 5 or above? Would you like expert guidance in developing your ensemble and orchestral playing? Then come and audition for the East Midlands Youth String Orchestra and be part of this friendly and amazing group. Conducted by distinguished violinist and conductor, Richard Howarth, the orchestra performs a variety of music from the great string orchestra repertoire. Rehearsals are usually once a month on a Sunday afternoon.

Taking a bow after a great performance

Taking a bow after a great performance

EMYSO perform both in their own right and sometimes playing within one of Music for Everyone’s professional orchestral groups. This offers experience of a larger repertoire of both orchestral and accompanied choral works – a unique opportunity for young orchestral players.

Click here for details of the auditions on Saturday 16 July.