Mesmerizing Clarinet, Flute and Piano

Ben Westlake’s Clarinet concert in St Mary & St Giles Church this afternoon was definitely an event to remember with pleasure.  When I arrived at the church at 1.45 pm to set up the refreshments, Ben was ‘warming up’ (running through his final piece for the concert) and I knew we were in for something special.  Ben’s younger brother James then took his turn, and for me as a mediocre flute player, it was wonderful to hear how the instrument should be played, and this was just the warm up!

At 2.05 pm the crowds started to arrive, in a constant heavy stream.  By 2.20 pm we were bringing additional chairs from the choir vestry, as most of the seating in the nave and many gallery seats were taken.  In the kitchen Fiona and Eleanor got additional cups ready as we could see that one table’s worth of cups and saucers was nowhere near enough for the size of the audience.  The nice thing was that the warming up continued for a while as people arrived, and the sense of expectation was palpable.

As chair of the organ fund group, I had the compere role for the concert, the first time our baby grand piano was put through its paces in a dedicated concert setting (played beautifully by Daniel King Smith, who was very complementary about it).  Ben introduced some of the pieces during the course of the concert, and his second piece, the Aria by Eugene Bozza, he dedicated in memory of Sir John Dankworth, who died yesterday aged 82, as this was a piece that the great jazz musician, originally a clarinettist, had played on his saxophone.

The first half of the programme was as follows:

• Solo de Concours (Andre Messager) – this is one of the pieces Ben will be playing for the woodwind final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition later this week
• Aria (Eugene Bozza) – Ben
• Annie’s Song (John Denver) – James
• Flute de Pan: Pan et les Oiseux (Jules Mouquet) – James
• Drei Miniaturen (Krzysztof Penderecki) – Ben
• Fantasy on themes from “Der Freischutz” (Fritz Kroepsch, Weber) – Ben

These were followed by the interval (I asked everyone to form an orderly queue) in which we served tea, coffee, cakes and biscuits.  At the start of the second half I explained about the reasons for the purchase of the baby grand piano – to help towards fundraising events by attracting good performers as our upright piano is not up to the task (the new piano is also being used almost weekly in our church services).  The second half of the programme was as follows:

• Sonata No 1 in F minor, Op 120, No 1, 1st & 2nd movts. (Johannes Brahms) – Ben
• Danny Boy – Londonderry Air (Trad, arr James Galway/Phil Coulter) – James
• Concertino Op 107 (Cecile Chaminade) – James
• Memory (Andrew Lloyd Webber) – James
• Una Voce Poco Fa (Ivan Muller/Rossini) – Ben
• Grand Duo Concertante, Op 48, 3rd movt. (CM von Weber) – Ben

At the end I presented Ben, James and Daniel with ‘thank you’ gifts and Fr Ross wished Ben well for the BBC competition – he is an outstanding clarinet player and had mesmerized all of us with the range and quality of his music.  Everyone in the audience (all 227 of them!) heartily agreed.  We hope to welcome Ben, James and Daniel back for another performance in the near future.

The count of the retiring collection indicated that we have raised £800 towards the purchase of the piano, £33.12 towards tuning and maintenance and £20 gift aided to the organ fund, which is wonderful.  I would like to thank Ben, James and Daniel for offering to play for us today, Cathy Westlake for enthusiastic and very effective publicity and making contact with me in the first place about her two sons and their music, all the organ fund group for setting up, refreshments, counting and tidying up afterwards, Fr Ross for his encouragement and everyone who attended and helped to make the afternoon so special.

Cathy Westlake had arranged for the concert to be filmed, so that Ben and James can post video of their performances on Youtube.  Apparently these should be up on the site within the next week, so do look out for them.  I did a couple of video clips, but haven’t reviewed them yet for uploading, and I took a few photos – see the gallery below.

Audience watches Ben perform

Ben playing during the first half

James and his flute

After the concert – departing audience

Afterwards Daniel played the new piano some more

After the concert – Ben and Daniel can’t stop playing!

Press Release – Ben Westlake Clarinet Recital

We are pleased to announce that Ben Westlake is giving a Clarinet recital of his repertoire for the Woodwind Final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. Ben is a brilliant young local musician who is going to make good use of the wonderful acoustic in St Mary & St Giles Church, Stony Stratford and the new baby Grand Piano for his competition preparations. Ben’s recital will take place at 2:30 pm on Sunday 7th February, just three days before the woodwind final in Cardiff.

Ben’s younger brother James will also play his flute at the concert.  They will both be accompanied on the piano by Daniel King Smith.

“Ben’s extraordinary sound and musicality are outstanding”
Prof Karl Leister (Berlin Philharmonic)

“I recommend him without reservation to anyone who wants to see young talent at its best” Peter Stark, Professor of Conducting, Royal College of Music and BBC Maestro

“Ben lives and breathes the clarinet” David Campbell

James Westlake is a talented young player who has a beautiful mellow tone, technical fluency and sensitive musicianship.  James has put together a wonderful programme, which is sure to appeal to everyone.

Daniel King Smith is a superb concert pianist and accompanist and is travelling from London for this event.

Everyone is welcome – entry is free, though there will be a retiring collection towards paying for the new piano in the church.  Tea, coffee and cakes will also be available.

Brass and Piano – Musical Bite 4

Today Ian Facer and Julia Benham ran a Brass workshop as part of our fourth Musical Bite winter coffee morning. The workshop was open to all brass players regardless of their age or ability, so we had real beginners and some very experienced players turn up at 9 am in preparation for the 9.30 am start (15 players in all).

Ian had arranged music especially and in some cases they were sight reading the pieces (the players had booked places and had been emailed with music information but not all had managed to look at the music beforehand). There was a noticable improvement in their confidence as the morning progressed.

The wet miserable weather wiping away the last traces of snow meant that during the first hour not many people came in for refreshments during the workshop, but later in the morning when the rain stopped more people arrived and provided the musicians with an audience (about 40 people).

As well as the ensemble pieces played at 11.45 am for the audience, Ian and Julia played three pieces on trumpet and piano which was a real treat.  It was wonderful to have our new piano played in a public performance only two days after its arrival in the church.

We knew that this musical bite would not raise as much as the huge choral workshop had done during December, however we were delighted that another £256.00 was raised towards paying off the loan on the baby Grand Piano.

Once again I would like to thank everyone who made today’s event possible – David S for co-ordinating it, Ian and Julia for running the workshop, all the brass players who participated so enthusiastically, all the organ fund group for helping with arrangements beforehand and on the day, our wonderful team who served refreshments and Fr Ross for his continued encouragement.

I did take some photos today, and tried some video, but my camera battery was running low, so for the moment I’m only publishing the photos of the event as  I haven’t yet reviewed the video files which were filmed in short bursts.

Moving the piano up the aisle to concert position

Young arrivals at the Brass workshop

First part of the workshop

Audience enjoying their refreshments

Ian conducting the new brass ensemble

Concentrated playing

View of the workshop from the piano key raffle table

Interested listeners

Tea break!

The piano at tea break

Welcome Piano

On Thursday 14th January St Mary & St Giles Church took delivery of the baby Grand Piano. We haven’t raised all the necessary funds for it yet, but due to an anonymous interest free loan from a generous donor, we have been able to purchase it sooner rather than later, and it has arrived just in time for Musical Bite 4 – the brass workshop which takes place tomorrow morning (it will be used to accompany some pieces).

The snow did not prevent its safe entry to the church, as David, Andrew and Dave cleared the paths of the slushy stuff in preparation and were there to greet the MK Piano Workshop professionals who wheeled it into the church and set everything up. It has its own A-frame so is able to be wheeled about into different places in the church without damaging the beautiful font pavement and has a padded protective cover.

This evening, after Parish Singers, and while we set out tables for the Musical Bite, Andrew played the piano, followed by Shirley and I who both wanted to try it out, whilst Marian listened and wished she had learned to play too.

The Piano is a nearly new Reid Sohn.  It in perfect condition and sounds wonderful.  It will be used regularly for worship – in fact I know that it will be played on Sunday for one of the communion hymns.  In future, whilst work is being carried out on the Pipe Organ, it will be used when the organ cannot be played.  It will also greatly boost our fundraising efforts for both the Organ and the Church Restoration Funds, as we can now attract performers who are used to playing top class instruments in their concerts.   Our events calendar for this year has several such performances lined up – the organ fund website will be updated shortly with all the details.

Andrew took some photos of its arrival for those of us who weren’t there to welcome it.

The cleared path

The piano in the van

Wheeled along the path

Into the choir vestry

Into the church

Up the aisle

Taking it off the trolley

Carefully does it!

Starting to upwrap the piano

Setting it up

Setting up the pedal mechanism

Connecting the pedal mechanism

David sits at the keyboard whilst Fred and helper look on

Dave tries the piano

A resounding success – Musical Bite 3

To quote David S (who did the lion’s share of the organising) “What a splendid morning!  Many thanks for your efforts and enthusiasm“.

Our Choral workshop musical bite proved to be an inspired idea.  On the face of it running a workshop of this kind close to Christmas when people were so busy and pre-occupied was potentially risky, how could we be sure that anyone would turn up.  However on the strength of our first two Musical Bites we made preparations with enthusiasm.  David’s publicity drive paid off wonderfully well.  Flyers distributed to various groups, posters up in Stony, emails to those already on our news distribution list, a special page on the website and word of mouth resulted in some people turning up even before doors officially opened at 9.30 am, and then they poured in.  Sylvia, Marian and I did a brisk trade for the piano key raffle all in the space of about 20 minutes, David S and Dai dished out music, then James had everyone seated for the first run through of the pieces, so at first there was little demand for refreshments.

At 10.30 am we had a 20 minute break for all the singers to get their much needed lubrication of Mulled wine (kindly provided by Waitrose), cappuccino, tea, juice, mince pies (also donated by Waitrose), cakes and flapjacks with the refreshment team of Shirley, Nina, Fiona and Heather doing a star job.  A trickle of people came for refreshments and to listen throughout the morning and this turned to a flood at 11.30 am which was the advertised time for the ‘performance’.

During the course of the morning I took photos and recorded some video clips of rehearsals on my digital camera (it is not a dedicated video camera, so the quality is not great, especially once transferred to Youtube).

Rehearsal clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZNZA4vVqaM

We estimate there were about 70 people singing, and at least 70 people in the audience.  The majority of singers and audience were not regular worshippers at our Church though we did have quite a few parishioners there, so this was definitely not a fundraising event that relied only on Parish family to come up with the cash.  There were several younger school/student singers – one on crutches!  We doubled our email list by the end of the morning.  No doubt the choice of music was an attraction:

• The Heaven’s are telling from Haydn’s Creation  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P0_-d_5Gbk

• Hear my Prayer Oh Lord by Purcell (sung in the gallery) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5NQJ0PN6Tg

• Handel’s Halleluja Chorus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2QHx5Zn2U4

All the music had been selected to celebrate various composer anniversaries in 2009.  Only a few of the singers were familiar with Hear my Prayer, but as James said when introducing the pieces to the audience, it is surprising what it is possible to learn in so short a period.

The Halleluja Chorus was included as part of the BBC Children in Need ‘Sing Halleluja’ event http://www.bbc.co.uk/sing/hallelujah/map.shtml so we had a collection bucket for the campaign.

For the Grand Piano Fund we raised £553.00.  This means we have already raised £1,229.82 towards the purchase of the £5,000.00  Grand Piano for the church, which will be used for worship as well as fundraising events.

For BBC Children in Need ‘Sing Halleluja’ we raised £100.00

Feedback from several of those who sang was along the lines of  ‘please can we do this kind of thing again‘ and ‘I loved it, I don’t sing very often but this has inspired me to sing more/join a choir‘.  It seems that we have tapped into a desire for something that isn’t often available to those who have too many commitments for regular singing – the chance to sing occasionally in a large choir with good tuition, accoustic and pipe organ (and of course delicious refreshments).

To quote David again “We are indebted to James for his energy, style, musical ability and wit“.  Special thanks are also due to Andrew for playing the piano and organ, David K for turning pages and Fr Ross for the music copies.  I would especially like to thank David S for so much work behind the scenes – without his imagination and drive today’s Musical Bite would not have been nearly so slick or successful.

Dai and David S dishing out music

James conducting the first run through of Haydn

James and the Musical Bite choir from the gallery

Looking towards the tenors and basses from the gallery

Altos and Sopranos

Nina sorting out cups for Mulled Wine

The refreshment queue at break time

Singers enjoying their refreshments and a good chat

The soloists rehearsing

Dave K and James and the old piano

Discussing cakes!

James and the singers in second rehearsal

Shirley on a refreshment mission for a thirsty visitor

Final rehearsal of Musical Bite choir in concert position

Stony Lights and SMSG Christmas Fayre

Every year Stony Stratford dedicates a festival day to the switching on of the town’s Christmas lights and this is always done the day before Advent. Lots of local groups and charities have stalls in the high street, there are fairground rides and the 89 key Gavioli organ from the Emmett family, and St Mary & St Giles Church holds a Christmas Fayre. We’ve had a Golden Spot Tombola for the organ fund at the past 2 fairs and once again used Sylvia’s winning formula for a Tombola to great effect at today’s event. We were lucky in being given a table just within the West Door entrance, so although we got cold from the door being open most of the time, we did a brisk trade most of the day with the call of “3 tickets for a pound, and you get to choose your prize”. This novel version of a Tombola still works a treat and we had some wonderful prizes this time, and were able to replenish the stall during the day from boxes under the table, which made the Tombola continually attractive to the people pouring into the Church.

The Church also hosted the model railway, the local Archaeological society, Traidcraft and the Kidney Research stalls in addition to our own Bric a Brac, books, Raffle and Refreshments in aid of the Church Restoration fund (we’ve got the new parish hall to build, more interior painting, a roof to repair…).  During the afternoon Lesley and the parish children mixed up their Christmas puddings.

Sylvia, Marian, Dave K, Dai and myself looked after the Tombola, Marian’s Christmas goodies, Sylvia’s knitted scarves and name a dog cuddly toy stall all day from 10 am until 4 pm. Because we had such a good team taking it in turns to operate the stall, I was able to get out into the high street and take photos of what else was happening in the town and was still able to do my fair share of the work.

The grand count up showed that all our efforts had been well worthwhile for the Organ fund, as we raised £331.71 from our stall alone. I believe the Restoration fund raised more than £800 which is great.

Marian and Sylvia at the Organ Fund stall

Dave K helping with the Tombola

Dave K having a go at the Tombola

The model railway – always popular

General view of the Christmas Fayre

Refreshments and Tomboa under the Organ gallery

The Book and Bric a Brac stalls

St Mary & St Giles Church with the Christmas lights at the ready

Some of the parish children mixing up their Christmas Puddings

Some of the parish children mixing up their Christmas Puddings

Instrumentalists playing Carols by the Font

The Kidney Research stall

The Traidcraft stall

The Jewellery stall

Somewhere over the rainbow

Our second Musical Bite was a roaring success, despite the inclement weather outside.  We set up in good time so did not feel rushed or unready.  Ray had brought along his big screen, data projector and laptop with words of all the songs loaded in it to display on the screen, and the old upright piano was wheeled to the front of the aisle.  Shortly after 9.30 am the first punters arrived, and were soon buying their piano key raffle numbers, cappuccino, cake and sitting down to sing.

I laughed when the first song played was ‘Mud, Mud Glorious Mud’ followed by other silly songs, as it seemed so appropriate for the weather.  Later we sang ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ – it seems raindrops were a theme to the music!  At the beginning there weren’t many people, possibly because of the stormy Friday night which meant people hadn’t come to Stony to do their shopping as early as usual but they soon came in steady and greater numbers.  Dave K and Andrew took it in turns to play, and turned pages for each other.  Marian, Sylvia and I ran the Raffle, cake and soft knitted toy stall, Shirley, Fiona and Nina did a great job in the kitchen, and Dai and David S went out in to the windy, spitty rainy weather and encouraged people into the Church to sing.  We noticed that quite a lot of them stayed for considerable periods of time, they weren’t just dashing in for a quick cuppa, and had clearly come with a view to enjoying a good sing.

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud!

Sylvia checking the Raffle and Cake takings

The Cakes and soft toys

Somewhere over the rainbow

Having a good sing-a-long

Somewhere over the rainbow

During the course of the morning I videod the singing and serving of refreshments. Daisy Bell is an old favourite of mine, and this short 2 3/4 minute video has more action towards the end, though singing throughout.

For some reason (probably the weather) we all thought we wouldn’t do as well this time as the first Musical Bite, but when we counted the cash at the end of the morning we were delighted to discover we had raised £326.40, with 4 home made cakes still to sell.  These were sold after mass on Sunday so a further £12.00 was raised from this event towards the purchase of a Grand Piano for the Church which will assist in fundraising for both the Organ fund and the Church Restoration fund, as well as be useful for church services for certain hymns and backup for the organ.

Organ Dedication at Hanslope

This evening we (John, our girls and I) attended a very enjoyable organ dedication and celebratory opening recital  at St James, Hanslope.  The newly installed organ, which came from St Andrews, Headington, sounded very good in the church, thanks to the work of organ builders F H Browne & Sons.  It would not have been possible to have installed the organ in the west gallery if it hadn’t been for the vision of Fr Gary and the work of the organ fund sub committee as well as the community of Hanslope.  Their target was £84,000, and they succeeded in raising this in 5 1/2 years, which is a great achievement.

I wasn’t the only member of the St Mary & St Giles organ fund group to attend as David S was also there and Andrew our organist played and sang in the recital.  In addition, Felicity, Hannah and Jude from our church band all performed, and several others from our church were there, so St Mary & St Giles was well represented.  Occasionally our band plays for the Generation Y services at St James, and it was at the most recent one in September that I saw the new organ for the first time.

I asked Fr Gary during one of the two intervals what advice he could give to our organ fund group as we continue to strive towards the enormous target of over £124,000, and he said that believing in what we were doing was really important and not to loose heart: even though all the small amounts of cash from individual events might seem little against the grand total, it was all adding up.  Having a really good team focussing on the job is also important.

Well I’m glad to say that we honestly do have all of that: our organ fund group works well together, we’ve got to know each other as we’ve worked and enjoyed the fundraising so far, we all believe in what we are doing, and we have found ways to smile even when the funds we’ve raised for some events have been less than we might have dreamed.  And many of our fundraising events have realised more than we had hoped, which has always been great encouragement.

So going to the organ dedication at St James has really enthused me.  Although we may have a long way to go (just over £27,000 in the fund, with £4,000 promised shortly from a donation) we have plenty of plans and ideas, and St James has provided added inspiration, and more ideas.  So well done everyone in Hanslope for a great community achievement, and well done everyone at St Mary & St Giles for the work you’ve done so far in fundraising for the refurbishment of our Willis organ.

Musical Bite 1 a great success

Yesterday morning we held the first of the five Musical Bites in the Church. This is a variation on the Coffee Mornings that have been run once a month during the summer in aid of the Church Restoration Fund, however the Musical Bites are raising money for the purchase of a Grand Piano for our church.  The Piano will fundraise for both the Organ and the Restoration Fund, as well asprovide a backup for Church services when there are problems with the organ.  Our current piano is very old, only 85 note compass and doesn’t stay in tune very well, it is also upright and is not of concert standard, which means several concert offers are on standby awaiting a better instrument.

Sylvia and I welcomed people with the Piano Key Raffle – £1 for a key, put a star on the chosen key and write name on numbered list.   David had photographed an octave on his piano, printed it on A4 paper 7 times and I stuck the octaves together to make an 85 note compass, which just fitted the long table from end to end.  After they had participated in the Piano Key Raffle people either made a beeline for the organ loft or for the lovely refreshments we had on offer, including real cappucino (from a borrowed machine).  Marian operated the online video Dan the Magic Musician  in the choir vestry – this video serves as an introduction to the organ (we showed it at the Year 5 and 6 Education day), and my elder daugher ran a colouring in corner for child visitors.  Andrew had taken a few wooden stopped pipes out of the organ and placed them on a table for people to pick up and blow. Dai took 2 of these pipes into the high street and used them as part of his ‘encouraging people to come in’ tactics, which worked well, as we had quite a few unfamiliar faces enter the church that morning.  One person even made enquiries about church services, and we gave her last week’s leaflet.

The first musical bite gave all visitors, young and not so young, a chance to play the organ, inbetween mini recitals from Andrew, James, and Jacob.  Each time a recital was due to start, David rang a bell and announced it.  Visitor experiments at the organ console were supervised by Dave King whilst Andrew talked to people about the organ action.  John fielded questions from several visitors, and also took photos.  One visitor had not realised that every organ is unique, and the same organ would sound different in another church because of building accoustics.

At the end of the morning we packed up and counted the donations and payments for refreshments, the grand total came to £328.42 which is very pleasing.

I would like to thank all the organ fund group for enthusiastically  helping beforehand and on the day, David for the great idea and co-ordinating everything, Fiona, Shirley, Heather and Nina for serving refreshments, Sue for the basket of whole cakes we sold alongside the raffle, several people for donating cakes and flapjacks to go with the coffee and tea and everyone who came along for an enjoyable morning getting to know our pipe organ.

The next Musical Bite is on 14th November, and is a sing a long for everyone.

Andrew playing the organ

Early customers for refreshments

Jacob playing a piece on the pedals

Jacob playing the keyboards and pedals

Anna and Sylvia running the Piano Key Raffle

James playing the organ

A young visitor tries the organ

Enjoying refreshments

Ellie, Rosie and Grace playing the organ

Musical Bites – our new winter programme

David has come up with another brainwave – Spem in Alium was his idea, and now we have the Musical Bites.  This is the Organ Fund group’s version of the Church Coffee mornings, but with a musical twist.

Five Saturday mornings during the winter months have been earmarked for our Musical Bites.  They are as follows:

October 17th – Pull out all the Stops on our 3 manual Willis Pipe Organ

November 14th – Sing-along-a-Lorra-Songs

December 12th – A choral workshop directed by James Wharton

January 16th – A brass ensemble workshop led by Ian Facer and Julia Benham

February 20th – A percussion workshop led by Caz Wolfson

You can find out more about each event at http://www.smsg-organ-appeal.co.uk/musical-bites.htm however the basic principle is to provide people of all ages (children and adults) with a good musical experience whilst enjoying some delicious refreshments (soup, cappucino, filter/instant coffee, tea, juice, cakes and biscuits) during the morning.  It is also an opportunity to complete a pipe sponsorship form or make a donation to the Organ Fund.

The first of the Musical Bites is your chance to get to know the Willis pipe organ a bit better – it is an education morning along the lines of our recent education day for the Year 5 and 6 children of St Mary & St Giles CE Junior School – see http://smsgpipeorgan.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/education-day-for-year-5-and-6/ and this time it is for everyone.  So take a break from your shopping in Stony for some refreshments and explore the pipe organ.  It will be played during the morning, including possibly by one of our young organ-scholars.  If you have sponsored a pipe, this is also an opportunity for you to pull the stop and push down the key to hear it.