The welcome message on the screen

Shirley, Fiona and Jean kept the cappuccino, tea and coffee flowing while the trade in cakes was magnificent, we got through loads.  Sylvia and Marian ran the keyboard raffle and got a lot of entries this time which was great.

The raffle and cake sale (thank you Sue W)

As always, I helped a bit here and there, but mostly took photos or greeted people who arrived.  I couldn’t resist singing along loudly to the Flanders & Swan ‘Hippopotamus song’, there is something about ‘mud, mud glorious mud’ which is deeply satisfying and very silly, especially when it was raining outside.  Lesley and Kieran directed people in through the High street door, and encouraged the young children and their parents who had come for the children’s dancing group in the hall, to come and have refreshments when they had finished.

Dave announces the first song

I want to be happy

Enjoying refreshments and music

People of all ages joined in

Dave, Fiona and Ray kept very busy

I’m pleased to report that cash counted came to just over £300, with some expenses for photocopying etc reducing this a bit, however with the bonus of a generous pipe sponsorship, the grand total came to £422.50 which is a wonderful result for a rainy Saturday morning in winter.

This musical bite would not have happened without David S doing all the organising and running about behind the scenes, there is always a lot to do (including making sure we have posters for the next musical bite available at the event) and his attention to the details of what makes our organ fund events go with a swing is brilliant.  Thank you David.

David putting up a poster before taking it outside

The format of the Musical Bite works well – the workshop (we called it a fun shop) running while anyone can came in for refreshments, listen, chat and relax for a little while as the singers practice. Half way through the singers had their own refreshment break, and besieged Fiona, Shirley, Nina and Jean with requests for well deserved tea, coffee, cappuccino and cakes, participated in the keyboard raffle and bought a few Christmas decorations (for the local hospital Little Lives Appeal). At noon James gave the singers a 5 minute break before they gave their ‘mini Messiah’ performance of “And the Glory”, “For unto us” and “Lift up your heads”. I’m pleased to say that Dai’s work by the street door encouraging people in throughout the morning paid dividends with every table filled and several pews occupied for this performance. The singers sheer enjoyment really came across well – the atmosphere throughout the morning was very friendly and happy, which made all the preparation beforehand well worth the effort.

I would like to thank everyone who helped with the refreshments, raffle, furniture moving and tidying up, and especially David for co-ordinating the event, and James & Ed for their musicianship. The organ fund is better off by £465.18 which is a magnificent total.

My photos this time are not very good (I got the camera settings wrong) however the best of the bunch are shown below.

Sylvia had decided to make the Golden Spot Tombola special this year – all the top prizes were golden.  Prizes for tickets with numbers ending in zero or five were grouped together and all the golden prizes (tickets had a gold star) were displayed on blocks wrapped in Christmas paper which made an inviting display.  In addition, she asked her sister-in-law Sue to make and ice a Christmas Cake for us to raffle, so we had both the cake raffle and the tombola for the organ fund.  Sue came to help sell tickets.  We shifted a lot of prizes during the day including several teddies donated by Joan Jordan who left them to the organ fund when she died earlier this year.  Dai, Dave, Sylvia, Sue and I took it in turns to run the stall all day.

Members of St Mary & St Giles Band played throughout the day except when the church school hand bell ringers came to play at 11am.  In between band times, Dave K and Jacob played piano, keyboard or organ, so the church was filled with music for most of the day.

This year was the first time the new hall was available for the Christmas Fayre and it truly came into its own as it was the main refreshment hub and was busy most of time, with only a couple of short breaks in the crowds.  I heard several compliments paid to the appearance of the hall during the day by people who were visiting the church for the first time.

We ran out of prizes by 4.30 pm (well only a few small ones left) and drew the cake raffle at the time – it was won by Fiona Ambrose.  The organ fund group were very pleased to count £365.35 raised from the tombola and cake raffle (£231.00 tombola, £134.35 cake).  The event continued until 6pm – people came in for refreshments as soon as the lights were switched on outside at 5pm after the lantern procession along Stony Stratford High street. 

The following morning at the end of the Eucharist service, Fr Ross thanked everyone who helped and was able to announce that in addition to what was raised for the organ, £1011 was raised for the Church Restoration fund from refreshments, cake stall, raffle, book stall, bric a brac and donation buckets beside the model railway.  We also had the Fairtrade, Little Lives, Willen and Kidney Research campaign stalls in the church for the day.

• choral music sung by Thornton College Chamber Choir (directed by Anne Sherry, accompanied by Margaret Oliver on the piano)
• the Barbershop Quartet ‘Pony Express’
• Jason Anderson (young Milton Keynes pianist) and Emily Heathcote (Clarinet)
• Martin and Ben (two members of MK Acapella who sang a duet)
• Alexandra (soprano) and Daisy Franklin (soprano), accompanied by Karen Pearce (piano)
• All of this was very expertly co-ordinate d and introduced by Lyn Kirkbright.

MK Acapella organised all the publicity and it certainly paid off as we had about 120 people in the audience.  David, Shirley, Nina, Ellie and I served refreshments during the interval with donations going to the organ fund (£93.93).   MK Acapella decided that proceeds for the concert would support the scholarships they offer each year for BABS Harmony College and for St Mary & St Giles Restoration and Pipe Organ funds.

Thank you to everyone who entertained us at this concert, and to all those who helped with setting up, organising the piano tuning, served refreshments and tidied up afterwards.  It was a lovely evening of music.

We ran the keyboard raffle again, I had the pipe sponsorship chart and forms on hand for anyone who wanted to sponsor a pipe, and Shirley, Fiona and Jean spent the morning serving a delicious array of cakes, buns and flapjacks along with real Cappuccino, Coffee and tea to players and audience alike.  Dave K videod some of the music rather than playing with the group and Dai did all sorts of jobs including helping Marian and I run the raffle when Marian was playing her clarinet and I was taking photos.  David S, who had organised everything, thoroughly enjoyed alternating between his clarinet or tuba during the morning.

We raised £150.75 for the organ fund from this event.  Thank you John Gates for another very enjoyable workshop, David for making sure it all came together, everyone who helped with setting up, running it and packing away afterwards, all the musicians who turned up for a relaxed and fun morning of jazz and the thirsty and hungry audience.

Dates for your diary:  19th November ‘Winter Harmony Concert’ (MK Acapella and friends) play in our church for the Restoration fund and the Organ fund, 26th November the organ fund group are running our Golden Spot Tombola and raffling a Christmas cake at the church Christmas Fayre (we’ve got some lovely prizes) and our next Musical Bite is the Messiah Choral Workshop on the 10th December.

Richard succeeded in making what can be a difficult to understand subject (the workings of a pipe organ) both understandable and interesting.  He explained what had been done in the first phase of the refurbishment work which concentrated on upgrading the console action, and at the end of his talk he encouraged people to come and see the console action for themselves.  We soon had a crowd of very curious people standing and sitting around the console peering inside and asking eager questions.

In the hall we had Dan & the Magic Musician video playing, this was switched off at noon when Jacob and James each played the organ to round off the morning with more music for a very appreciative audience.

During the morning we collected more pipe sponsorships totalling £170.   Refreshments, raffle, donations and gift aid totalled £285.93, making a total of £455.93 raised for the organ fund.

I would particularly like to thank Richard, James and Jacob for their time and skills, David S for organising us, Dave K for videoing, Dai, Marian, Kieran, Shirley, Fiona, Jean, Lesley and Nina for all their help with setting up, refreshments, raffle etc and Sylvia who had collected all the raffle prizes.  The team work and fellowship of this and so many of our parish events is inspiring.

This year the concert was dedicated in memory of Bernard May, one of our bass singers, who died 3 weeks ago.  Bernard was also one of the team who produced the memorable Sunday Lunches in the early part of our organ fund-raising period, and the Parish Singers miss him very much.

The Autumn concert runs to a tried and tested format, with an interval for refreshments.  However this year it was the first time that the school orchestra took part in the concert which swelled the size of the audience and provided the children with a great opportunity to listen to other groups playing and finding out for themselves what it was like to perform in front of a public audience.  I could feel their beady eyes on the band when we played!  Well done to all the young orchestral players – we hope you join us for the Autumn Concert next year and maybe some of you will join the church band.

It was also the first time we’d had the use of the new parish hall serving as a green room for the Autumn Concert, in the past we’ve used Stony Stratford Library for this purpose.  The piano was used for many of the concert items, notably when Dave and Jacob played a duet accompanying the Parish Singers for the ‘Rhythm of Life’!  The young children singers were (to quote a band member) ‘a hoot’ as the very smallest ones made the most of the opportunity to keep moving about while they sang.

A very big thank you to Lesley and Kath for organising and conducting the entire concert, Jacob, Dave and Charlotte for playing the piano, Ellie for her vocal solo accompanying the young children, all the Parish Singers and friends, the church band, the hand bell ringers, the young singers and the school orchestra.  Everyone did their best and made this concert a very memorable occasion.

The concert was free entry, though there was a retiring collection for the organ fund.  To quote Lesley “We were delighted to discover £355 in donations for the organ fund as an added bonus” to a very enjoyable afternoon.

The photos which follow are limited to the hand bell ringers and the school orchestra, as the photographer was performing with most of the other groups.

The afternoon cream teas which has preceded this wonderful music was very well attended and we were kept busy with requests for tea, coffee, squash, scones and cake from even before the official opening time of 3.30 pm.  I would like to thank everyone in the team who worked so steadily to make this successful, especially David S, Dai, Marian, Ellie and Rosie as well as Sylvia for providing jam and Shirley & May for providing scones.

After expenses, the grand total raised by the cream teas and recital was £568.50, with £187.50 of this gift aided.  This means we should be able to claim an additional £46.87 from tax, bringing the total raised by this Bank holiday event for the Organ Fund to £615.37.

4 into 3 = 2! Polina and Alan's concert

Russian Concert Pianist Polina Gerasimenko and Cellist Alan Brett will give a recital of music which spans three centuries and three styles on Bank Holiday Monday 29th August 2011 at 6.00 pm in St Mary & St Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

Their programme includes music by Beethoven, Schumann and Ravel and the concert promises to be a virtuoso musical treat.  Polina was born and educated in Russia where she graduated with distinction from the Saratov State Conservatoire of Music.  She has performed at many events either as a soloist or chamber musician. Amongst her awards are two prizes of the South Russia Chamber Music Competition and Diploma of the Moscow International Piano Competition “In memory of P.Tchaikovsky”.  Alan was born in London and has taught and played cello around the world, including at California State University.  He has performed at many music festivals and was awarded the Kranichsteiner Prize for interpretation at the Darmstadt International Ferienkurse in Germany.

Polina will play the baby Grand Piano which the organ fund group bought for the church during 2010 from funds raised at the popular Saturday morning ‘Musical Bite Coffee mornings’.

Their concert is preceded by delicious Cream Teas from 3.30 pm in the church which will be served by the organ fund team and friends.  There will be a retiring collection at the end of the concert for the Pipe organ fund refurbishment.  The first phase of the refurbishment – the console restoration – is being completed in July 2011, with the remainder of the work scheduled for 2013, so Polina and Alan’s concert is a very welcome contribution to the organ fundraising.

7 months ago, before he went away for an extended holiday David put the wheels in motion for this event by lining up Musical Director (James Wharton) and choirs (Quorum, Andante, Parish Singers and The Orphean Singers) as well as Ed Tomlinson and James Westlake.  When he returned from holiday in early April, publicity and voucher sales were the main jobs, as well as some rehearsals!  I organised the booking of MK Music Service young Baroque groups to play in the remaining available slot as we wanted this concert to include performers of all ages.

Only 2 weeks beforehand, David was worrying that we hadn’t sold enough advance programme vouchers.  We definitely needed this concert to be a sell out as it involved a lot of performing groups and plenty of behind the scenes organisation by the organ fund committee, mainly co-ordinated by David.  Last year it was time consuming and tiring putting on a musical event almost every month, sometimes more than 1 in a month.  This year we wanted to concentrate efforts on fewer bigger events.  On Friday 10th David S with Ben & James Westlake went on BBC Three Counties Radio to advertise the event as well as the concert Ben was playing at the Stables the following day.  However David need not have worried for the Grand Gala Concert as publicity resulted in 170 vouchers sold before the event, with more people turning up at the door hoping for seats, at the start of the concert we only had about 4 spare places in the nave, with the gallery sides filled.

The programme was as follows:

• Verdi, Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (all choirs downstairs, in English) – conducted by James Wharton, accompanied on piano by Ed Tomlinson (piano)
• Bach, Toccata and Fugue BWV565 – played on the Wesley electronic organ (loaned by Jacob Collins) by James Wharton
• MK Music Service Baroque groups:
  Anon, Duet from the Renaissance – played by Eleanor Page (violin) and Jacob Collins (violin)
  Anon, Sweet Nimphe come to thy lover – played by Eleanor Page and Jacob Collins (violin)
  Schickhardt, Sonata for four flutes and continuo: Adagio – Allegro – played by James Westlake (flute), Connor Bakker (flute), Olli Foxhale (flute), Anna Tholen (flute), Lawrence Rose (cello), Jacob Collins (organ), Steve Thompson (harpsichord)
• The Orphean Singers – conducted by Kath Hindley
  Jeff Silbar & Larry Henley, Wind Beneath my Wings
  My Heart will go on (from Titanic)
  Time to say goodbye/Con te partiro
• Gregorio Allegri, Miserere – sung by Quorum and The Parish Singers of St Mary & St Giles Church, conducted by James Wharton
  Semi-chorus in the gallery: Marian Ballance (soprano), Juliet Baxter (soprano), Eleanor Thompson (soprano), Chris Williams (bass), Toby Hill (tenor – cantor)
• Interval (with wine, juice, tea, coffee and cakes!)
• A Karl Jenkins Suite, Cantilene – Paladio – Adiemus – sung by Andante, conducted by Roger Windmill, accompanied by Ed Tomlinson (piano)
• Tomas Luis de Victoria and Thomas Tallis – a sequence of music for Holy Week and Easter – sung by Quorum conducted by Toby Hill, accompanied by Ed Tomlinson (piano)
• James Westlake (flute), Ed Tomlinson (piano)
  John Denver, Annie’s Song
  Jules Mouquet, La Flute de Pan
  Henry Mancini, Moon River
  Francois-Joseph Gossec, Tambourin
• Widor, Toccata – played on the Wesley electronic organ by Ed Tomlinson
• Mascagni, Easter Hymn (Cavalleria Rusticana) – Joyce Taylor (soprano solo), Andante, Orpheans and Parish Singers (downstairs), Quorum (gallery) – conducted by James Wharton, accompanied by Ed Tomlinson (piano)

We used the Wesley electronic organ kindly loaned by young Jacob Collins for the organ recital pieces and Baroque accompaniment as the Willis organ is not yet playable.  David’s programme notes said ‘sit back and let the sound of the temporary electronic organ take you where it will and then imagine just how much more impressive the music will be once the necessary restoration work is completed to our Willis pipe organ!’.

Once again we made good use of the galleries in the church for two choral pieces to surround the audience with lovely sound.  For the Allegri Miserere, the semi-chorus stood behind the Willis organ console area (it is currently at FH Browne being refurbished) while the rest of the choir stood in the lower sanctuary and Toby the Cantor stood half way along the south gallery, this made for a real exchange of 3D sound between parts.  For the Easter Hymn, all of Quorum stood in the console gallery, singing in Latin, whilst the ‘villagers’ sang (English) in the lower sanctuary.  It was a brilliant way to end a concert.

Afterwards some people lingered to give us their thanks as we started to clear up, which was done in remarkably quick time.   I would like to thank everyone who helped before, during and after the concert – the performers, those who sold vouchers and refreshments and those who set out extra chairs and tidied up.  It was slick, cheerful teamwork.

Emailed feedback included the following comments:

‘What a wonderful, inspiring evening! It was an amazing concert, so much variety and so many talented people. I felt truly uplifted.’

‘Just to tell you how much I enjoyed being part of such an excellent concert on Saturday evening.  Also to let you know that Haversham folk who attended went out of their way in church yesterday morning to say how very much they enjoyed every element of the evening.’

‘Congratulations to all involved in last night’s gala Concert. It was terrific’.

A member of Orpheans said that the Allegri – ‘was beautiful and transported the listener to another place.’

‘The acoustic here really is very good, isn’t it?’

‘It was indeed a splendid evening.  I have heard more positive comments than I can count … I know that this concert, like Spem, achieved so much – it filled the church, had an excellent programme, was performed by local people, gave all a truly uplifting experience, and will make people come back for more.  There are many other ‘good things’ that will come out of this, I am sure.’

‘What a wonderful, uplifting evening. Such a variety of music and so many talented people. I was thinking how lucky we are in this area as there’s so much music making going on.  Very inspired, especially by the younger performers.’

‘The inclusion of the young in the programming was a great idea – future Gala’s should definitely go on being a celebration of diverse local talent. Thank you so much for organising.’

‘Many, many thanks for Saturday evening and the wonderful range of music. As people left they were all highly delighted. A huge amount of effort went into this concert and you can all be justifiably be proud (in the right sense of the word) of what was achieved. Much of the choice of music was also a really good witness to the Lord. You certainly left folk wanting more. Every blessing, Fr Ross’

Oh, and how much did we raise for the organ fund?  A splendid £2,031.45!  Many thanks to everyone who made this possible.

[These photos were taken by me using my camera on a tripod by the font, and I was also performing in the joint choir items, which meant a quick walk to join the choir at the last minute.]