Family Music Day - Years Ahead of it Time

Hannah Ellis, Family Music Day Co-ordinator talks about this year's Family Music Day;

With Back to the Future replays filling our screens, echoes of ‘Let’s do the Time Warp again’ ringing in our ears and Hollywood inviting us to meet the ‘Time Traveller’s Wife’, Britten Sinfonia has jumped on the time travelling bandwagon as this year’s Family Music Day promises to take you on a journey through the centuries. Our Creative Learning department is busy excitedly planning the day taking place at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on Sunday 1 November, this year directed by Tim Steiner from CBBC’s Clash, who boasts a wealth of experience in family concerts.

This event has been hugely popular over the past few years (and we’ve nearly sold out for this year, so get your tickets fast!), and it provides the ideal opportunity for families to learn more about how music is played and composed in a fun and informative way. What’s more, you don’t need any prior musical knowledge to be able to enjoy the day!

As well as the usual fantastic workshops – percussion, gamelan, instrument building, and strings, wind and brass workshops – we’ve listened to what you have told us in previous years and as a result this year also sees the addition of singing and guitar!! There’s also lots of other activities going on throughout the day and at the moment we are putting together our Composers’ Time Machine (collective ‘ooooooooooohhhh’ please!), to be unveiled on the day! Not forgetting face painting, the Boomwhacker challenge and various competitions with fab prizes!

So as you can see, this year looks set to be even bigger and better than previous years, and with Tim Steiner captaining the (space)ship, you can guarantee everyone will enjoy themselves.

Forget the X Factor and even Britain’s Got Talent, Britten Sinfonia’s Family Music Day is the place to showcase your musical talent.

So grab your nearest flux capacitor and come and join us for a fun filled day!

Christopher Hogwood conducts Martinu

Rehearsals are currently taking place for two performances conducted by Christopher Hogwood. The programme includes works by composers who are all celebrating significant anniversaries during 2009 including Czech composer Boshulav Martinu (see the full programme here). Not as well known as many fellow 20th century composers, Martinu engaged with a large variety of forms (from a myriad of chamber combinations to symphonies and concerto to opera and oratorio) and also embraced the tides of inspiration that flow through much classical music in the 20th century (including jazz, folksong and neo-classicism).

I own a disc of Martinu's chamber works performed by the Dartington Ensemble which I have tresured (and listened to frequently) for a number of years and I'm looking forward to hearing Hogwood's interpretation of one of Martinu's larger scale works - the Sinfonia Concertante. Inspired by Haydn the work is scored for solo violin, oboe, bassoon and cello with orchestra giving a chance for some of our principal players to shine under the spotlight.

The concerts take place on Thursday 22 October at West Road Concert Hall Cambridge (Box Office 01223 357851) and on Monday 26 October at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London (Box Office 0871 663 2500).

Golf

Last week we said goodbye to our Marketing & Development Assistant, Frances who is off to live in the big smoke, London and start a new job at Sing Up. We gave Frances a good send off - which involved doing some of the things she has never got around to doing in Cambridge. In the afternoon most of the Britten Sinfonia team went for a game of golf at our local club.



David (Chief Executive) had the best round - however the rest of us did well for complete novices! This was followed by drinks in the Elm Tree and a lovely meal at Mai Thai overlooking Parker's Piece in Cambridge.



We will all miss Frances at Britten Sinfonia but wish her all the best on her new job.

Latitude Video

In July 2009 Britten Sinfonia were the first orchestra to perform at Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Here is a video which brings to life what it was like to perform at this brilliant festival.

Britten Sinfonia at Latitude from washmedia on Vimeo.

A view from a student on work experience

A couple of weeks ago David Allen, a student at Cambridge University visited us on a two-week work experience placement. Here he talks about what it was like;

Ah, the life of a student. Lazy days spent doing very little indeed, the occasional lecture if you remember to get out of bed in time, no responsibilities and the drinks bill to match. In between the sessions spent watching reruns of The West Wing on DVD, however, thoughts occasionally turn to the future.

Which is why I’ve spent the last two weeks on work experience at Britten Sinfonia. For me, there’s no better prospect than helping to produce great music with a wonderful orchestra. I’ve been working in the marketing department, so there have been plenty of envelopes to stuff with promotional material for our new season, alongside the odd bit of filing and database updating.

There’s been more exciting stuff. My big project has been working out how to get more of my peers at Cambridge University to Britten Sinfonia concerts: hours of lateral thinking later, and I’ve come up with a cunning plan… Best of all, though, was the afternoon I spent with the Creative Learning department. We ran a workshop for Essex County Council showing how music could teach teamwork and leadership skills. I even made my conducting début in a quickly improvised piece for untuned percussion, chime bells, and viola (not a common combination, granted).

It’s been a brilliant two weeks, and I can’t wait to come back!

David Allen


We are pleased that David had such a positive experience (despite a lot of envelope stuffing) and are grateful for his hardwork particularly his suggestions on how to get more of his fellow students to our concerts. He's also promised to come back and help with some ushering (and maybe a bit more envelope stuffing!)

A couple of pictures from Colchester

Here are two pictures from our weekend in Colchester as part of National Heritage weekend. They show Oliver Cox and Owen Gunnell getting a few tips on tabla playing from Kuljit Bhamra.

Colchester Heritage Weekend

The orchestra have just spent the weekend in Colchester as part of the National Heritage Weekend. Performing in historic buildings in Colchester throughout Saturday and Sunday to create a unique musical tour which included five new commissions inspired by the buildings (Colchester Town Hall, Tymperleys Clock Museum, Castle Museum, Bourne Mill and Hollytrees Museum) the new works were performed in. I was based at Bourne Mill with two percussionists, Owen Gunnell and Oliver Cox who performed a new work by Colchester based composer, Michael Spearman. Bourne Mill is a beautifully preserved 16th century watermill set in tranquil grounds beside a stream and millpond. The weather was fine for the weekend making it a lovely place to sit and watch the ducks and geese playfully skimming the water in between the short performances. As well as performing the new work Owen and Oliver also played some jazz and classical music to the delight of audiences and the local allotment society who were having a fayre at the mill on Saturday as well (Oliver also took the opportunity to buy some weird shaped vegetables for his dinner that night).

On Saturday evening all the musicians came together for a concert at Colchester Arts Centre. The first half gave audiences the opportunity to hear the new works afresh and an audience favourite was tabla player, Kuljit Bhamra’s new work for violin and tabla performed at the Castle Museum earlier in the day. The evocative combination of violin and tabla thrilled the audience with many wanting to hear the piece again. During the rehearsal for the evening concert Owen and Oliver had a go at trying to play the tabla under Kuljit’s instruction – one of them definitely got the hang it better than the other (I won’t say which!) and we’ll have some photos of them giving it a go here on the blog tomorrow. In the second half of the evening Jacqueline Shave led the orchestra in performances of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Arvo Part’s moving Fratres and Rautavaara’s The Fiddlers.

Claire (Marketing Director)