At lunchtime I walked up eight large stone steps and into the entrance of St Martin-In-The-Fields, the large, bright church that has overseen Trafalgar Square and before then the King's Mews from the square's north-east corner for nearly three hundred years. I stopped in front of two closed doors, one of which had a sign on it saying "Concert in progress - no entry".
I stood in the porch area and marvelled at how clear the music coming from the main part of the church was - how it managed to fill up every inch of this small adjacent place despite being performed a hundred yards away in a different room and on the other side of two large wooden doors, probably made of something thick and sturdy like oak. Then I noticed, perched above me on either side, two audio speakers.
I was allowed in during a break between pieces of music and sat on a pew about half way up the nave, near the sides. The audience was at least a hundred strong. Many of them were quite elderly and some were tourists. We listened to flautist Eimear McGeown play a selection of reels on traditional Irish flute before she was joined by pianist Aleksander Szram to perform a lovely, drifty short piece of music called "Home from the Storm" by David Heath. It was written in 1984, but wasn't orchestrated for a cd recording until 2003. As I leant back in my pew, gazed at St Martin's fine ceiling and watched the music swirl sleepily above me, I realised that unexpectedly stumbling across wonderful music played by renowned musicians was something I'd like to do more often.
The concert finished. The musicians left the altar, momentarily disappeared behind a side door, reappeared for an encore of applause and disappeared once again into the vestry, or something similar, where they probably worried if they could have played that note a little bit better. Then the audience also left. Apart from one man who was asleep in the furthest corner of the furthest pew. He wore khaki shorts and his legs sported large scabs. I went back in five minutes later and he was still asleep. I wondered at what time they usually kicked him out.
eimearmcgeown.com
2011 update. This May Elmear has been invited by the Queen, I think to perform, to a reception at Buckingham Palace for Young People in the Performing Arts.
Showing posts with label Recital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recital. Show all posts
April 21st - Day 3
The original plan this lovely, sunny day was to amble along the Thames from London Bridge and appreciate the first riverside musician I encountered. Southwark Cathedral, however, was in the way and so I found myself inside a house of God for the second time in as many days, something I hadn't done since last year when I went back to the church the day after my father's funeral to get my coat. The occasion in the cathedral today was a music recital, featuring Mezzo soprano Sara Gourlay and pianist Richard Shaw.
The audience was sparser than yesterday's at St Martin's (if a vicar had rocked up next to the pulpit instead of the performers, would the audience have become a congregation?). I boldly sat twelve rows from the front, where the elegant Sara boldly stood and sang twelve songs by Brahms, Gurney, Hahn and Saint Saens - the latter from an opera. I have to admit here that I don't know a lot about this kind of music. Before today I had not heard of three of these composers. I even wondered whether Camille Saint Saens might be a woman (he's not) . And from there, as I noticed that the chair in front of me was donated by 3i Group PLC, why I could think of no female composers at all. It turns out the reason is because I am ignorant - according to wikipidea ther
e were four hundred and fifty female composers born before 1900.
All of which hardly qualifies me to offer some kind of cod review here - that is not the point of this. To me, Sara Gourlay sounded fine and fantastic. And Richard Shaw must have been great too, seeing as, like a good football referee, I hardly noticed him throughout the performance. Neither, I suspect, did the two men sitting near the front who spent most of the recital looking at their respective knees. These were the only two people between me and the singer, but this didn't appear to put her off. She sang serene and confident as if every seat, donated or not, were occupied. Had a very large stone effigy fallen from the roof and taken out half the audience, I doubt she would have batted an eyelid.
So what is the point of this?
saragourlay.com
2011 update. Sara is scheduled to perform at The Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich on June 3rd.
2014 - five years on - next two scheduled performances are weddings - one in Sussex and one in Italy. As well as being a professional singer, Sara is a speech and language therapist.
The audience was sparser than yesterday's at St Martin's (if a vicar had rocked up next to the pulpit instead of the performers, would the audience have become a congregation?). I boldly sat twelve rows from the front, where the elegant Sara boldly stood and sang twelve songs by Brahms, Gurney, Hahn and Saint Saens - the latter from an opera. I have to admit here that I don't know a lot about this kind of music. Before today I had not heard of three of these composers. I even wondered whether Camille Saint Saens might be a woman (he's not) . And from there, as I noticed that the chair in front of me was donated by 3i Group PLC, why I could think of no female composers at all. It turns out the reason is because I am ignorant - according to wikipidea ther
e were four hundred and fifty female composers born before 1900.All of which hardly qualifies me to offer some kind of cod review here - that is not the point of this. To me, Sara Gourlay sounded fine and fantastic. And Richard Shaw must have been great too, seeing as, like a good football referee, I hardly noticed him throughout the performance. Neither, I suspect, did the two men sitting near the front who spent most of the recital looking at their respective knees. These were the only two people between me and the singer, but this didn't appear to put her off. She sang serene and confident as if every seat, donated or not, were occupied. Had a very large stone effigy fallen from the roof and taken out half the audience, I doubt she would have batted an eyelid.
So what is the point of this?
saragourlay.com
2011 update. Sara is scheduled to perform at The Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich on June 3rd.
2014 - five years on - next two scheduled performances are weddings - one in Sussex and one in Italy. As well as being a professional singer, Sara is a speech and language therapist.
May 6th - Day 18
“Being weary (I) turned into St Dunstan's Church, where I hear an able sermon from the minister of the place. And stood by a pretty, modest maid whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body, but she would not, but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again; which seeing I did forbear, and was glad I did espy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid in a pew close to me and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew. So the sermon ended and the church broke up, and my amours ended also.”
So wrote Samuel Pepys in 1667. And in 2009, being knackered, I turned into St Dunstan's Church (now St Dunstan-In-The-West), where I hear an able lunchtime piano recital from Simon Callaghan. And I fell to gaze upon an elderly lady in a pew close to me, but she not on me for her eyes were closed and she smiled and slowly rocked her head to the music of Chopin.
So wrote Samuel Pepys in 1667. And in 2009, being knackered, I turned into St Dunstan's Church (now St Dunstan-In-The-West), where I hear an able lunchtime piano recital from Simon Callaghan. And I fell to gaze upon an elderly lady in a pew close to me, but she not on me for her eyes were closed and she smiled and slowly rocked her head to the music of Chopin.
May 13th - Day 25
Today I watched the back of Benjamin Horden's head in the Temple Church. In front of him was a very big organ. He is an organist. Organists - the rowers of the musical world. I took a photo, but it's rubbish, so here's a photo of Temple gargoyles. "Are you awake?....ARE YOU AWAKE?!"
June 2nd - Day 45
Church recital to the rescue! By the time these 365 days are over, 1pm on a weekday will be as synonymous with me for free classical music
as 3pm on a Saturday is for football (that really doesn't sound grammatically correct). This recital was in St Peter's Church, Petersfield which overlooks Petersfield town square. There was an altogether more informal and chummy feeling to recital proceedings today, not that the London recitals have been performed in front of organ dignitaries and church luminaries. I think it may just have been because I came into this church from the laid-back and sunny town centre, although the officious notice outside did say to bring your own lunch. I didn't have any lunch, but they let me in anyway.
Another notice, inside the church, claimed that coffee and biscuits were available for fifty pence. Whilst I waited to spend my 50p, the woman behind me asked me if there was any tea. I said I didn't know and suggested she asked one of the two women who were serving. So she did. The woman pouring coffee told her that there was coffee and tea but that, "I'm only doing the coffee, you'll have to ask her for tea. Don't worry, you've got the crazy gang here today". Then to add to the madness she said, "That's the milk" and pointed to the milk.
Mark Dancer, the organist, seemed a very nice and sane man who told the people a bit about each piece before performing it (unlike them London recitalists) and he had a moustache.
as 3pm on a Saturday is for football (that really doesn't sound grammatically correct). This recital was in St Peter's Church, Petersfield which overlooks Petersfield town square. There was an altogether more informal and chummy feeling to recital proceedings today, not that the London recitals have been performed in front of organ dignitaries and church luminaries. I think it may just have been because I came into this church from the laid-back and sunny town centre, although the officious notice outside did say to bring your own lunch. I didn't have any lunch, but they let me in anyway.Another notice, inside the church, claimed that coffee and biscuits were available for fifty pence. Whilst I waited to spend my 50p, the woman behind me asked me if there was any tea. I said I didn't know and suggested she asked one of the two women who were serving. So she did. The woman pouring coffee told her that there was coffee and tea but that, "I'm only doing the coffee, you'll have to ask her for tea. Don't worry, you've got the crazy gang here today". Then to add to the madness she said, "That's the milk" and pointed to the milk.
Mark Dancer, the organist, seemed a very nice and sane man who told the people a bit about each piece before performing it (unlike them London recitalists) and he had a moustache.
July 15th - Day 88
St Martin-within-Ludgate nestles humbly in the City foothills that lie in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral. Were it not for a multitude of signs outside the church, that on display outside a purveyor of church signage would be considered advertising overkill, one could easily walk past Wren's small church without noticing it. I, however, can no longer walk past any church without noticing it and checking signs for notifications of recitals. And happily there was a recital here today. There was a time early in this project when church recitals accounted for two-thirds of my music experiences, although admittedly that was only after three days. Today's recital - a recital of love songs - was my sixth, and, I was surprised to note, my first in London for two months. The performers were professional pianist Jorge Carrasco and two sopranos who, a churchwarden told the audience, "sing for pleasure" - Jan Goodkin and Lynda Morgan. The song composers included Jean Sibelius, Roger Quilter and Joaquin Turina.
August 7th - Day 111
The acoustics in churches are usually pretty damn good - apparently there's quite a lot of music in churches even when there's no lunchtime recitals - something that Kit, one of today's musicians, pointed out when he declared what a pleasure it was to travel to a concert on the tube carrying only musical instruments and no sound equipment. The instruments in question were violin (Kit), accordian (Eddy), guitar (Martin) and contrabasse (Matt). Together these exceptional musicians are called Cordes En Bleues. They were bought together by "a shared love of the music of Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and 30's swinging Paris". Whilst I wouldn't go so far as to say that today's venue, St James's Piccadilly, was swinging, the audience, made up largely of local workers, shoppers and tourists, seemed more relaxed and open to show their appreciation than the somewhat more reverential appreciation generally shown by the classical recital audiences.
August 11th - Day 115
A trip with the children to Southwark Cathedral today to see a free flute and guitar recital. Well, I put a couple of quid into the collection of course. And it cost me £4.50 to get up town, and another £3 parking in Peckham for four hours. Then there was the £25 I spent on lunch. And the £10 it cost us to visit The Golden Hinde as my reward for making them sit through ten minutes of music. When we passed the Cathedral before lunch Daisy burst into tears and sobbed, "I don't want to see the music!!" Once inside the building later on however, both Daisy and Oliver enjoyed the pre-music wandering about and we only had to leave the recital because Daisy was humming too loudly.
September 8th - Day 143
I tend not to take photos during church recitals - it feels intrusive and inappropriate. I did take one of church organist Benjamin Horden in Temple Church, but he was facing the other way. I also took one from the back of Southwark Cathedral with the children in the foreground, but was told to stop - although I was given the option of buying a photography pass to start again.
Today's recital at St Bride's off Fleet Street, by oboe and harp duo Caroline and Harriet Adie (they're sisters), was particularly intimate. The pews face inwards along the length of the aisle...is that the correct word?...I must invest in a dictionary of church architecture terms before the year is up... could be the nave actually...Anyway, they face inwards and not towards the altar (pretty sure that's the correct term), so that there is room in the nave for the recitalists to perform. Caroline and Harriet were situated in the centre in front of six rows of chairs. So it was very obvious and rather toe-curling when an audience member stepped out into the narrow aisle between the seats, moved to within ten feet of the musicians and flashed her camera. After the piece Harriet very politely asked that no-one did that again.
I don't know a lot about music for oboe and harp, so it was good for me that the extremely elegant Adie sisters, as well as being fine musicians, were also keen to pass on their knowledge between pieces. Harriet, for example, demonstrated how to draw unusual sounds out of her harp. She also revealed, perhaps not surprisingly, that her sister finds it easier to play oboe pieces that allow her to breath - apparently not all composers take into account breathing space between notes. Oboe and harp, Caroline told us, is not a common combination, so the pieces they play are often originally for oboe and piano. One such piece, which I took a particular liking to, was by Saint-Saens. Unfortunately I've mislaid the programme so can't tell you what it was at the moment, but Caroline described it as pastoral. And she was right, it was pastoral. But why it was pastoral, I don't know. Was it because I have an idea in my head what pastoral classical music sounds like, and it sounded like that? Or was it more integral in the music...the sound of the oboe soaring and wheeling above us like swallows swooping and flitting over meadows...or something?
I don't know a lot about music for oboe and harp, so it was good for me that the extremely elegant Adie sisters, as well as being fine musicians, were also keen to pass on their knowledge between pieces. Harriet, for example, demonstrated how to draw unusual sounds out of her harp. She also revealed, perhaps not surprisingly, that her sister finds it easier to play oboe pieces that allow her to breath - apparently not all composers take into account breathing space between notes. Oboe and harp, Caroline told us, is not a common combination, so the pieces they play are often originally for oboe and piano. One such piece, which I took a particular liking to, was by Saint-Saens. Unfortunately I've mislaid the programme so can't tell you what it was at the moment, but Caroline described it as pastoral. And she was right, it was pastoral. But why it was pastoral, I don't know. Was it because I have an idea in my head what pastoral classical music sounds like, and it sounded like that? Or was it more integral in the music...the sound of the oboe soaring and wheeling above us like swallows swooping and flitting over meadows...or something?
More at harpist-uk.co.uk/chamber.htm
September 15th - Day 150
Today's lunchtime recital at All Hallows by The Tower, featuring flautist/piccoloist Jane Gilbert and pianist Brian Bendle, had an endearingly informal feel about it, reflected in a number of ways. Firstly there were the jaunty programme notes, such as the description of the final part of Ernesto Kohler's Serenata Oriental, "sultry Brothel Music before a gallop on that camel again, or, as it says on the packet "bright, melodic, arid and charming salon music with piano"". I liked the way "Brothel Music" was capitalised as if it's a classical genre, like Baroque Music or Chamber Music.
Secondly the musicians were hanging around at the back of the church with a couple of friends when I arrived, wondering aloud whether to get started or to wait for Randy the barman to turn up. They started without him. There were only twenty people in the audience and I had a feeling that most of them knew the duo, so when Jane had to stop and restart the second piece because her piccolo needed a clean, there was no awkward audience moment. The informality was rounded off after the concert by an invitation to have a glass of wine. It was only then that I noticed that Randy the barman (I assumed it was he) had arrived and set out a fair few bottles of wine - enough for a bottle each I'd think - on a fold-up table at one side of the church. This, I believe, was to celebrate Jane travelling at 163mph last Sunday on an airfield "somewhere in England".
Both musicians work in The City as well as performing their music worldwide. Jane in Kidnap Insurance (though the notes suggested this is now behind her) and Brian as a Broker at Lloyds.
Check out the church if you're passing. It's drenched in history.
September 23rd - Day 158
Today, in the depths of Green Park tube station, I passed a man half-heartedly dressed as a clown (or was he a clown half-heartedly dressed as a man?) performing a Beatles song - "All my loving" since you ask - with guitar, harmonica and voice. I ignored his witty, musical wiles and continued my journey to a solo piano recital up the road at St James's Piccadilly. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are currently "daytime music only days", because of evening childcare duties, so expect church recitals and buskers to feature strongly on those days.
Maria Marchant, today's recitalist, had just begun when I arrived, so I watched and listened from behind a glass door before being let in at the end of the first movement of Maurice Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin". The piece has six movements and is a memorial to six French officer friends of the composer, each killed in the First World War (though the fourth movement is for two brothers killed by the same shell). Regular readers of this blog (hello Claire, Steve, Phil, Katie...Mum...have I missed anyone?) will know that my classical music knowledge is maybe not what it should be - I'm learning all the time - but as live music experiences go today was right up there. The whole piece was probably only about twenty minutes long, and at first the music merely drifted pleasantly around me. Then I realised three movements in that I was hooked and, even with my classical pianistic ignorance, I had a sense I was watching a very special young musican (subsequent research revealed Maria Marchant as something of a top rising star). The sixth and last piece was likened in the programme notes "to an army of foot-soldiers which slowly advances before the work draws to its triumphant, terrifying and brilliant close" which I thought was pretty much on the button. Breathtaking stuff. The audience applause at the work's conclusion had a significant edge of enthusiasm over the usual polite recital applause (I'm developing an acutely accurate internal clap-o-meter). Next time I'm in Fopp I'm going to buy Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin...I think they sell classical music.
When I was back down in Green Park tube an hour after arriving, there was another busker playing a Beatles song ("Yesterday"). I don't think he was the same guy. He had no clown-effects and was whole-heartedly a man.
mariamarchant.com
Maria Marchant, today's recitalist, had just begun when I arrived, so I watched and listened from behind a glass door before being let in at the end of the first movement of Maurice Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin". The piece has six movements and is a memorial to six French officer friends of the composer, each killed in the First World War (though the fourth movement is for two brothers killed by the same shell). Regular readers of this blog (hello Claire, Steve, Phil, Katie...Mum...have I missed anyone?) will know that my classical music knowledge is maybe not what it should be - I'm learning all the time - but as live music experiences go today was right up there. The whole piece was probably only about twenty minutes long, and at first the music merely drifted pleasantly around me. Then I realised three movements in that I was hooked and, even with my classical pianistic ignorance, I had a sense I was watching a very special young musican (subsequent research revealed Maria Marchant as something of a top rising star). The sixth and last piece was likened in the programme notes "to an army of foot-soldiers which slowly advances before the work draws to its triumphant, terrifying and brilliant close" which I thought was pretty much on the button. Breathtaking stuff. The audience applause at the work's conclusion had a significant edge of enthusiasm over the usual polite recital applause (I'm developing an acutely accurate internal clap-o-meter). Next time I'm in Fopp I'm going to buy Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin...I think they sell classical music.
When I was back down in Green Park tube an hour after arriving, there was another busker playing a Beatles song ("Yesterday"). I don't think he was the same guy. He had no clown-effects and was whole-heartedly a man.
mariamarchant.com
(can you read that...? I'll crop it closer...)
September 29th - Day 164
This was today's lunchtime entertainment at The Bishopsgate Institute in The City. Countertenor Andrew Radley singing condensed operettas of "cathartic melancholy", accompanied by harpsichord, oboe and cello. I wondered how old Julian Perkins's pastel green floral-decorated harpsichord was. His website revealed that he uses two harpsichords - one was built in 1764 and the other in 1740. I haven't yet managed to discover which one he used today.
The first lunchtime concert here was during World War II in November 1943. Today was concert number 1782. It was fairly well attended, but not quite as well as the "humourous and dramatic lecture by Professor William Miles" delivered one hundred years ago. The photograph below shows the audience immediately after Professor Miles's reknowned "woman with a wooden leg" gag.
October 6th - Day 171
It's a Tuesday. It's church recital day. Today I went to the Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich to see an organ recital. But I couldn't see the organ - I could only hear it - because it was behind the audience at the back of the chapel, above the foyer (not sure of the official word...quick research suggests maybe the "vestibule" or perhaps the "narthex"...or even that it is called the "foyer". I know it's not the "stern"). I could, however, see and hear six Trinity College choiristers (four blurry ones shown below) and a conductor.
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October 7th - Day 172
Yesterday I received an enquiring email about the blog, the subject heading of which was "busking website". Lord, I thought, are there that many buskers featured?! I had a look at the labels and, putting my defensive hat on for a moment (it never hangs far from my reach), I'd like to point out that buskers account for approximately 17.51% of the posts, which, although larger than any other live music genre thus far represented, is, I feel satisfied, not a number large enough to hog the blog.
Currently, if anything, I feel more in danger of creating a "church recital website". I was at The Temple Church today to hear and see a well-attended organ recital by Peter King. I wondered, both today and yesterday, why it was that the organ became the musical instrument of the church. This is what Wikipedia says, "Due to its ability to simultaneously provide a musical foundation below the vocal register, support in the vocal register, and increased brightness above the vocal register, the organ is ideally suited to accompany human voices, whether a congregation, a choir or a cantor or soloist".
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Currently, if anything, I feel more in danger of creating a "church recital website". I was at The Temple Church today to hear and see a well-attended organ recital by Peter King. I wondered, both today and yesterday, why it was that the organ became the musical instrument of the church. This is what Wikipedia says, "Due to its ability to simultaneously provide a musical foundation below the vocal register, support in the vocal register, and increased brightness above the vocal register, the organ is ideally suited to accompany human voices, whether a congregation, a choir or a cantor or soloist".
October 20th - Day 185
A recital with a difference. Classical accordain. I never knew the accordian could make so many sounds. Most of the pieces Ksenija Sidorova played today were written for the accordian, but she also played a piece by Bach, who died 80 years before the first accordian was made in 1829 in Austria. She makes a particular feature of adapting the keyboard works of Bach and Mozart and there were moments when her accordian sounded more like a church organ. Over the last 185 days, I don't think I've seen anyone as joined to their musical instrument as Ksenija was to her accordian. She was seated, but they danced and swayed together as if they were the last ones left on the floor after everyone had gone home - it almost felt rude to be in the same room. The musical instrument wasn't the accordian, but was the two of them as one entity. I guess one could say that about many musicians and their chosen instruments, but the bond today was...well...remarkable...I feel I've not quite worded this post as I'd like, but I'm tired and need to go to bed, and I'll have another look tomorrow...
I had another look, and bouyed on by Phil's encouraging comment below, left it as it is.
Here's Ksenija on youtube youtube.com/watch?v=2nuPrX4Umfc
November 2nd - Day 198
St Anne and St Agnes is a small, square Wren church near St Pauls, on the edge of The City. Since 1954 it has been a place of Lutheran worship. According to The Lutheran Council of Great Britain, Lutherans believe "that the Holy Scriptures are the source and norm of their doctrine and life. They proclaim the historic, ecumenical creeds of the church – the Apostles’, the Nicene and the Athanasian – which say that God is a Trinity who creates, saves and sustains us." They are named after Martin Luther, a 16th Century German priest who attempted to reform the Western Church by re-connecting it to its Biblical roots (this is all new information for my brain). More than thirty nationalities worship at St Anne and services are held in English, Amharic, Estonian, Latvian and Swahili. Once a month the church holds a Jazz Vespers service and at Christmas, Jazz Carols.
Today was the musical turn of James Woodrow (guitar) and Audrey Riley (cello) to entertain a snuffly lunchtime audience. The recital was bookended by the traditional, in the form of Bach. The music inbetween was mainly tranquil, but diverse. The most startling piece was called Calamintha for Solo Guitar by a temporary Japanese composer called Jo Kondo. It was a stop-starty staccato composition that, to my uneducated ear reminded me of Eric Morecambe's quip about playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. My flippancy, however, does the piece, and what looked like extremely complex guitar-playing, an injustice - it stood out as something different and challenging. This is what Jo Kondo says about his music, "Each sound must have its own entity and life. What I am doing in my compositions is to create a web of intertonal relationships, while trying to safeguard the possibility of aurally perceiving the individual entity and life of every single tone in that relationship."
Both today's musicians are proficient and busy in many aspects of music, though I have to admit that it was discovering that Audrey has arranged and recorded with acts such as The Smiths, Nick Cave, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Muse and The Foo Fighters (and many others) which intrigued me the most.
More about both musicians at a-change-of-light.com
Today was the musical turn of James Woodrow (guitar) and Audrey Riley (cello) to entertain a snuffly lunchtime audience. The recital was bookended by the traditional, in the form of Bach. The music inbetween was mainly tranquil, but diverse. The most startling piece was called Calamintha for Solo Guitar by a temporary Japanese composer called Jo Kondo. It was a stop-starty staccato composition that, to my uneducated ear reminded me of Eric Morecambe's quip about playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. My flippancy, however, does the piece, and what looked like extremely complex guitar-playing, an injustice - it stood out as something different and challenging. This is what Jo Kondo says about his music, "Each sound must have its own entity and life. What I am doing in my compositions is to create a web of intertonal relationships, while trying to safeguard the possibility of aurally perceiving the individual entity and life of every single tone in that relationship."
Both today's musicians are proficient and busy in many aspects of music, though I have to admit that it was discovering that Audrey has arranged and recorded with acts such as The Smiths, Nick Cave, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Muse and The Foo Fighters (and many others) which intrigued me the most.
More about both musicians at a-change-of-light.com
November 9th - Day 205
Spanish guitar by Dimitris Dekavallas at St Martin-In-The-Fields. Above, pre-recital and below, post-recital .
November 18th - Day 214
I was set to go to a public violin masterclass at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama today, but had to change my plans, because Daisy was poorly and didn't go to nursery. I had a child-free couple of hours in the afternoon during which time I rocked up to Deptford Town Hall to watch a clarinet recital by Goldsmiths student Donia Moore. The Town Hall, now belonging to Goldsmiths, is a very grand hundred year-old building on the A2 in New Cross that I have managed to pass hundreds of times without noticing. The stately room that Donia and pianist Richard Black performed in was the former council chambers. Behind the musicians was a large wooden panel listing the former Mayors of Deptford up to 1965 and then it stopped. I wondered why and hit google. I didn't find out, but my guess is that the post of Mayor of Deptford cease to exist after that date.
I did discover, however, that Deptford Town Hall has a somewhat controversial and unsavoury history. Many of the ornaments and figures carved into the stonework inside and outside the building reflect the area's naval history, specifically Deptford's Royal Naval Dockyards which closed in 1869 after 356 years of business. The four statues carved in Portland stone on the front of the building, seen in the bottom photograph watching people walk past without noticing them, are famous naval figures. Atop the Town Hall, in the form of a weathervane, is a golden ship. "This is not a surprising symbol for Deptford considering its 400-year history at the centre of British overseas trade," says a piece on the Mediashed website, but "we are left asking, “What kind of ship is it? A warship? A trader? A slave ship?”. We could see implications for any or all of these types of ships as the four figures in question are Sir Francis Drake, Robert Blake, Lord Horatio Nelson and a composite figure that represents a typical admiral of the Edwardian period when the building was completed. It is well documented that Drake was involved in capturing and selling slaves. Blake and Nelson were less directly implicated but have had a hand in the British slave trade by association". And more, "As the weathervane on Deptford Town Hall reminds us, the area was a thoroughfare for ships and shipping. Ships were built and launched, refitted and repaired, unloaded and restocked on the Deptford waterfront. Many of those enriched by the African Caribbean trade began and ended each trip at Deptford. They brought with them slaves, symbols of wealth. Deptford became a key area for these newly arrived individuals whose number would increase as the trade developed. Still other slaves may have found themselves in the vicinity via other routes. As sales or gifts, black people may also have come through a number of other ports before reaching Kentish London."
Read more at mediashed.org/?q=DeptfordTownHall
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