The Month o’ May – Part 1

May was a busy month.  I’m not complaining at all, but it was a very busy month.  It began on May 1st (the being busy part, not the month which of course started on May 1st!), with a daytime rehearsal with the Canterbury Philharmonic Orchestra in Bethnal Green for a couple of performances of Verdi’s requiem, and an evening gig with a function band down at The Grand in Brighton.

I enjoy the Canterbury Philharmonic Orchestra/Canterbury Choral Society concerts for a number of reasons.  Firstly, they are a good orchestra and a good choir. The orchestra seems to be largely sourced from the London music college graduates, so it’s always a chance to meet up with my former Royal Academy of Music (RAM) peers, some of whom I don’t get to see very often (others I see very frequently!).  Secondly, they pick good repertoire; Verdi’s Requiem is a great piece both to listen to and to perform (I’ve also performed Belioz “Damnation de Faust” with them in the past).  Thirdly, they perform in good venues.  The rehearsal on 1st May was for two performances of the Verdi; the first of which was in Snape Maltings on Sunday 3rd May and the second of which will be in Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday 20th June.  Although Snape Maltings is MILES away from Windsor (a 264-mile round trip), the concert hall there is excellent (http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/).   And although the accoustics in Canterbury Cathedral (the location for the June concert and the previous Berlioz one) are not the best for hearing vocal performances, it is still a wonderful venue in which to play.  The problem with me taking on the gig at Snape Maltings in May was that it fell on the same date as my boyfriend’s birthday, which as you can imagine, didn’t go down particularly well as I was out all day and most of the night.  But because that gig was tied to the one in June and I couldn’t afford to say no to them both, I had to take it and sacrifice spending the day with my other half.  To be fair to him he didn’t kick up a fuss about it, although he was obviously disappointed.  But it’s one of those decisions you will face as a musician, and if I worked a normal 9-5 job he wouldn’t have expected me to take the day off if his birthday happened to fall mid-week (unlike this year’s birthday which fell on a Sunday unfortunately).  However, we did manage to celebrate his birthday that weekend – I packed alot in!  After getting home somewhere around 4am on Saturday morning after the Friday night gig in Brighton, we had a fun trip to the Zoo on Saturday and had a lovely dinner at a Thai restaurant in Windsor that evening.  After he opened presents and cards on the Sunday morning (his birthday) I faced the long drive to Snape while he had a long lunch with his parents.  The concert went really well and I eventually met up with him at a bar in South London where he was out with some friends who were also wishing farewell to a friend of ours who has gone to Ibiza to DJ for the summer season.  All in all, it was a busy weekend – thank goodness it was a bank holiday Monday!

My final thought about the Canterbury Phil/Choral Soc gig was this… There are four on-stage trumpet parts and four off-stage trumpet parts (I was onstage, playing 4th trumpet and tonking out the bottom end of the section – fab!).  All four on-stage trumpets were female, and one of the off-stage trumpets was also female.  Now, obviously it’s no shock to me to see talented women playing the trumpet, but it’s rare that in an 8-piece trumpet section the majority of those players would be female.  Very enjoyable indeed!

Canterbury Choral Society – link for the June concert:

http://www.mdesignsolutions.co.uk/cgi-bin/ccs/info_concerts.html?domain=info/concerts&name=nxtconcert