Tweeting to Trumpeters
Posted by kateplane on June 26, 2009
Back in May I played a wonderful gig at Westminster Cathedral for the Installation of new Archbishop Vincent Nichols. To read more about that gig see my blog on it. The reason I’m writing about it again now is that during the ceremony, I was following @catholicherald on Twitter as well as posting my own Tweets about the ceremony. At one point @catholicherald, who were live-tweeting the entire ceremony, made a comment about the fanfares – which I was playing – so I tweeted back, and I think they were a little surprised! They also sent me a DM (direct message for those of you not up to speed on Twitter lingo) saying
“That’s extremely impressive – tweeting and performing at Westminster Cathedral at the same time…”
Needless to say, the fanfares are added for effect at the start and end of the ceremony – there was plenty of time to sit around Tweeting mid-ceremony, and there’s not much doubt that I’m the first trumpet player to ever have tweeted during an Archbishop’s Installation Ceremony at Westminster Cathedral – there’s a first time for everything and I’m glad to have taken part!
The people tweeting @catholicherald were very complementary about the music in the ceremony, so many thanks for your kind words. It was a fabulous venue to play in, and I played to my biggest audience to date; the Cathedral alone holds about 2000 people, and as you can imagine it was packed, but couple that with live broadcasts on the BBC, on the Diocese’s internet channel, on EWTN (the Roman Catholic TV network) and on Premier Radio, and with over 1 billion Catholics worldwide that’s one hell of a potential audience to play to! Was I nervous? No, not really. I always find that playing to larger audiences takes away the intimacy that can often be the cause of nerves…When you can see the whites of peoples’ eyes, that’s when you’re in danger of feeling the pressure.
So, to finish off, here are some of my favourite Tweets from @catholicherald during the ceremony, and a copy of the article from the Catholic Herald newspaper in which I was mentioned (thank you very much to Ed West).
“Procession nears the high altar, passing the great and the good. And some MPs”
“His grace is greeted by the flock. Looking very handsome still. Once called the ‘Brad Pitt of the English Church’”
“More fanfare. That’s what our country needs – more fanfare! It’s great”
“Wouldn’t it be great to be greeted like that every time you came home from work? Handel playing in the back, page-boys.”
“His Grace says: ‘Faith opens us’ (and our mind) and he quotes Paul: ‘There is no Jew or Greek’ – the Beeb will like that one”
From the Catholic Herald's newspaper, May 29 2009
