Recital On Sunday 8th November

I’m performing a solo recital at St John’s Church in Fulham on Sunday evening and it would be lovely to see you there.  The concert will begin at 7.30pm following Evensong, doors will be open from 7pm.  Tickets are available in advance at a cost of £6.50 (for telephone bookings please call 08444 771 000 or to buy online please visit http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=xxx&query=schedule&promoter=heartoffulham).  Tickets can also be bought on the door at a price of £7.For health reasons (!) I have had to change my programme so it is not as advertised on the website, but I have a great evening’s entertainment lined up for you so please do come if you can.

St John’s Church is easy to find from Fulham Broadway Tube Station and is on the corner of the Fulham Broadway and North End Road.

Buses
28, 391, 211, 295, 14, 414

Tube
Fulham Broadway (Wimbledon Distict Line)

Postal

St John’s Church, North End Road, Fulham, SW6 1PB

Telephone
020 7385 7634

Fax

020 7385 7634

Email

admin@stjohnsfulham.org

An Oompah Brass Update

If you read my blog post back in September (On Tour With Oompah Brass) you will know that I spent a week in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, performing with Oompah Brass in a show called Blow Up! The Credit Crunch Musical (www.blowupthemusical.co.uk).

Although my part in Oompah Brass’ 3-week stint was only a small one, I’m glad to say it all went rather well: of their 23 scheduled shows and four extras, they sold out all but one and got 5* and 4* reviews in The Times, The Scotsman, The Mail (hmm…), etc.  They shared the bill with the likes of Frank Skinner, Rich Hall, Simon Amstell, Adam Hills and Jason Byrne, and in fact Frank Skinner has since asked them to appear in his London show on 9th November too.

Blow Up is hosted by failed German banker Max Klein who explains the rise and very recent fall of the world’s economy, through the medium of pop tunes in a Bavarian style played by Oompah Brass, who will be drinking beer and wearing improbably tight lederhosen. Honestly.

Anyway, they’ve now brought Blow Up to London, which is really the point of this post. I highly recommend you go to see the show either at the Leicester Square Theatre on Sundays or the King’s Head, Islington. Full details below. NB It’s cheaper to go as a group… ;o).  And if you’re planning on going then let me know as I love this show and would happily watch it over and over!

Sunday performances at The Leicester Square Theatre (6 Leicester Place, WC2H 7BX)

Nearest tubes: Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus

Sunday 25th October, 19.30

Sunday 1st November, 19.30

Sunday 8th November, 19.30

Sunday 15th November, 14.45

Sunday 22nd November, 16.00

Sunday 29th November 19.30

Running time: 70 minutes.

Tickets £17.50 standard stalls, £15 concessions, £12.50 group rate (8 or more)

Book online here or call 0844 847 2475

Weds, Thurs, Sat performances at The Kings Head Theatre, Islington (115 Upper Street, N1 1QN), all 22.00-23.10

Nearest tubes: Angel, Highbury & Islington

Wednesday 14th, Thursday 15th October

Wednesday 21st, Thursday 22nd October

Wednesday 28th, Thursday 29th October

Wednesday 4th, Saturday 7th November

Thursday 12th, Saturday 14th November

Wednesday 18th, Saturday 21st November

Weds 25th, Thurs 26th, Sat 28th November

Tickets £17.50 standard stalls, £15 concessions, £12.50 group rate (8 or more)

To book, call 0844 209 0326 or visit the theatre’s website here

Links

www.blowupthemusical.co.uk

www.oompahbrass.com

www.charlietalbot.co.uk/C&B

Here’s the official blurb from their management company:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

‘Blow Up The Credit Crunch Musical’ will have its West End Premiere on Sunday 25th October at the Leicester Square Theatre. It will continue to perform there for the next 5 Sundays. Times vary from 14.45 to 16.00 to 19.30. Please note that group bookings of 8 or more receive a £5 reduction on the ticket price of £17.50. The show runs for 70 minutes without an interval. Please see the attachment ‘London PR’ for further details.

Blow Up will also be playing at the King’s Head Theatre at 22.00 on certain dates from 14th October onwards. Again please see the ‘London PR’ attachment.

Blow Up and Oompah Brass are also available for corporate bookings. We can offer an evening of theatre, music, comedy and dancing, adapted specifically for your event. Perfect for corporate Christmas celebrations.  Please see the attachment ‘Corporate PR’.

As you may know, ‘Blow Up The Credit Crunch Musical’ was a huge sell-out hit at this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Please see the ‘Press Summary’ attachment. Additional information can be found on www.blowupthemusical.co.uk.

If you have any further questions please call our manager Philip Talbot on 07775 517411.

STOP PRESS – Oompah Brass have just been booked to appear with Frank Skinner in his new West End run.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As I said, it’s a great show – if you go to see it please post your comments here, I’d love to hear your reactions!

A Painful Couple of Months

August and September were pretty painful from a trumpet player’s perspective, and October is proving to be no different.  Since the start of August I’ve been suffering with a cough that just won’t go away.  After the first month of non-stop coughing, and having pulled my intercostals muscles (an old coughing injury which is now re-occurring) I decided I’d better see a doctor.  The main problem for me here is not the irritating cough, it’s the fact that it simply hurts to breathe in and out under any normal circumstance.  So, imagine if you will, how painful it is to take in enough air to play a brass instrument and then be able to muster enough diaphragm support to blow that air back out again.  So, I went to see the doctor; otherwise I was soon going to have to start turning down work on the basis that it was just too painful to play.The doctor’s first assumption was a chest infection, and so put me on a course of antibiotics, which did nothing to help.  The second assumption was asthma, which they’ve struggled to test me for effectively as my ribs have been so sore that I can’t blow hard enough on the testing equipment for them to register proper results – an odd situation for a trumpet player to be in, I’m sure you’ll agree!  Still baffled by the on-going chest trouble, I was referred for a chest x-ray which came back normal.

Along side the asthma testing I was referred for physiotherapy on the NHS, which has been amazingly helpful.  The stretches and exercises given to me by my physiotherapist, Lorna, have been really very helpful, although without my doctor curing the cough she can only do so much to help me.  And the latest exercise of putting my fingers underneath my ribcage and pulling it outwards is pretty grim.  The intercostal inflammation (which was pulling my ribcage outwards) has gone down but now my diaphragm is under tension (which is pulling my ribcage inwards – hence the new exercise).

After a rehearsal with the Big Beer Band last week I have had two ‘remedies’ suggested to me.  The first was a homeopathic treatment called Bryonia, which is apparently excellent for clearing up coughs (cleared up somebody’s 10-month cough in 2 days apparently).  The second was to try changing my toothpaste…Apparently, toothpaste can contain irritants which can affect the chest and cause relentless coughing; a change in toothpaste brand may solve all my problems.  To be frank, I’m at the stage where I’m willing to try anything.  The toothpaste suggestion was a very interesting one.  I have been staying with a friend recently and using their toothpaste and my cough was much better until I went back home again.  However, a week on with different toothpaste and I’m still coughing, so I guess that’s not it.  I haven’t managed to find any Bryonia but am now trying an alternative homeopathic remedy for coughs and chest trouble.  In the meantime I shall just have to keep loading up on the “2x Ibuprofen + 2x paracetamol to be taken 1 hour before playing” method, which does work, but I’d prefer not to have to take so many drugs and just get the cough sorted once and for all.

On tour with Oompah Brass!

I was invited on tour with Oompah Brass in August for the first week of their 3-week stint at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  I’d played two gigs with the group before; the first where I depped on first trumpet at the Octoberfest Pub in Fulham, where they have a residency, and was confronted with a first trumpet ‘bolting’ solo (i.e. you must down a pint [for girls] or stein [for boys] during a few bars rest – which I accomplished with the help of my Exeter University training!) and a German festival in a location which at the moment escapes me (again, I was depping on first trumpet so it’s not a big surprise that I can’t remember which town we were in).  So, when I got the call to see if I was free to go up to Edinburgh for a week I knew I was in for a good time.

The Oompah Philosophy is this: they started out with the firm intention of being a traditional German Oompah Band, playing all the famous waltzes, polkas and marches that nobody will have heard of.  Very quickly they realised that it was much more fun for the audience, and especially the band, to play tunes everyone knows and can sing along to. Thus they began to arrange classic pop songs with a slight Bavarian lilt, and Oompop was born!

The Oompah Edinburgh Fringe Festival experience was an interesting one.  Accommodation was a tent on a campsite a short taxi ride away from the city centre.  Initially dubious of this set-up, I eventually succumbed to the way of camping life and rather enjoyed myself in the end!  This was of course due to the Oompah approach to life on tour – eat haggis, drink scotch and be merry.  But in all seriousness, I was very well looked after by the Oompah boys, who provided a blow-up bed, an extra sleeping bag, plenty of tea and general fun and games.

In terms of the work, the average day consisted of a show at the GRV Theatre playing in “Blow Up! The Credit Crunch Musical”, and busking on the Royal Mile and various other locations around the city.  It has to be said that the GRV is one of the hottest venues I have ever played in.  Despite a capacity of about 60 people and the efforts of a small air conditioning/de-humidifying unit, the theatre managed to clock up temperatures to give your average sauna a run for its money.  At least we were provided with beer for the duration of the show, which lasted but an hour, and at least for me, the outfit wasn’t overly stifling…  As an ex-City worker, I found the show particularly enjoyable, as I knew only too well the trials and tribulations of the world of finance, which was expertly explained by comedian and writer “Max Klein”.  The busking slots were also pretty interesting…Oompah Brass are without doubt the loudest brass quintet I have ever played with, and whilst the majority of Fringe visitors were very supportive of our efforts, some of the locals were slightly overwhelmed by the noise and we were moved on more than once in order to keep the peace (quite literally) between festival organisers and Edinburgh residents.

The show was a massive success for the entire three week run – they sold out pretty much every day, and additional shows were added to the bill at the GRV to cater for increasing demand, as well as requests from top-class comedians who just had to have an injection of Oompah in their show (Rich Hall, Frank Skinner, Ali McGregor to name but a few!).  You can see some of the rave reviews here.  I had a great time up in Edinburgh, and am pleased to report that Blow Up! is coming to London – I will post details as soon as I know them.  This really is a show worth seeing – even if I do say so myself!

Some Oomp-related links for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.oompahbrass.com
http://www.oompahbrass.com/Fest_Pub.html
http://www.blowupthemusical.co.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/oompahbrass
http://twitter.com/OompahBrass
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wear/low/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8197000/8197180.stm

Cancellations – A Muso’s Worst Enemy

July was a bad month for cancellations.  Between disagreements, misunderstandings, holidays and general disaster I lost out on about £400 worth of work for the month.  The missed teaching and function band dates I can live with, but there were two big disappointments for me.

The first one was a concert with a professional symphony orchestra.  I was booked through my diary service (MAS) to do a rehearsal and ‘proms-in-the-park’ style concert with Wesward Symphony Orchestra, based down in Torquay.  I was really excited about this gig, so I didn’t mind too much when I had to cut short a holiday in Corfu to get back for the rehearsal.  After a late finish at a gig the night before (squeezing in as much work as possible to make up for cutting the holiday short) I got up early on the Sunday morning to meet up with a couple of string players and share the drive down to Torquay.  The rehearsal went really well – it was fantastic to meet the brass section and make some new contacts, and since I was playing everything from 4th tumpet/2nd cornet to bumping on 1st, my playing was given good exposure and I seem to have made a good impression.

So, after a successful rehearsal (and ALOT of travelling) I was really excited about the concert the following week.  So, as you can imagine, I was so disappointed to hear only a couple of days before the concert that it had been cancelled as the promoters had not secured enough money to put on the event (Cockington Proms).  The orchestral contact who booked me through MAS has been very apologetic, saying that she’s doing her best to at least get us some of the fee due (for the rehearsal we did) and that she was highly impressed with my playing and professionalism and would definitely book me again (compliments I was very glad to receive!).  So, some good will hopefully come from the trip in terms of a part fee and maybe some work in the future, but I’ve heard anything on either front so far…

The second missed gig was a misunderstanding which resulted in me having to make a tricky decision.  I had been booked through a friend to do a rehearsal with Colombian percussionist Roberto Pla, who was doing some work in London.  I’ve never played any serious Latin-style music so the first rehearsal (and fundamentally audition) was always going to be difficult (and not helped by the fact I’d had a big T.Mandrake gig the night before and was hung over – not cool).  Despite being put well outside my comfort zone I really got into the music and Roberto is a very helpful and patient person to work with, and so we make a good enough impression to be booked for his London gig on 5^th August (‘we’ being my friends Nicki [sax], Kasha [trombone] and myself).  At the next rehearsal with Roberto, all was going really well until he mentioned the gig on 6^th August.  I nearly had a heart attack on the spot – 6^th August was my best friend’s wedding – OH NO!  What to do?  Give up the opportunity of an amazing gig or go to my friend’s wedding?  At the end of the day there really was no contest; she had been my best friend since we were 13 and there was no way I could miss her wedding (even when I heard how amazing the rest of the trumpet line-up was).  I was desperate that Roberto didn’t think I’d been unreliable and let him down but he completely understood my decision, and I’ve been in touch with him since, so I hope to get a call next time he needs an extra trumpet player in London.

My friend’s wedding was lovely – I did a reading in the ceremony and was a witness to their marriage, and I’m very happy for the new Mr & Mrs C!

I later heard from Nicki that the gig with Roberto went really well from a playing perspective, but it was an outdoors gig at the Docklands Festival and it rained (naturally) so only the hardcore fans braved the weather to hear them play.  Such is life!

Birthday Blog ~ featuring My First Twitter Gig!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post but today is my birthday and I’m officially taking a day off from all things work-related so I actually have time to write one!

It’s been a busy month, which is always a good sign, and a good mix of work on.  I played another Verdi Requiem with the Canterbury Choral Society – this was the gig that was tied to the one in Snape Maltings so it also meant I finally got paid for both gigs.  Then of course there’s the usual function band gigs for the summer season weddings.  I particularly enjoyed a gig I did on 18^th July with new function band RubberSoul (they’re new to me, not to each other; they’ve been playing together for about 10 years).  Not only were the guys and gal in the band really friendly and welcoming to me as a dep, they’re an excellent band (very well organised which made a nice change!) and the sets we played were full of energy.  And the best bit about all of this is that this was my first Twitter gig!  I got chatting to Tony from RubberSoul months ago on Twitter about various horn arrangements we were each doing for our function bands, and when they needed a dep he got in touch via Twitter and voila, a new working relationship was formed!  So, he took a bit of a punt in booking me without ever having met me, without hearing me play and without any recommendation, but the gig was a roaring success (despite me falling over on the steps up to the marquee for the first set!) and thus the miracle of Twitter as an effective networking tool becomes a reality.  We even managed to convince the band’s drummer of the benefits of Twitter (and iPhones) in the dressing room that night between sets, and he has recently got an iPhone and joined Twitter – so gradually the word is spreading!

And other work has been going well.  July brought with it more graduation ceremonies than you could shake a stick at (never really understood that phrase, but what the hey, let’s roll with it).  I spent a week and two days in Lancashire playing fanfares (four trumpets and organ) to open and close ceremonies at UCLAN and Edge Hill Universities and to accompany the processionals and recessionals.  We had an unfortunate incident in the first Edge Hill ceremony where one of our trumpet players collapsed and was taken to hospital; she’s ok and feeling much better now, and if you want to see her being carried out of the ceremony check out the first 5 mins of this video!  Please excuse the very unfortunate placing of a microphone directly infront of us, the sound on the video is distorted as a result.

I’m still waiting to hear about the extra teaching I’m trying to secure from September – I’ve played assemblies at two schools and have a meeting about a third, so fingers crossed for getting some more ‘bread-and-butter’ work as I like to think of it.  If I could up my teaching to one full day a week that would be enough for me.  It’s a tricky thing trying to balance the ratio of teaching to other work; teaching is great as it provides a regular income, but take on too much teaching and you have to turn down gigs.  You can see the dilemma I’m sure.

And thus far the birthday celebrations are going well – they started on Friday night with a T.Mandrake gig at The Troubadour followed by trips to Mango Lounge and Bungalow 8 (where Quentin Tarantino was partying following the London premier of his latest film Inglourious Basterds), and have continued through the weekend to tonight when I’m going to Ladies’ Night at Windsor Racecourse with some friends – lucky me (I hope!)

Tweeting to Trumpeters

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

Melancholy London

By my troth London is a melancholy place. Last night, after a meeting with Mark “Monty” Garfield about all things T.Mandrake, I met up with the girls (my sister, our mum and her friend) and went to the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. The play of choice was Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and very enjoyable it was indeed! Forsooth, the cast were fantastic (although I didn’t think Hero’s father was convincing enough at being full of rage – even when he said he wanted to tear her apart with his bare hands, the emotions were portrayed in his movements, but they never reached his voice or his eyes – the way a fake smile never does either).

After the play, my sister and I went for drinks at Molton House courtesy of my friend Will – check out his blog here. While enjoying our free drinks and mingling with London’s ‘cool crowd’ we noticed what a melancholy bunch they were. Perhaps we were inspired by our injection of Shakespeare comedy earlier that evening (and all the wine/gin/vodka we’d been drinking), but this lot seemed to have trouble smiling, saying excuse me to get past you or even making eye contact in some cases! Now, of course I’m generalising here – not everybody in Molton House was secluded in their clique, but we were surprised by the surliness of some of the clientele.

So on the way home I had a little experiment. I smiled at people. Yes, on the bus and on the train. Actually made eye contact and smiled at people. The results were interesting; one girl smiled back, two guys smiled back but only once they were safely outside the bus and I was leaving on it, one guy asked for my phone number, and everybody else looked either surprised, suspicious or sometimes downright terrified!

Anon, I bid thee all a fair weekend, and beseech the people of London – please smile at each other more!

Filming & Recording with T.Mandrake at Metropolis Studios

Wednesday 27^th May, 7am; time to leave the house, but I’m not ready.  In all fairness, I set myself a 7am departure time knowing full well that I would be at least 20 minutes late.  And I was only going 20 miles, from Windsor to Chiswick, but factoring in M4 traffic, and needing to be there at 8am, allowing (realistically) 40 minutes was probably about right.  But I was still trying to pack clothes etc at 7.15am so it seems I was spot on with my chosen and estimated times of departure.

I arrived at Metropolis Studios (“Europe’s top recording & mixing studio complex”) just before 8am, perfectly on schedule and feeling quite pleased with myself (despite nearly taking out a cyclist who admittedly must have had a death wish).  The boys were there loading in their gear and everybody was in a good mood despite the early hour (we’re usually a band of nightime people).  While waiting for the film crew to set up the lights, cameras and practice shouting “action” (not really), we ate breakfast, drunk litres of coffee, had hair and make-up done, ironed our outfits, customised our outfits, accessorised our outfits, warmed up our instruments and voices…and then we waited.  It took the film company 5 hours to set up, so despite arriving at the studio at 8am we didn’t actually start filming & recording until around 2pm!  Still, what a place to spend a day in…a studio where some legendary albums were recorded and mixed – The Stone Roses, The Libertines, The Verve, Lauren Hill, Amy Winehouse, the list goes on.  The studios are housed in The Power House, a converted power station in Chiswick, and the place is BIG!

So anyway, once we got started in the studio we did actually manage to get quite a lot done in a relatively short space of time; filmed/recorded live versions of four tracks – the three new ones we’d recently recorded at Perryvale Studios plus one of our older tracks too.  It was really hot in the studio, thank goodness our fabulous make-up girl was on hand all day to do touch-ups!  And we were told not to look into the cameras – found it very strange when they’re right in front of you to find something else to look at.  Hopefully it won’t look odd in the footage!  But the film crew and Director Patrick seemed really happy with what they got on the day and hopefully we’ll be seeing some of the finished stuff next week so watch this space.

T.Mandrake’s live tracks filmed/recorded at Metropolis Studios on 27^th May:

Always In The Summer | Bust n Boom |Walking In Tall Grass (featuring Pete Brown on percussion) |Broken Flowers

You can listen to the studio versions of these tracks at: http://www.myspace.com/tmandrake. Website for the Metropolis studios (we were in Studio B – Rhiana was in Studio A): http://www.metropolis-group.co.uk/services.php?m=0&p=0

We finished off the day in the same way we end most T.Mandrake days – with dinner and drinks and another late night…

Kate has BIG hair, Nicki dressed & ready, Tanya in hair & make-up

The Month o’ May – Part 2

So, as I said, May was a very busy month.  The second half of the month was especially busy – I worked 18 days in a row at one point – that’s a first for me!  I’ve no aversion to hard work and, although shattered by the end of it, the variety of gigs that I got up to really kept things interesting.  Here’s a few highlights…

The first few days were pretty standard with the usual teaching etc. but I was invited back to the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) to play in a composers’ workshop which was nice as I got to see and play with some of my old RAM peers.  That week I also went to the launch of The Island Experiment’s debut album featuring their open mic night’s most successful performers, on which my friend Niko (http://www.myspace.com/radioniko) was featured.  I’ve recorded and played live with Niko so was pleased to support him and see his mini-set at The Island in Kensal Green.

That weekend (Saturday 16^th May) was my first of two trips to the Isle of Man that month with function band Co Stars.  We were playing at a wedding each time and though the gigs are pretty standard, their location does mean it takes up your whole weekend.  The second IOM gig required an early Sunday morning flight back to Luton so that we could then drive straight up to Manchester for another gig that evening – evidently the wedding season is in full flow.

The week commencing Monday 18^th May was a really fun one.  I’d been booked by RAM to play at the ceremony to mark the Installation of the new Archbishop at Westminster Cathedral.  I once worked at Westminster Cathedral, in the Friends office, so it was great to go back and see former colleagues.  The gig was amazing – playing fanfares and processional/recessional marches in a brass ensemble with organ.  It was broadcast live on the BBC, on the Diocese’s internet channel, on EWTN (the Roman Catholic TV network) and on Premier Radio.  So, the fees for the broadcasting rights in addition to the fee for the rehearsals and gigs made it the single best paid gig I’ve had to date (more of those gigs please!).  During my breaks in the ceremony I was Tweeting updates and replied to a Tweet from @CatholicHerald after they made a comment on the fanfares.  I’ve since been featured in an article in their newspaper entitled “’Tweeting’ to trumpeters at the installation.” And then for something completely different, after playing fanfares in Westminster Cathedral, I went and played a gig with originals rock band T.Mandrake at 229 (http://www.myspace.com/tmandrake).

As the only female in the brass ensemble I guess I was guaranteed some air time

The following week saw another rehearsal with T.Mandrake on the bank holiday Monday (no rest for the wicked), a rehearsal with a new horn section, a filming/recording session at Metropolis and another filming session at the Circus Tavern the day after – what a contrast in venue from one day to the next!  I’ll write a separate blog about the day at Metropolis as it was such an experience, but the Circus Tavern gig was interesting.  Our horn section was invited along to perform one song with a function band who were filming their promo video.  They already have a horn section (featuring Jack Birchwood on trumpet who’s been touring with Lilly Allen so it was great to meet and play with him), but wanted to really beef up the first number on the video and also use it as an audition for us with the hope that they’re happy to book us for gigs if their main horn section is unavailable (which seems likely if they’re off touring with pop stars!).

I ended May and my crazy 18-day stint with a cracking weekend; Friday night out with the girls, a trip to Worcester on the Saturday to see my friends Ruth and Steve, and a trip to the new snowdome at Hemel Hempstead on Sunday afternoon.  Ruth is a singer with an amazing voice who I’ve worked with since our days at Exeter University (http://www.ruthhamilton.com) and her husband Steve opens the batting for Worcestershire CCC.  I knew Steve from the Exeter days too – he played sax in the Jazz Orchestra where Ruth and I also met.  Despite Worcester being beaten by Northants in the end of the Twenty20 match, Steve played really well and scored 62 not out.  We followed the match up with a night out with Ruth, Steve and some of the other Worcestershire cricketers and their WAGs, including cricketing legend Graeme Hick, who had opened the new member’s pavilion named after him at New Road that day.  Just to make the evening even more surreal were joined at dinner by Jason Bonham, drummer for the Led Zeppelin Reunion and son of John Bonham!  A great end to a crazy month.