A concert and a street party

Summer is almost over and the week in Provence seems a while ago now. Before term starts again on Monday there was the chance to squeeze in an informal concert performance. Friend and Grade-1-a-thon groupie Margaret lives in a small cul-de-sac in Oakington, a village near Cambridge. The neighbours of the Close have mentioned the music drifting from her house and Margaret, a pianist, was given the idea to put on a summer performance. Margaret invited myself on clarinet and fellow teacher Karen, a singer, and we performed at the Methodist Church where I did my first public performance on the harp back in February.

We did a mixture of solo, duo and trio pieces and I was also allowed to do a couple of pieces on the harp. As my recital programme (that is - all the pieces I can play so far) is still under 20 minutes adding a piece or two here and there in a longer performance is a lovely way for me to gradually build up confidence and get my pieces very well known. It also gives the audience a break from the main programme. I chose to do Barcoralle by Grandjany, one of the grade 3 pieces, so have spent the past few weeks gradually getting this one up to standard. Having the performance aim meant that I focussed just a little harder during those practises on getting the notes learnt and working out where it might go wrong. The performance went fairly well although there are still two places where my fingers want to go in a slightly different direction but having performed it in front of an audience means I will be in a better position when I next play it probably to an examiner. I also did Mountain Stream, my favourite grade 2 piece and this one now feels really comfortable. The more you play, the better it gets and you can experiment with different dynamics, speeds and take a few risks!

Karen has a wonderful operatic voice and as an ensemble we did Voi, che sapete by Mozart and Gershwin's Summertime. I have played with Margaret many times before so we know each other's playing well and having Karen too was a lot of fun. We hope to do some more performances in the future. Just talking about the harp with other musicians can lead to new repertoire ideas and round at Karen's earlier in the week she produced two pieces arranged by Edmund Rubbra for voice and harp. It looked possible on lever harp and we are hoping to do that in the future. I love the ways in which discoveries are made.

The neighbours were very complimentary of the performance and after the concert we headed back to the Close where they all demonstrated their own skills at producing and consuming alcohol of all different varieties. Although it was getting dark it was dry and quite mild so we sat outside under a gazebo with some nibbles, Jenga and a lively atmosphere. Chris had come along to the concert and after show gathering, lured by the promise of some quiet drinking afterwards with Mark, Margaret's husband, bringing some of his own cider to share. However he was encouraged to try much of the range on offer and join in with the raucous behaviour. It was great to see such a lively and friendly bunch and while I finish this blog and start preparing for the new term Chris is currently sleeping off the effects of mixing toffee vodka and Barbados rum and will be reminiscing for a few more hours yet I feel, probably like much of the rest of the Close. Cheers!