A giant among composers

That's an epithet that can apply in so many ways to Sir John Tavener - a giant of stature, a giant of thought, a giant of spirituality, a giant of musical concept and, apart from his own self-confrontation where he could be brutally judgmental, he was always a gentle giant.

I say was, of course, because he died only a few days ago on 12th November.  "Peacefully at home" is recorded in the public obituaries, but he was still writing with full force and I somehow think that he will not necessarily have gone gentle into that good night.

The news of John's death was particularly poignant for me as I had encountered him briefly on the forecourt of BBC Broadcasting House in London where he and his family were awaiting a taxi after he had recorded an interview for BBC Radio 4's Start the Week.  We exchanged greetings and he seemed on reasonable form.

I have several striking memories of this gentle giant.  I remember seeing him for the first time at a service at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Ennismore Gardens, which he frequented during the time when his Greek Orthodox faith was of paramount importance.  He was, literally, head and shoulders above the assembled worshippers.  If you are familiar with Greek Orthodox tradition, you will know that the faithful participate standing.  This particular occasion was led by the Archbishop, Metropolitan Anthony - an even greater spiritual giant.

When John received his classical IVOR, he spoke, as so often on public occasions, in a direct and uncompromising manner and he pinned a room full of music industry hardheads to a memorable silence as he spoke of  the gift of music and the intellectual heart.

Commentators have liked to describe his music as sacred minimalism but for me that is too small a box and too shallow a source.  His work has a complex simplicity, born not of a lack of rigour, but rather springing from a life of searching, of questioning, of seeking.  There are layers but they are not dense;  there is movement but it is not abrupt;  there are climaxes but they are never forced or greedy.

There is no doubt that John's music has already touched millions - that in itself is a giant contribution  to society, to culture, to humanity and to life.

Peace be with him.

Apples and Pears

I was responding recently to a composer whose beef was that the Establishment (do we still use that term?!) continues to favour musical styles which are dissonant, complex and impenetrable and continues to disregard musical styles which are consonant, discernible and accessible.

The short answer is that more difficult music needs platforms if it is to be given a chance at being heard, approached and understood, while less difficult music tends naturally to be more widely received.  If we go beyond that simple statement, we quickly enter the realms of subjectivity and taste which of course is what all art comes down to in the end as it has no life without an audience.

It has always been a puzzle to me as to why difference or diversity should be an issue at any level.  Our created world is strewn with variety and it follows that creative work will mirror that.  Rather than address why dissonant should be favoured over consonant or white over black or rich over poor, I'd far rather celebrate multifariousness and that's where I get on to apples and pears.

Actually, aside from music, my current other passion is the orchard we are about to create with traditional Norfolk apple and pear varieties such as Striped Beefing, Emneth Early, Adam's Pearmain and, happily for a musician, Falstaff Red.

At tutti we have a complete apples and pears approach where the music we promote can be as sharp as a Beefing, as sweet as a Pearmain, as juicy as an Emneth or as dry as a Falstaff.

I'm not telling you which is which, but here are some composers for your tasting -
John McLeod   Julian Dawes  Jane Wells  Julia Usher

a beautiful autumn Norfolk morning

It's a beautiful autumn Norfolk morning with the mist rolling off the fields.  I'm in the mood to talk about music.  You might think that sounds strings and harps but today it means trombones!  Fields - hunting - horns - trombones - I got there somehow, so please read on.

tutti has nearly 300 pieces of sheet music for trombone or bass trombone.

Our catalogue includes some of the more unusual repertoire set for the UK instrumental examination boards, such as Scott Joplin's Magnetic Rag set for Trinity Guildhall advanced performer's certificate - this is an excellent recital piece and not just for the exam. room.

We also have some of the best tutors such as Eliezer Aharoni's New Method for the Modern Bass Trombone.

If you like your trombones in crowds, how about Gershwin's A portrait for 8 trombones or if that is simply too many instruments, there is a Corelli Sonata for 2 trombones and many other works for combinations in between.

If you find it hard to get hold of other players, then Eliezer Aharoni has put together arrangements of popular music with accompanying CDs.  You can easily get hold of his collection called The Non-Classic Bass Trombone.

And just to round off, here's a video of Aharoni and UK trombonist Jonathan Warburton giving a rendition of the Pink Panther, with a little help from the audience.

To have a browse through all music for trombone on tutti, simply go to the homepage and enter trombone in the search box, or for easy access, follow this link to trombone music on tutti.

More about music soon.

The sound of a glass ceiling breaking

"The sound of a glass ceiling breaking."  This is how the BBC Proms website describes the innovation of a woman conductor being appointed to take charge of the iconic The Last Night.  Marin Alsop, Chief Conductor of São Paulo Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, first made her name in the UK as Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.  I remember attending a performance by Alsop and the BSO of Mahler's 2nd Symphony when she drew an exhilarating performance from the players.

For The Last Night of the Proms she will steer the BBC Symphony Orchestra through a diet of Wagner, Bernstein, Vaughan Williams, Britten, more Bernstein, Massenet, Handel, Rossini - you get the picture! - plus the traditional items to get the last night prommers going.  No doubt they will have a lot of fun with her debut, too.

The Last Night opens with a world premiere commission from young English (woman) composer Anna Clyne.  To reciprocate the international exchange, Clyne is currently the Chicago Symphony's Mead Composer-in-Residence through the 2013-14 season.  She describes herself as, "a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, combining resonant soundscapes with propelling textures that weave, morph, and collide in dramatic explosions."

Follow this link for a flavour.  Anna Clyne's Night Ferry.

Few other women composers get a look-in at the 2013 Proms - just 6 from a list of 129 - how can that be?!  They are Diana Burrell, Tansy Davies, Sofia Gubaidulina, Imogen Holst (daughter of Gustav), Elizabeth Maconchy and Priaulx Rainier.  Well, at least we can claim that 50% of them are living which is more than can be said for the men!

Women composers are well-represented on tutti and the Lontano label on tutti in particular offers some very engaging recordings - Maconchy is the first name you will see.

The usual gender issues aside, this year's Proms Festival is truly eclectic and has something for everyone. It really is worth browsing the website - bbc.co.uk/proms - and if you can't be there in person, the evening concert is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 every day and there will be lots of other radio and television broadcasts of many of the events.

I'm really pleased Marin Alsop has been given The Last Night of the Proms and on Saturday 7th September, I will be cheering her on from the safety of my sofa!

More tutti talk soon, so,
That's it for now . . .

Operatic Opportunities

Summer is here and open-air opera is upon us - Glyndebourne, Garsington and W11 to name but a few, but let me cast back a little - nominations in the 'Best new opera production' category for the UK's Olivier Awards were announced just before Easter this year and it's interesting to observe that three of the four nominated works were ENO productions. One of the three, Caligula, was by a living composer - Boosey & Hawkes published, German composer, Detlev Glanert.  The fourth nomination, also by a living composer, was staged at The Barbican - Philip Glass's, Einstein on the Beach.

It's a little surprising that nothing was nominated from that other great London operatic institution, Covent Garden, particularly George Benjamin's highly acclaimed new work, Written on Skin.  The Royal Opera House is devoting ever more resources to contemporary work and that may be down to the outlook of the current Director of Opera, Kasper Holten, who is reported as saying, "New work is not and should not be at the periphery of our programme, but right at the core of what and who we are."  Bravo!

Casting back even earlier, at the beginning of this year ROH announced an impressive set of plans for 2013 to 2020 amounting to 15 new works in both the main house and the more experimental Linbury Studio.  Forth-coming productions will include in the near future, work by Australian, Ben Frost, and by British composers Julian Philips, Luke Bedford and Matthew Herbert.  Looking further ahead, there are new commissions for Mark-Anthony Turnage and Judith Weir (follow the link on Judith's name for a tantalising taster of the ENO production of Judith's Blond Eckbert). There is lots more on offer for composers from Denmark, Finland, Italy and Germany, too.

Not to be out-done, ENO also raised the curtain on its latest commission which was styled as an "enthralling multimedia 'occult mystery', combining live performance, music, 2D and 3D film."  A collaboration with the Barbican, all performances of Sunken Garden by composer, director and film-maker Michel van der Aa take place there and it opened on the 12th April. 

Opera has always been wonderfully eclectic, gloriously international and fiercely innovative.  Here's hoping that we can add 'boundlessly contemporary' to the accolades.  A living composer did win that Olivier Award so that is a step in the right direction.

If you type 'opera' into the tutti searchbox, I hope you will be intrigued at what turns up - never the predictable!

Aah, I've just caught the final moments of a fiery Norfolk sunset from my studio window - you can see more of the moments I've managed to capture posted on the Music at tutti timeline on facebook.

More tutti talk soon, so,
That's it for now . . .

Baroque Spring

In one of my early tutti talks, I mentioned the BBC Radio 3 blockbuster series Baroque Spring, which was presented throughout the month of March.  This was such a dynamic and comprehensive overview of a period of music which has underpinned and nurtured so much which followed that I felt it was deserving of an entire tutti talk to itself.

When I say Baroque music has fed into the repertoire that followed it, there are great examples in 20th and 21st century music of how inspiring the baroque composers have been. 

To take just a few random examples -
in jazz, the Jacques Loussier Trio and the Swingle Singers; in popular music, Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale and more recently, a marvellous arrangement of Let it Be, written for Lesley Garrett and recorded on her CD The Singer.

Then there are some of the direct tributes such as Percy Grainger's Handel in the Strand or Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (on a theme by Purcell), here played by the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

For the more quirky - have a look at this mobile/cellphone video - a very enterprising way to spend their advertising budget!

If you type the word baroque into the tutti searchbox, I guarantee you will be surprised at what pops up!

It's a lovely summer's day here in Norfolk and I'm looking out into clear skies - England are dominating the battle for the Ashes and the weekend beckons - close to perfect!!

More tutti talk soon, so,
That's it for now . . .

RIP - RRB

tutti talk is our latest email strand and this is the first edition.

We know music is your passion - it's our passion, too which is why we want to share with you the thoughts, ideas, events and opportunities that we hope will interest you.

The first thing to let you know is that tutti has just launched a facebook page.  It's really easy to find but here's a link for your first visit - www.facebook.com/tutti.co.uk.

Just in this first week, we have gained nearly 500 followers and are connected through our friends to nearly 15,000 people.  We'd love you to visit the tutti facebook page and like us.

Looking back to 2012, we saw the loss of three immensely fine composer - Elliott Carter at 103, Jonathan Harvey, 73 and Richard Rodney Bennett at 76.  They all made unique contributions to 20th and 21st century music and I'm pleased to say we have examples of their work at tutti.

RRB was of course well known for his film music, including Far from the Madding Crowd, Nicholas and Alexandra and Murder on the Orient Express - three very different cinematic genres.  At tutti we have an interesting recording which couples Bennett's work with that of Ben Britten, Roberto Gerhard and Elisabeth Lutyens (a much under-rated English composer who deserves a tutti talk all her own!).  You can find the NMC CD here .

Jonathan Harvey's piano piece, typically tersely titled - ff - was commissioned as part of the first Spectrum collection for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.  This is another enterprising NMC recording.

More tutti talk soon, so,
That's it for now . . .

Sarah Rodgers

Beck's ground breaking move

I was fascinated recently to hear on BBC Radio 4 an item which was giving rise to much comment in the pop and rock world  because a 90's Indie- Rock Musician,  Beck, decided to make available some of his music only as sheet music with no sound recording. 

Jen Chaney in an article for Celebritology in the Washington Post,commented "That's right, Beck has written 20 new songs and if you want to listen to them at a party or while you exercise, you will have to get out a bunch of paper and read them. This is your punishment for all those free downloads. Music should not be so accessible and easy. It should be hard to get, and Beck's here to remind you of that, okay?"

For a classically trained musician this has been intriguing, particularly when in the radio interview, the rock expert being interviewed explained that rock composers rarely write down their music and many rock musicians cannot read music. 

For many years as a clarinettist, I specialised in performing new music and the joy of receiving scores that had never been performed before and of exploring new musical landscapes was only ever exceeded by the point at which I rehearsed it with other musicians when we were creating a performance together.

OK - so Jen Chaney is correct - it is not easy but it is hugely rewarding, not only individually but as a group of people creating music together!  I will be interested to see the development of the response in the pop world to Beck's ground breaking move.

We are going to continue to introduce new music and new composers to the tutti.co.uk catalogue in 2013 and I hope that all those people who enjoy performing from sheet music will continue to explore  this "brave new world" with us.

Women Composers in the Minority

An interesting statistic came to light recently which claimed that of the 75,000 music-writers – composers, songwriters and lyricists – that are members of the UK royalty collecting society, PRS for Music, only 14% are women.

I think that this could relate to other genres rather than contemporary classical where there is a lot of exciting new music being created. Part of it was even discussed in breakfast time on radio 4 and there, it was emphasised quite correctly I think, that it is not so much whether they are women composers but whether they are good composers.

I remember quite vividly being told by my professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, that he felt it was more important for his male students to succeed as they had to support a family where as most of the women when they left would give up anyway, get married and have babies. Well not this person! Incidentally, I was also told that I would have a much better chance of succeeding as a classical clarinettist, if I did not speak with a Derbyshire accent and if I went to an Anglican Church rather than a Methodist Church - but hey that was a long time ago!

It did not deter me because in the end it was the playing of music that was important to me and let's face it to the listener as well. I suppose what can make it more difficult is that not enough women get in at the highest level in order to influence decisions.

I am still one to support good compositions and good performers whether they are male or female. However, what is important to us at tutti.co.uk and on the impulse music website is to support composers and performers so that they are at least seen and heard. Just to even the balance a bit here is a link to women composers of a great range of styles on the tutti website.

A spark has been lost from the world of opera

I was very sorry to hear today that Marie Hayward Segal has passed away. Whenever I think of Marie I think of her laughter. She was on several musical committees with me and we would meet at various events and I would always be glad to see her as she would brighten up every occasion that she attended. Marie was a dramatic soprano and distinguished opera singer performing at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne and in Europe. She has died at the age of 72 and the music profession will greatly miss her. She is survived by her son Benjamin and her grandson George who was born just after her death.

Exciting British Music

I have been listening to music by composers who won British Composer Awards in 2011 and it is great to get a flavour of what is being written in the UK now.

There is so much inspiring new music around but it is not always that easy to know where to begin.

All of the compositions for the British Composer Awards had to have a performance in the UK in the year before the Awards take place.

Have a look at some of these extracts by winning composers not of the winning works themselves, apart from the Sorensen which is the actual winning composition. I think there is some really exciting music here.

Outreach category won by Graham Fitkin
An extract from Log for 6 electric pianos

Vocal category won by Huw Watkins
An extract from his Violin Concert - a stunning performance by Alina Ibragimova

International category won by Bent Sorensen
An extract from the Piano Concerto, La Mattina

Wind Band or Brass Band won by Lucy Pankhurst
An extract from Wired for Brass Band

Stage Works won by Orlando Gough
An extract from Ariel Songs performed by Shout

tutti has CDs of music by many past and present British Composer Awards winners including from the above, Huw Watkins and Graham Fitkin. Well worth hearing more of. Hope you like them as much as we do.

Remembering a great clarinet player

It seems like ages ago now that I was asked to write a biography on my fellow clarinettist and friend Georgina Dobree for the online edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It has been published this month at www.oxforddnb.com. The stuff of biography is by its nature the achievements of a lifetime but somehow you cannot convey the friendship and the laughter and the kindness of a person in such a formal setting. As well as being a terrific clarinettist, editor and publisher, Georgina was known by people in the clarinet world for her parties. Whenever there was a visiting clarinettist or bassett horn player in London there would inevitably be a party in her home to which all the clarinet fraternity would be invited too. Georgina in the 50's and 60's at the Darmstadt Festival intriduced more ground breaking contemporary music with composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies, Oliver Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez than most players will do in a lifetime. She was meticulous in researching editing and performing early music as well as commissioning new works. She died in 1998 having greatly enriched the clarinet repertoire and having been a wonderful supporter of music and players alike.

Geraldine Allen

Purcell's Own Pipes

The Purcell connection was discovered once again towards the end of 2011. This time the seeker was a member of staff for The Choral Foundation - a charity raising funding for choral scholarships for choristers of the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court. Purcell was trained as a chorister there in the mid 1600s. Having found me as a descendant, I was invited to the service led by Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, to celebrate 400 years of the King James Bible. The choir is unfunded and the choristers are drawn from local schools and directed by Carl Jackson whose post is also voluntary. Hence the need for Foundation backing to secure essentials and a little more if possible. The Chapel Royal has many features from Purcell's time although sadly little of the original organ. (Purcell was Keeper of the Pipes.) Speaking of organs and organ music - here's an interesting CD. Also, try this unusual sheet music item for organ. I've sent a Mag and Nunc to the choirmaster, so we'll see what comes of that!

More about Purcell

I know this news was only the blog before last and was there a very long time(!) but IE wouldn't let me into the blogger. Now I am back courtesy of FireFox! A quick update on Purcell connections. It's amazing who finds you - like the German television station that does an equivalent of 'who do you think you are?' but starting from the standpoint of a famous antecedant (HP) and an ordinary descendant (SR). Anyway, I was invited to appear on the TV show which in Germany is a rather formal affair. There was a bit of a quiz on who my ancestor might be and originally they thought I was Dutch, so my German accent must have been a bit gravelly (yes, I gave most of the interview in German, much to their surprise!). Then they gave a potted biography of Uncle Henry and his achievements and then I was interviewed and they played some of my music. It was in Baden Baden and we had a great weekend making the show and then taking the waters! Didn't visit the casino which apparently is quite famous but stayed in a wonderful hotel. I can recommend a visit. More Purcell family news soon.

Kapustin Piano Music for PlayStation

Quite a few years ago we fell in love with the music of Nikolai Kapustin. His compositions for piano are astonishing. The pieces tap into a whole range of musical languages - jazz, blues, ragtime, boogie-woogie and they are vibrant and so full of energy and excitement, even in the most disarmingly tuneful passages.
This is now being picked up by musicians all over world and there are some really terrific performances. The Toccatina from one of the Etudes has even just been released as the sound track for the latest PlayStation Gran Turismo 5. Now I know absolutely nothing about PlayStation but listen to the track http://www.tutti.co.uk/featured-sheet-music/music-from-gran-turismo-5 and you can hear how fantastic the music is. To play the music you need at least 12 fingers(!) and there are some great performances out there. Look out for Kapustin, it is really terrific music.

Wow!!!!

Well here is something to be passionate about!
My name is Rodgers, my Mother's maiden name is Broadwood and her Mother's maiden name is Purcell. It was always a generally accepted belief in our family that we were descendants of English composer, Henry Purcell. It was not until my good friend, composer Judith Bingham, who between commissions likes to indulge her interest in genealogy, took on the scraps of paper that thus far had formed our family history, that the truth has actually emerged! And, yes, she has been able to trace my ancestry directly back to Henry Purcell who it would seem is a many times great Uncle. The book Judith has produced is a fascinating read back to Sir Richard Purcell (b.1455) and on to Henry Purcell (the elder, d. 1664) and to his sons Daniel, Henry (himself) and Edward, and to Henry Purcell the elder's brother, Thomas. Coming down the centuries we also encounter William Purcell who was a carpenter on the Bounty in 1788-89 at the time of the great Mutiny. He is listed in the ship's log as being 'loyal', so that is one black sheep averted!

I'm having a wonderful time reading up on all these fascinating characters so am probably likely to bore you to death abut it all!

More about me here!

Sarah

Time for Music

I have just realised that it is just about a year since I wrote my last blog. Last year was taken over not just by the normal hurly burly of too much time working and not enough time relaxing but also by deciding to do something about our quality of life and actually move out of London! It was not the fact that we did not like London we loved it but work seemed to fill up all the gaps. We also of course chose to move at exactly the wrong time in the housing market! In the end we saw a house in Nofolk which we not only loved as a building but realised its potential for making music. We at last have the space to house a grand piano and there is also plenty of room to rehearse and so I am looking forward to a lot more music making. We have not moved house for 20 years and I do not want to do it again for another 20 but it does at least make you go through all of your music and recordings some of which have been sitting on the shelf for years without being moved. One of the first things that I played in concert at the Royal Academy of Music was the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. All of the concerts were recorded on reel to reel in those days and I thought I had kept them all but sadly they have not appeared yet! We have borrowed a tape recorder so that we can transfer them to cds but the recordings I have left are all post Academy. Probably a good job but I would have been interested to hear them. Sadly my performing career ended before I made any commercial recordings but we have a super version of the Mozart on tutti.co.uk played by Janet Hilton. OK we are gradually sorting ourselves out and so hopefully it will not be another year before I post another blog! Oh dear it looks like it is snowing again.

Is playing music fun?

I was having dinner with friends yesterday and was asked what I did for fun. That is inbetween running an events business and two websites for musicians. Well I do belong to a health club at a vast expense which it was my new years resolution to visit at least once a week and which I have managed to do about 3 times in the last 6 weeks! Do you still play your clarinet someone asked. Well yes but not as often as I would like to and not as seriously as I would like to and actually I would not class playing the clarinet as fun anyway. Now that I am no longer professional (following a road accident some time ago) I can no longer spend the time practising on a regular basis which is what I would need to do in order to bring my playing to the standard which would enable me to fluently and effectively express the music that I want to play. My friend also plays the clarinet and said that after she gained a distinction in her grade 8 at school she decided not to study to become a professional clarinettist for the very reason that it would no longer be fun! She was therefore glad that she is doing what she is now doing which, as it happens, is a very important and well paid job. I would whole heartedly support her in that. You should only become a professional musician if you have no other choice, as a means of earning a living it can be a disaster and any musician reading this will know that!

Playing is exhilerating and liberating and creative and challenging and I love it to bits because it is, or was fundamentally the way that I expressed myself. I went on to be a professional performer in the same way as I continued to breathe, it was not a choice, it was just what I had to do. When I had an accident which gave me a whip lash injury which meant that I could no longer hold the instrument for more than 20 minutes without being in a huge amount of pain what I missed was not fun, what I had lost was my voice. Sometimes, just sometimes I get a glimmer of that back when I play but mainly now I get the chance to hear it in the playing of others particularly in the groups that I coach. I also get a little of it back in the work that I am still writing for tutti.co.uk about wind playing. It is aimed particularly at adult players and I should have completed it in August had not our whole lives been disrupted by builders and I really do intend to finish it soon after the next event and after - oh well, hopefully in the summer at the very latest - I will keep you posted! Until then - have fun!

Composer's Legacy

I cannot even guess how long it is since I wrote a blog - too busy writing for everything else but something happened this week which nudged me into scribbling a note today! I heard at the beginning of the week that a friend and colleague of mine the composer, Graham Whettam had died last Friday. I first got to know Graham in the 1980s when I was performing a series of concerts featuring British Music and one of those pieces was the Whettam Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano. There were some tempo markings in the music which I did not think made sense. As a performer, I have never been able or even tried to compose music but I have always been deeply immersed in the performing of music as a creative art. Perhaps this needs a bit more explaining - I mean that the composer envisages what they think the music should sound like but the realisation of the composition only comes to fruition when it is performed. Many composers with modern technology can indeed get a very clear picture of how it should sound but adding the individual performer is what is the final part of the composition (I suspect some composers may disagree with this!) The final bit of the jigsaw (for the peformer) is communicating the work with the audience - the ambience of the hall, the acoustic, the instruments being used and the audience will all influence that. And so it was, back in the 1980's that I came across the work of Graham Whettam and rather than play the music at a tempo marking which for me seemed far too fast for the interpretation, I gave him a call! That call led on to me performing the Sonatina frequently from Music Clubs to the Wigmore Hall and recording it for radio 3 and this in turn led to two new commissions - Impromptu for solo clarinet and Graham whettam's second clarinet concerto which was dedicated to me and written in memory of my sister Jennifer who had tragically died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 33. I also performed and broadcast Graham's first clarinet concerto as well as giving numerous performances of other arrangements of his music. As I have mentioned previously my performing career then came to an abrupt halt in 1993 when I had a road accident which stopped me performing professionally.

Hearing that Graham had died brought an era to a close but as his widow Janet said to me - he has left his music legacy for us to enjoy. Try listening to Caroline Clemmow and Anthony Goldstone in their recordings of Graham Whettam's music for solo piano and piano duet for sale on tutti.co.uk.

passionate about singing

What is it about the human voice that captivates in both composition and performance? Yes, I know, I am trying to deflect your inevitable comment that I was supposed to have written about the Summer Sing two Wednesdays ago, that's two whole Wdnesdays or 8 days - a lifetime to the dedicated blogger. My defence as always is that life got in the way, and really there can be no better impediment to writing about life than life itself. Hmm, this is clearly going to be one of those philosophical ones! OK, you ask (or maybe you don't!) which bits of life? Diary says (that's an oblique reference to Little Britain for the uninitiated) Norfolk - and it would be right! Norfolk is a hideaway which belongs to my brother Nick who is an equestrian (not a note of music in his entire being, bless 'im) and deeply involved with the 2008 para-olympics in Hong Kong. Norfolk is so utterly different from what our lives constitute most of the time that it is always a glorious and most welcome entr'acte. We live simply, eat simply, drink simply too much, walk miles, visit some of the most extraordinary churches these Isles have to offer and even bird watch. Well here's a thing. While walking from Hardley to Chedgrave and back, a distance of a little more than 8 miles (that's nearly 13 kilometres to our continental neighbours) and visiting St Margaret's Hardley which is little changed from its Norman beginnings and All Saints Chedgrave which provided a welcome cuppa, we dropped off at the bird hide by Hardley Flood. What do you think we found there? You would never guess so don't even try . . . A memorial plaque to Olivier Messiaen. The inside of the hide has a row of little brass plaques which commemorate all sorts and conditions of men and women who liked the locale, were ardent bird-watchers, had made an impression on the dedicator's life or were simply nice people and in amongst them all was one Olivier M. to whom bird song had meant so much as a composer. I took a photograph and felt warmed! I know this started out as a eulogy to the human voice . . . it has got lost somewhere along the way and turned out to be not so philosophical after all. Bird song, human voice, creative inspiration, memories - there are bound to be 101 connections. Much to my surpise, we have not a drop of Messiaen on tutti, neither sheet music nor recordings, BUT we do have a rather good work for meultiple double basses, called, Bird, Lake, Stone, River by composer Michael Hynes . . . "atmospheric stillness and calm. An ethereal soundworld . . ." saith the blurb.
Back soon, Sarah