I Love Volunteers

Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em. Even if it was me who volunteered them!

Although we are back in term time we were missing a few key players today through university interviews, sports competitions, Ten Tors, Duke of Edinburgh and, of course, the ubiquitous lurgy.

Molly, our orchestra leader was persuaded to volunteer to play timpani in Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001 : A Space Odyssey) - she seemed to quite enjoy it.

Sammi, a past member was back from university and she was quickly volunteered into playing percussion, timpani, triangle and shaker.

Erica, one of our fantastic mums found herself volunteering to play a tubular bell part on our synthesiser.

Unfortunately we are probably going to have to drop Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat from our Easter programme as a number of important parts are quite under rehearsed. However It was a delight to hear Grace, play Au Clair De La Lune today on the oboe and "volunteer" her to play in one of the forthcoming concerts.

Laura, our amazing woodwind tutor, also "volunteered" to play saxophone in the Youth Orchestra concert next Sunday and to accompany Grace's solo.

I love volunteers. Don't you?

A small, but loyal gathering.

Half term is always a funny time for rehearsals with many families going away and missing one or both Saturdays. Today was no exception and we were quite thin on the ground.

Section rehearsals were able to spend time working on any pieces with difficult passages and in the full rehearsal we spend a lot more time than usual on The Greatest Showman. This is because we are as significantly different orchestra to the one that performed it at Christmas! After Showman we turned to Also Sprach Zarathustra and really worked hard on the dynamics.

Youth Orchestra played my arrangement of Michael Helman's Nocturne in C Minor. Helman lost. They've promised to work on it at home this week! We then worked on Peter Martin's Toccata - a fusion of the Jellicle ball from Cats and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. This was followed by a run though of Return of the King from Lord of The Rings and a romp through Jurassic Park - a simple yet powerful arrangement.

No Orchestra nest week then we have just two rehearsals to pull the programme together for the Teignmouth Classical Music Festival on Sunday 10th March. No pressure then!

Top C Hertz!

Another great sectional rehearsal followed by full rehearsal. I passed a new bassoonist in the corridor being inducted by a committee member so hope to see him soon. Also learned that one of my clarinet players is switching to bass clarinet - Yay! Still no sight of a tuba or a double bass yet but I'm ever optimistic.

Towards the end of the rehearsal we were joined by the junior orchestra for a joint run through of In The Hall of The Mountain King. Some looked chuffed, some somewhat dazed by the experience.

Youth orchestra ran thorough some old favourites and a couple of pieces lifted from main orchestra. We now (thanks Evie) have a programme for the Classical Music Festival concert on Sunday 10th March.

Next week as half term starts we start our full rehearsals in preparation for our Spring Concert.