Bulletin from George
18 11 11
I became 93 on 14/07/2011. My balance is not very good but apart from this I am keeping quite well.
My latest website is Friends of Ringwood Medical Centre, not yet complete – waiting for input from the Friends Committee – but it downloads on being searched. See bottom of the Links page of the Orchestra site www.baps-orch.co.uk for links to my other websites.
A string quartet I used to go to in Poole broke up so I started one in my humble abode. I have to shuffle the furniture around to accommodate it. I have two good violinists – Rachel Reynolds and Gillian Tolliday, and a good cellist, Geoff Willshire, who brought me a birthday cake at a meeting near 14th July. We have approximately one meeting a month. We have played Beethoven Rasumovsky 1,Schumann’s Opus 41, Borodin 2, Dvořák American Quartet and lots of Haydn and Mozart.
From 13th to 27th August I was at the Dartington Hall International Summer School. The concerts were very good and various groups of saxophonist, trumpets, trombones and so on gave impromptu concerts on Fridays – see picture of the trombone one below.
I did lots of chamber music the first week – string, flute and oboe quartets mainly, and for a change I joined the Salsa Band on my penny whistles the second week and we performed at a ball at 10 pm on the last Friday. I had a microphone to myself to make sure I was heard because I was in lieu of flutes, of which we had none – we had lots of trumpets, trombones, saxes, violins, guitars and keyboard.
My music and mike
GETTING READY FOR THE SALSA BALL
IMPROMPTU TROMBONE CONCERT
I was pleased to hear from grandson Daniel that he wanted to learn viola so that he could play in the college orchestra (Clare, Cambridge). He is OK on piano and keyboards so he knows music background stuff already, and should make rapid progress. He is using my spare viola initially. He is studying medicine.
In Summer I grew beetroot, carrots, tomatoes and runner beans. The beetroots were excellent but the carrots looked like red beetroots and tasted like cardboard. The runner beans were a little slow but perked up later and the tomatoes were very prolific.
I attended this year’s mini-reunion of ’49 UCL engineers in London on Friday 14th October. I usually stay for the weekend, but in the present mood of austerity I just went for the day this year. In any case there was an interesting talk at the New Forest Aviation Group at 7.30 pm about aviation at Calshot. I have just put up the previous talk “One of the Few” by John Shipman son of Shippy Shipman, fighter pilot. www.baps-orch.co.uk/NFAGroup/ , news page.
I have had solar water (“thermal”) heating for 4 years and I have now had free PV (photo-voltaic) panels fitted to the rest of my south facing roof. This means that for 25 years I (if I get to 118) or the subsequent owner will get free electricity up to what is at any time being generated and after that the feed-in tariff for exported energy as well when ownership reverts to the house owner.
MY ENERGY COLLECTING PANELS
I have bent my old car irrepairably and have ordered a Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo in red. It was 21 years old and the lighting was poor when dipped so perhaps it was time!
A SAD SIGHT!
The Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo
It is no more powerful than the ordinary Fabia with 1.6 diesel, it just looks sporty, so I shall not act the boy racer in it.
Our (Bournemouth Philharmonic Society Orchestra’s) last concert went well. We performed with the Junior Highcliffe Choir in the Mary Magdalene Church in New Milton on the 26th November..
"Pique Dame" Overture |
Suppé |
|
Cello Concerto |
Elgar |
Soloist: Philip Handy |
INTERVAL |
||
Three Dances from the Bavarian Highlands |
Elgar |
Orchestra and Choir |
Coppelia Ballet Suite |
Delibes |
|
If You Love Me |
Tallis |
*unaccompanied choir |
Hark the Lark |
Cooke |
*unaccompanied choir |
The Lord Bless You and Keep You |
Rutter |
Choir and Orchestra |
Jerusalem |
Parry |
Choir |
See video of parts of the concert: http://www.facebook.com/groups/184817664939118/191141974306687/