Week 6 Rehearsal

"But when the night is falling
You cannot find the light (light)
If you feel your dreams are dying
Hold tight
You've got the music in you"

...yeah, I am pretty much just quoting things I know about that have the word "music" in them now. :)

So last week's rehearsal was, like all of them, fabulous. Our concert is on Sunday, meaning we have three more rehearsals (this Thursday, then on Saturday and Sunday) before our concert. Oooooohhhh... Included in the weekend schedule is time specifically devoted to "whirler practice". This is going to be fun...

Anyway, last week (as it is now. Sorry for the delay in posting this) started with a run-through of Overture for the Mayors of Barton by Anthony Hedges. This piece is quite jaunty and fun, and becomes very grandiose towards the end. What else can I say about it? It's an overture, it sounds like an overture, and it's very nice indeed. But you're not going to know about it unless you come to the concert, are you?

Next, we spent a fair amount of time perfecting A Soliloquy for Solferino by Martin Ellerby. This week's video is of the beginning of this song, and features the lovely and exceptionally talented Hannah Lewin on solo oboe. This piece is haunting and atmospheric. According to that bringer of all knowledge, Mr Tony Houghton, Martin Ellerby will be in the audience on Sunday evening, and this will be the second time this piece has been performed and the first time the composer will be hearing the piece played. He would have heard the first performance, but it is apparently happening somewhere in America and he couldn't afford to fly across the Atlantic to hear it. The pressure is therefore on to make this performance good, and I would say that it is well within SUWO's ability to do that. Are there any doubters among readers of this blog? Well, doubter or not, you'll have to come to the concert to see how we do.

After our break we did what I like to call a critical run-through (going through a whole movement/the whole piece, then picking up on problem areas and working through them a few times) of Folk Song Suite, written by His Royal Presidential Highness, Mr George Morton, esq. I will not tell a lie here - this is probably my favourite piece out of our entire program, and I am not just saying that because my fellow blog contributor here wrote it.

This piece begins with movement I. River Sheaf, which is happy and bright, sort of dance-y (as you can see, with my advanced skills at reviewing songs I have national newspapers pounding on my door every day requesting my expertise), then slows towards the end for the next movement, II. Manor Lodge. The piece then speeds up again in movement III. A Sheffield Apprentice, which I won't say much about, except that the ending is epic enough to include Bells Up for us horn players. It's a fabulous piece, in conclusion, and it's well worth coming to the concert on Sunday to hear. George Morton is a talented composer, that's for sure.

We ended things with movement I. Cemetary, of Tails aus dem Vood Viennoise by Bill Conner. After staring blankly for a few minutes at the auto-corrected notes about this piece on my phone, which say "Does legitimately spud likecone", I have come to the conclusion that what I was trying to type was "Does legitimately sound like one", which it does. There is a lot of dramatic build-up, which then leads to the following movements. Again, not wanting to say much, but it is another excellent, suspenseful, well-written piece.

If I have not yet managed to convince you that Firth Hall is where you're meant to be on Sunday evening, perhaps this photo and video will help to tempt you:

Just one photo this week, but it's a fairly all-inclusive one! I might manage a photo of some people on the clarinet side of the orchestra next time, with a little bit of luck!

Tootle tootle! Listen out for the oboe solo, both here and on Sunday.

Well, that's all for me from this week. Stay tuned for more updates!