

CD Countdown 7: In Tune! (hopefully)
Just one sleep left until the release of our CD!!! It has certainly been a busy 18 months touring the country with our Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music (RRMM) project, and we thought it would be fun to go back and reminisce about one of our more action-packed days from last autumn... It is September 2016, and the week of Roald Dahl's centenary celebrations. We have been invited by BBC Radio 3 to perform works from the RRMM project live in their studio. How exciting! Only


CD Countdown 6: Playing the Fool
“A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.” Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Oh hello there. My name is Kenny and I am the narrator for Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music. I am not like the others… I do not play an instrument. I cannot read music. I couldn’t tell my assai’s from my allegros. But one thing I can play is…the fool. I am a trained actor and my specialism is in clowning and physical theatre. ‘That ain’t no good for an audio recording’ I


CD Countdown 5: Hay There
Only 3 sleeps left until our debut CD is released woo!! Today we are throwing it back to May 2016 and one of the biggest highlights of our Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous music journey so far- Hay Festival! Given the choice, I drive pretty much anywhere I can but Magnard train journeys always promise many, many laughs - or even impromptu performances in the middle of the carriage- so of course I chose to travelled to Hay-on-Wye by train with everybody else! Our bassoonist and


CD Countdown 4: Say Cheese! (We do love cheese...)
Hello! Thank you for joining us to revisit our fondest memories from the Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music project. You’ve already read about how it all came about, the early days, and the very important recording process. But I’m about to tell you about the day when we became real stars… Well, we thought we were for the day anyway! It was a grey November morning, but at a secret location along the Regent’s Canal in Islington, the bright and sparkly stars of Magnard Ensem


CD Countdown 3 - The Recording
Three amazing pieces. On the brink of a national tour. In April 2016, Trinity United Reformed Church, Wimbledon is the venue. We have the exceptional producer Andrew Keener at the helm and Oscar Torres engineering. We’re about to make our debut CD, ‘Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music’! I was quite nervous about the whole process - I’d never been recorded in such an exposed ensemble, making something that felt so much like it belonged to us. It was amazing to be in the hand


CD Countdown 2: Flying Pigs
6 DAYS TO GO!! It’s up to me to continue the tale of Three Little Pigs… After such a side-splitting first encounter with actress and narrator Kenny, we knew that we just had to pig out on all the Roald Dahl we could. Fortunately as Royal Academy and Wigmore Hall Learning fellows at the time, we had the perfect opening to build on the project. Enter Manorfield Primary school, a wonderful school in East London, with a truly fantastic music teacher Will Green, who took us on to


CD Countdown 1: The Beginning
Hi there!! It's now EXACTLY a week until the 29th September, 'Maggerz Day', when we release our Roald-Dahl themed debut disc 'Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music' on Orchid Classics!!!!! Everyone at Magnard Towers is SUPER excited and can't wait for you all to hear it. To countdown to the Big Day we thought it might be fun for every member of Team Pig to write a blog post discussing a different aspect of the project, from highlights of our ongoing tour to anecdotes and behi


Blog 24: September News
Mana here! TWO big pieces of news this month. Number one, our fabulous flautist, Suzie got married! Congratulations Mr and Mrs Clements!! She was a beautiful bride and although I vowed not to cry, my tear duct had a different idea as soon as I saw Suzie at the bottom of the church aisle… News number two, OUR CD IS FINALLY READY. We can hardly believe it ourselves. It’s been such a long and windy road (with lots of learning curves) but thanks to everyone who supported us over