Blog 8: New Year, New Repertoire

Happy New Year everyone!

After a relaxed Christmas for #teampig, we are straight back into action in the new year with a concert on Saturday 9th January at the Tonbridge Music Club (tickets at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/benson-young-artists-concert-magnard-ensemble-wind-quintet-tickets-17904874963).

We are very excited to be bringing a range of styles to Tonbridge in a programme that includes Papa Haydn's Divertimento that includes the St Antoni Chorale, an arrangement of the great Mozart C minor Serenade, our second performance of Stephen Dodgson's Sonata for Wind Quintet and (of course) our favourite, Paul Patterson's Westerly Winds. It is fantastic to be returning to this work, having spent a lot of time working on preparing Three Little Pigs. In contrast to this for me, it is a pleasure to learn Milhaud's La Cheminée du Roi René - a piece that the others have done before but is new to me! The piece comprises a series of short episodes written originally for the film 'Cavalcade d’Amour'.

As well as Milhaud being new to me, looking further ahead the Magnards are also learning a new piece to all of us - Paul Juon's Wind Quintet op. 84. We will be playing a concert at the Swiss Church Covent Garden, and to fit in with our settings we were incredibly keen to find a Swiss composition for wind quintet. Enter Paul Juon! A composer with Swiss parents, he was schooled in Moscow and Berlin. I was given the task of scouting out the sheet music for the piece, which proved more challenging than expected! It took some searching and tentative emails, I felt rather like Sherlock Holmes...! Having sent emails far and wide, including to a conservatoire in the United States, I eventually discovered that the now defunct publishers had been taken over by a company in Germany.

In addition to the Paul Juon being new to us, we will also be starting work on Martin Butler's Dirty Beasts - another work that sets Roald Dahl verses that we are looking forward to taking with us on our Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music tour access the country!

Now that all the leftover turkey and mince pies are gone, we look forward to seeing you at a concert soon!

Over and out,

Jon