Blog 15: The 'calm' before the storm

Brace yourselves, piglets.

The Magnards are coming. Nothing can stop them. World Domination is at hand.

...

Fresh from seeing the wonderful Theater Gnaffel and the Cambridge Philharmonic perform their interpretations of 'The Three Little Pigs and 'Little Red Riding Hood' with full orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, I spent my journey home thinking about what I should write for this week's blog, where we are as a group and what we have coming up on the horizon. On the face of it, life at Magnard Towers recently seems to have been quite restful. Due to members busy with various individual engagements, we haven't rehearsed for a whopping ten days - and all appears calm and tranquil. However, as Roald Dahl observes, 'nothing is ever quite what it seems'.

Underneath this calm exterior, messages have been frantically zooming back and forth over airwaves, links tweeted and files transferred, schedules discussed and repertoire planned. From last minute auditions and applications and a narrowly avoided quadruple booking (!) to competition programmes and the organisation of two full-length fundraising concerts, it really is all hands on deck.

It is the nature of what we do that opportunities often come in last minute; diaries that at first seem relatively manageable suddenly fill up at an alarming rate and almost without noticing - part of the challenge for us as a group of sometimes five, sometimes seven busy people is keeping abreast of all the different enterprises that we have going on - rehearsals, booked concerts, potential concerts, applications, meetings etc.

The next four weeks is a prime example - all of a sudden we have in our communal diary two auditions, one competition, three concerts, a school workshop, and at least ten rehearsals. And that is on top of all of our own respective individual performing and teaching commitments - and not to mention any semblance of a social life! Luckily for us we all get on incredibly well so the amount of time we spend together is a joy, rather than a chore (he says, hopefully)!

This coming Thursday sees us visit the Swiss Church in London to perform an interesting programme with a 'Swiss Connection' - featuring works for solo instruments and quintet that all bear a relation to that glorious country in some way - for more details and directions to the venue in the heart of Covent Garden, click here!

Then come two fundraising concerts to help put together the recording for our Roald Dahl 2016 project:

The first, on the 11th March, is in our flautist Suzie's home town of Thame, Oxfordshire:

Tickets and details here!

The second, on the 16th, will take place amidst the beautiful settings of Stone House, in southeast London, and includes a wine reception:

Tickets and details here!

We would love to see some friendly faces there - plus, each ticket sold will help raise money for the project. We'd love for you to join us!

Various auditions, a schools concert with the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust, and lots more rehearsing and planning round off what promises to be a very busy but hopefully very rewarding few weeks.