Blog 12: Double-reeds and difficult questions
Hello again! Thank you for visiting our blog. This week we had not one but two Cavatina Chamber Music Trust concerts, AND the second was at none other than Wigmore Hall itself! I think it's fair to say we've had a jolly good week - proof provided in the form of a photograph below.
We love performing for Cavatina, as it gives us the opportunity to introduce music to more young people, and to see the fascination and joy in their faces is absolutely priceless. We always make sure we leave enough time towards the end of our programme for some Q&A and sometimes we are faced with seriously difficult questions!! This week at the primary school in Harlesden, a teacher asked me "how long does it take to make a reed?" - well, how long is a piece of string? I'm sorry to say I have no idea!! Thankfully neither does Cat, my fellow double-reeder, which has put my mind at ease. I just keep fiddling with them until they work... And my success rate isn't that high! The most popular question is "if you weren't playing your instrument, what would you have played instead?" - well that's easy. NOTHING ELSE. We are constantly competing whose instrument is the best in the rehearsals...! But we don't like to promote competitiveness in children so we play meek and say the cello or the harp. But hopefully you, the reader will know the right answer - the oboe is the best, full stop. Mwah ha ha ha!!
Well if you have any burning questions, do drop us a message through the website or tweet to us (@magnardensemble or we all have individual Twitter feeds) and we'll do our best to answer them!
Bye for now.
xxx
