Volume 5. Issue 1 November 2016

Welcome . . . Whilst the weather is taking its turn for the worst, I thought it would be wise to keep out of the damp and cold and try and bring everyone up to date with recent developments in the life of the HSO and, as ever, it has been a busy few months: Lots of activity on the social front and yet again lots of photos for you to look through. Don’t forget to enter our Spot the Logo competition for free tickets to the concert in March: you can only have a chance of winning by entering and it will only take 2 minutes! Whilst you are on the website, just have a quick browse: it makes interesting reading. Please also don’t forget to send a link to your friends. Free publicity is the best publicity! Enjoy! Bryan

Spot the Logo Where could Bryan have been this year? (He’s the one at the front!) Entries: on the website!  

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September 24 Many thanks for all those able to support the St. Wilfrid’s charity concert. It was a good experience for us: to be able to play in those acoustics and with minimal lighting was a real challenge. I dare not think what might have happened had we not been able to get the lighting from David Andrews! Once again our soloists came up trumps. Laura Jackson, John Haigh, Anna Mitchelson and Matthew Ainsworth helped to create a great atmosphere. It is not easy to play music of this nature, so, well done and congratulations to all. They made £1500 on the concert, which will go towards their restoration fund. (namely lighting!)

Concert talk March 5th Alfredo (Corral) had a fabulous time with us in March and really enjoyed the Rachmaninov. He thought the Dvorak symphony was wonderful and was very impressed by our playing. Wasn’t the Carnival Overture great to play too? (Although a bit on the tricky side.) Great audience: nearly 600 people. Alfredo has sent us a recording for the HSO to thank us for our friendship and musicianship. Just click on the link below: Bach’s French Suite no. 2 in C minor: Bach  -­‐  French  Suite  2  in#8525CE June 25 Olympic Special with Proms

Well I don’t think we have ever played so many pieces of music and so many varying styles. Again we had a wonderful audience of nearly 600 and what was good to see was the number of youngsters present. Everyone clearly loved the South American music: the Conga del Fuego, Danzon no. 2 and Libertango. What fantastic music! A member of the audience told me that they have never heard music played so quickly: they loved the concert. Highlight of the night . . . the 14 year old singer Niamh Robinson- Wakefield. What a voice!

November 19th

Banks of Green Willow Butterworth

Double Concerto (Bartosz Woroch and Bartholomew LaFollette) Brahms Symphony 7 Bruckner Rehearsing for this concert has been a new experience for most of us, especially the upper strings. At least they can’t complain about not being stretched! What has been interesting is the fact that so few have ever heard Bruckner 7 and certainly never played it before. What has also been significant is, despite all this, many have said that the piece has grown on them and love playing it. Let’s hope the audience love it too. It will be great to work with Bartosz again.

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December 17th The Harrogate Christmas Concert at the HIC This concert still attracts lots of performers and audience alike. The rota system continues it’s success and this year we have a new cluster from the Boroughbridge area, along with another 5 new schools. A new arrangement from Nick awaits us all too, so what more could you want for Christmas?

2017 March 18 Academic Festival Overture Brahms Flute concerto (Anna Noakes) + Damase Dance of the Blessed Spirits Gluck Symphony no. 3 (organ) (Simon Lindley) Saint-Saens June 17 RH A Night at the Opera with ‘Tenori Soloists: John Hudson, Nick Ransley and Alex Grove HSO: William Tell Overture Rossini La Danza (3.15) (Tarantella Napolitana) Rossini La Donna e Mobile (Rigoletto) Verdi Feniculi Fenicula Denza

HSO: Judex (Mors et Vita) Gonoud HSO: Prelude to Lohengrin Act III Wagner Vesti la Giubba (Pagliacci) Leoncavallo Che Gelida Manina (La Boheme) Puccini E Lucivan le Stelle (Tosca) Puccini HSO Intermezzo from Act iii (Manon Lescaut) Puccini INTERVAL HSO: Act 3 Entr'acte from Carmen Bizet La Fleur Que Tu M’avais Jetée (Carmen) Bizet Danilo’s Aria (Merry Widow) Lehar Be my Love Gancedo HSO: Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rusticana Mascagni Granada Lara Maria (West Side Story) Bernstein Love Changes Everything (Aspects of Love) Lloyd-Webber

Nessun Dorma (Turandot) Puccini

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Future programmes November 18th As you may remember, Bartosz was going to come and play the Brahms Violin Concerto but we have had to move this to a future date. The result is that a concert that we had planned for 2019 can now be moved forward. Although the pieces are not set in stone you can see what a wonderful concert this will be: Young Performers’ Concert La Cenerentola Overture Rossini Phoenix flute Concerto (Alexandra Clarke) John Carmichael Symphonie Española (Becky Else) Lalo Ave Maria for cello (Ben Messenger) Bruch Unfinished Symphony Schubert As you can see, we have invited 3 local performers to play. They are all exceptional talents and will certainly impress HSO members and the audience with their musicianship. 2018 Mar 17 RH Overture yet to finalise, but possibly the Strauss piece for 13 wind Trumpet Concerto (soloist Matilda Lloyd: Aratunian 2014 BBC Young Musician of the Year Brass winner and BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Award winner) Symphony 5 Shostakovich June 23 RH Film 3 Night Nov 17 RH

Poet and Peasant Overture von Suppé Concerto de Aranjuez (soloist Craig Ogden) Rodrigo

Symphony no. 1 Mahler

Amazing pieces, amazing soloists for an amazing orchestra:

excited or what!

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Births and marriages. . . Congratulations to Triana Ferrandiz (2nd violins) and Larry. “Two down, one to go. Larry and I got married on the 3rd September in Harrogate, got the legal stuff out of the way and then had a fantastic party in Spain on the 17th with friends and family. Most people would have stopped there, but not us! We're off to South Africa in a couple of weeks to celebrate our 3rd wedding party with Larry's family. Happy days! We would like to thank everybody in HSO for the lovely card and the bottle of bubbly”.

The Prices (Helen (violin) and Malcolm (cello) have been busy becoming grand parents. Their 2 children, Sophie and Adrian, are very musical too: Sophie and Thomas Claughton (left) live in Knaresborough. They are both primary school teachers. Their first child, Holly, was born in August this year. Sophie and Thom met at King James’ School where they were both involved in its musical life. Sophie studied music with Bryan and played flute in the Wind Band, sang in the choirs, as well as played piano and saxophone.

Thom is a guitarist and was vocalist in a band with Sophie’s brother, Adrian. Adrian, Fiona and Nathan Price are now living in Lausanne, Switzerland where Adrian is assistant pastor in an international church. Adrian used to play violin with HSO, having studied music with Bryan at King James’ School, and went on to study music at Durham University before further study at theological college in Brussels.

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Grace (McNeil, violin) writes:  I have just finished writing my EP 'Safe Harbour', which is currently being recorded in York and will be out for release hopefully by the end of January. It's a mix of guitar melody and vocal, which I have been writing for the last two years and have finally decided to take the plunge and have recorded. Music will be available to listen to on

sound cloud from December 2016. Just search Grace McNeill. Upcoming gigs will be posted on the SafeHarbour and Grace McNeill Facebook pages. … and Lydia (Smith, violin) Here are the pictures taken from ‘Say Yes to the Dress U.K’. I went down to Essex for the day with my mum and two sisters, where the programme was recorded for TLC and went on air in October. The first dress I didn't get, as it didn't get the seal of approval from my younger sister Miriam! The second

dress is the one that I chose. It had to have the short front as I am surprising Eddie with a performance on the piano and wanted pedal access!

Jill (Wilcocks: secretary and violin) and husband Bill have also been busy with their first grandchild: Finley Arthur Wilcocks, born on 30th August 2016, weighing 8lbs 1oz. First child of Tom Wilcocks and Bethan Millar. (Tom ex HSO trumpet player).

Other news Did you know that we have some famous people in the Orchestra? People who have appeared on T.V, people who have made records (or whatever they are called these days!)

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A caption from Alberto . . . . (and no, it is not Bruckner 7!

Things some members get up to on a night time . . . . .

.  . . interesting to see who is there on both occasions!  

 

Hot off the press: The BBC Great British Amateur Orchestra Competition was a bit of a flop for us. Clearly we were too good for them! Anyone see the programmes on TV?

Friends of the HSO. Many thanks to all those who have encouraged friends to come to the next concert. The Friends and their friends’ ticket purchases are a great bonus for us: guaranteeing usually around 160 seats. It is a logistical nightmare for Kathy but wonderful news for us. Just think what could happen if we all sold just 2 tickets each in addition to these. . . guaranteed audiences: no worries about empty spaces!

Nota Bene for Musicians: Something to tickle your fancy: P : Piano – the neighbours have complained F : forte – the neighbours are out Crescendo: testing the neighbours’ tolerance level Fortissimo: to hell with the neighbours Pianissimo: the neighbours are at the door Dim: intellectually challenged Obbligato: being forced to practise Rit/rall: coming up to the bit you haven’t practised Con moto: I have a car Allegro: a little old car Maestro: a bigger car Metronome: person small enough to fit comfortably into a mini . . . . thanks to Freda for these gems.

CDs and videos. As these are not being bought by members we are considering an alternative. We want to continue to record the concerts but to produce cds is not financially feasible. We are considering a process whereby you as members can go to the website, enter a code and listen to the recording as it is in its unadulterated form. No more tweaks: just the raw sound. Should be good for us: maybe a steep learning curve but bound to

. . . and finally: You are aware of the old saying ”any publicity is good publicity” so please forward this newsletter to all your friends and relations,

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New members. A warm welcome to: Nadia Ivkovs: a violinist from The Ukraine David Brito: a viola player from Portugal and . . . Jenny Child: a violinist from England.