A day in Aldeburgh

Hello!!

Last weekend, CBC and I had no particular plans and we suddenly realised that the Aldeburgh festival was on!  In its 76th year, this music festival in the Suffolk seaside town was founded by great British composer, Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears (pronounced Peers).  CBC and I have been to various events for this over the years. He introduced me to it fairly early in our relationship as he was a Hess student when he was young- these students spend time in Aldeburgh stewarding for it and get to stay with local families.

We decided to try and get tickets for the Sunday events.

The timing was perfect as I had JUST started my final Year 4 music unit of the year on Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra 3 days earlier so I was very much in the mood to go to Aldeburgh!

We left home around 8.45am to drive to Suffolk and arrived just in time for the 10.30am Festival service at St Peter's and St Paul's church 

The service received a sermon from the Rt Rev’d Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepneyand the  Britten Pears Chamber Choir was singing, conducted by James Davyand with Francesca Massey organ.  The service was lovely with music by composer of the festival,  Helen Grime: her Missa Brevis and a piece by Daniel Kidane: Christus factus est.  CBC's old colleague and friend L was singing in the choir as she had moved to Suffolk and it was lovely to see her.

I loved the beautiful Benjamin Britten memorial window by John Piper.  Britten had developed a new type of opera which he gave the name 'parables for church performance.  Three of these were named Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal son and all of these are evoked in some way in this beautiful window. 

 After the service we headed to Aldeburgh high street for a spot of lunch.  I queued in the epic fish and chip shop queue whilst CBC went to find some coffee and have a mooch around.

After 30mins, I reached the front of the queue and bought CBC a portion of chips (he'd acquired a toastie) and for myself, a Child-sized portion of Fish and chips plus a small battered sausage. 

I met CBC on the beach to eat.

The fish and chips, cooked in Beef dripping, was delicious and my portion was just the right size!

I went dressed for the seaside:

I bought this gingham sailor top in Primark last month. I never shop in there now but I saw this on Instagram and knew a 100% cotton sailor top in Gingham was something I had to see!

The skirt is from Fatface via a charity shop plus my Seasalt sandals from Depop a good 6 years ago or so.

The sea changed colour in the space of 2 minutes when the sun came out:

We enjoyed our lunch and witnessed a fly-by theft from a Seagull who stole a child's battered sausage.  It also tried to steal mine- I suddenly noticed it hovering inches from my hand.

As CBC ate his Tiramisu cake, I had a paddle! It was refreshing but the sloping shingle was hard to stand upright on as I tried to hold my skirt!

We had to hotfoot it back to the car, parked past the church (via a charity shop where CBC bought an old print of a lovely John Singer Sargeant painting) and drove to Snape Maltings for our next musical performance.   This was held in the Britten studio at 2pm.  We crept in late in the complete dark, accidentally bumping into our friend L who was a steward for it!

The concert was a performance by Fu and Betts-Dean: The programme was entitled Solitude with Schubert Lotte Betts-Dean,  mezzo-soprano and George Xiaoyuan Fu on  piano.  It began with a film called Solitude With Schubert (first screening) by Matilda Hay filmmaker. The pieces were Schubert: Einsamkeit, D.620 (17’) Schubert: Schwanengesang, D.957 (selection) (15’) Schubert: Piano Sonata No.21 in B flat, D.960 (40’).  It was wonderful!!! The programme explored how grief mingles with consolation, combined with a film exploring the loss of a loved one. 

After this, we headed out for a walk to Snape Warren across the beautiful boardwalks.

After a glorious walk, we headed into the maltings for a light dinner.

I changed into my evening concert outfit of this Monsoon cotton dress, bought from a charity shop in Hexham.

Funnily enough, I saw my friend from Gamelan who was there to watch the same concert as us by coincidence.  Last time I came to watch an Aldeburgh concert, I saw ANOTHER Gamelan friend!

Amusingly, when we entered the Maltings hall, it turned out out of 1000 seats, we had ended up seated next to each other by total coincidence!!

the concert was entitled Nocturne and Folk, performed by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra.

The solists were  Claire Booth, soprano  and Allan Clayton, tenor.  Ryan Wigglesworth was the the conductor.  The programme was Britten: Suite on English Folk Tunes, ‘A time there was ...’, Op.90 , Helen Grime: Folk (Britten Pears Arts co-commission),  Britten: Nocturne, Op.60, and Beethoven: Symphony No.8 in F, Op.9. I adore Britten's music and I loved the two pieces we heard, both new to me.  The piece by Helen Grimes, a major new commission with soloist Claire Booth, was really intriguing with some very evocative lyrics and musical crafting.

We'd had a fantastic day and it just remained to drive back to  Essex. I helped CBC mark some test papers as he drove (I read the answers and told me if they were right or not!) 

I very much recommend a day in Aldeburgh and a visit to the Maltings, ideally a concert!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- The Husbands of River Song

Hello there!

Hope you are well!

This week is a busy one for me with rehearsals, school events and concerts every day and in fact, this continues into next week as well!

I am performing with Orchestra of the City on Friday in Holborn. It's the first time I have performed with the orchestra- my friend Debbie plays flute 2 with them and she asked me which I'm really pleased about!   We received an email on Saturday saying that the dress code was 'All Black with Sparkle'.

This made me very happy because I have a few contenders for this (actually cosplay related in several places) which would fulfil this criteria.

The first one of these is worn by River Song, played by Alex Kingston, in a Doctor Who Christmas special from a few years ago and is very sparkly and beautiful!

theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho

BBC Doctor Who Twitter

Although it is not completely black, I think you would get away with wearing this for a concert with the dress code.

I have not actively collected River Song clothing, it's often a bit too over the top and glam for me but I saw someone (who is a musician!) wear this dress on Instagram and I thought that I would love to own this as I would get use out of it for concerts and I thought the shape would work for me.  However, I didn't really ever search for it as I knew it was originally an expensive dress.

A couple of months ago, something made me have a search for it on Vinted and I found this one, priced at £5.00.  It was a size 12 which I wondered about. I am more of a 10 (sometimes 8, depending on stretch) on my top half but bottom half,am more of a 12.  I decided that at £5.00 (plus about £4.00 extra including postage and buyer protection), I could probably take a punt on it.  It arrived and I tried it on. AH, I loved how it looked but it is quite roomy on me though because it has formed cups over the chest area, I can get away with it though I would prefer to fill out those cups for it to feel totally secure.

I tried it on Saturday night in advance of the concert (still haven't decided on which I will wear) and CBC loved it!

It has quite a daring back so you can't really get away with wearing a bra underneath. I think you can see it's a bit big here.

I feel super glam here!  Should I go with this one, feeling a bit big (could always wear a short-sleeved black cardie on top) or should I go with something which fits me a bit better!

If I find this in a 10 or 8 at a reasonable price, I would definitely buy it!

Hope you are well!

x

Colourscape- Clapham Common 2021

My first proper gig of 2021 (AKA performing to the paying public) took place last Saturday on Clapham Common at the Colourscape festival.

If you're not sure of what Colourscape is, I have taken the liberty of  borrowing some information from their website:

Cwmni Colourscape is the partnership of Peter Jones and Lynne Dickens, who create Colourscapes. Peter Jones developed the first Colourscape structures in 1974. Colourscapes were preceded by 'Spaceplaces' from 1963, which were installations of coloured surfaces made inside buildings. In 1970 they became open-air structures. Experiments with air-inflated sculpture gave new possibilities of working directly with colour. Early structures used large primary colour chambers interconnected by tubes. Subsequently, many different Colourscapes, have been made, growing more complex in colour relationships. Cwmni Colourscape have several Colourscape structures, which they show at festivals and other events in the UK and abroad.
Cwmni Colourscape also creates and makes other structures - tensile canopies, wind sculptures and giant bubbles, all of which have generated and been part of many events. Many people have been trained with Cwmni Colourscape to make structures, to develop colour workshops and to run Colourscape shows

Eye Music:

Eye Music Trust (formerly Nettlefold Festival Trust) was founded by composers Lawrence Casserley and Simon Desorgher. In 1984 they founded a contemporary music festival in south London, the Nettlefold Festival, which was particularly dedicated to live electroacoustic music and music theatre. In 1988, seeking to expand the scope of the festival and to reach new audiences, they formed a charitable trust to oversee their work.
One of the most significant moments in the development of their work was the start of their collaboration with Cwmni Colourscape, which lead to the first Colourscape Music Festival, which took place on Clapham Common, London, UK in 1989. Since then the Trust have presented many Colourscape Music Festivals, numerous other events involving structures created by Cwmni Colourscape, and hundreds of educational workshops for people of all ages throughout the UK and abroad.

In 2005 the Trust was restructured as a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee (Reg No. 05466017) - and the name changed to Eye Music to reflect the connections between music and visual art. In 2008 Eye Music Trust became an Arts Council Regularly Funded Organisation.

Info from the Eye Music website 

I was performing with my Balinese Gamelan group- Lila Cita, on a beautiful Balinese Gamelan Angklung called Kembang Kirang which is owned by SOAS. Angklung is actually ceremonial music for Cremation but it is the most cheerful, bouncy-sounding music.

It's about the 4th Colourscape festival I have performed at, but it's been a good 10, possibly more years, since I did one, I suspect.  I forgot HOW amazing it is to walk and play in those brightly-coloured structures.  The colours are so mesmerising and you go on journeys throughout the chambers and see different shapes. As you can imagine, it is a joy to photograph.  We had a really appreciative audience who sat and listened to us for their allotted times as well as dancing through the chambers and delighting in the colour and light interplay.  A couple of times, I turned round from my suling (small Bamboo flute) to see a group of people in a far off chamber...or not so far off.... making up their own dances to music, I saw a small child leaning comfortably against an inflated wall looking content as he listened to us and when I smiled at him with my eyes, whilst playing, he smiled back in a way that suggested all was well with the world.

We played about 4 sets of music and paraded through the structure twice with our Baleganjur (street parade) music.

If you ever get the chance to visit, I strongly recommend it. It's wonderful.  I had a break where I leaned against a wall and read my book and it was so relaxing. I feel so lucky to have been able to take part in this performance.

And now, I will leave you to have a look at my photos of different views from Colourscape.  You might even find a video in there! Enjoy!