It’s been quite a busy week really with lots of rehearsals to attend and, on Thursday evening, I went along to the Wyvern Theatre again to see a musical comedy act by a group of three instrumentalists called “Pluck”.  They were very funny (which is just as well for a comedy act) and their 'cellist in particular gave me some ideas I might want to try out in the orchestra – but only when maestro’s attentions are elsewhere! One sequence in particular (set to Mozart's requiem) had me in stitches - I just hope I can get rid of the images in my mind before I next hear the Requiem performed seriously!

Last night (Saturday 5 July 2008) the Wessex Concert Orchestra performed the opening concert for this year’s Lea Festival (Musicalea) in St Giles’ Church, Lea.  It was lovely to play to a full house – even if the venue wasn’t huge, but at least the orchestra didn’t outnumber the audience!

Our Musical Director, Andrew Baatz, had from the outset, promised that this concert would draw heavily on our existing repertoire as we are also busy working on a more challenging collaborative concert with the Stratford-based professional Orchestra of the Swan which is due to take place at Malmesbury Abbey in September.  We will be performing Errollyn Wallen's Spirit Symphony which is already giving me nightmares! So from a performer’s perspective, much of the Lea Festival programme was familiar enough.  Lots of film score music including such favourites as the rollicking theme from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, music from Mission Impossible, Chicago, My Fair Lady and West Side Story.  There were one or two fairly new items and with the possible exception of Karl Jenkins' Palladio (which is very straightforward) it was these new items (Jamaican Rumba and the Peer Gynt Suite) that clearly could have benefitted from additional rehearsal.  Our brilliant orchestra leader, Nicola Ashton, played the solo passages from Palladio with considerable style and I hope that we will hear more of her solo playing at future concerts.

At times, perhaps the familiarity with the music worked against us allowing us to indulge a little too freely (much to the annoyance of Maestro!).  The acoustic was not brilliant either.  Unusually for a church of it's age, St Giles' is carpeted! Anyway, the concert finished with another old favourite namely Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy’s Podmoskovnye Vechera (Moscow Nights) in a gorgeous arrangement by Katherine Punwar. This piece is a real favourite and seems to get better every time we perform it. Of course, I’m biased in the matter because it has a fabulous 'cello part. Talking of which, our ‘cello section has been shuffled about to give our most recent addition a more experienced hand as a desk partner - which means that I have moved forward to the “front desk”. The discipline will be good for me and as I now play “on the inside” (I really will have to concentrate more on my bowing and avoid the occasional lapses into “upside-down” bowing which risk my poking our lead 'cellist with my bow.  She’s very understanding, but I wouldn’t want to upset her!). 
We now have quite a healthy ‘cello section, which is more than can be said for the violas. We had to borrow a few violists for this concert.  So, if you know of any violists who would like to play concert repertoire – get them to e-mail me!  They can always have a look at the (soon to be redesigned and updated) WCO website at www.wco.org.uk if they want to find out more about the WCO first!  And on the subject of updating websites, I’ve made a few changes to my own recently which you can see at www.guyedwards.info.