Post by postscript on Mar 4, 2012 7:29:01 GMT
PRELUDE
Is it possible to have a surfeit of music? Yes, if the surfeit means you cannot encompass all opportunities. That is my position this weekend and I am once more miffed that Derngate jumped the gun with their advance publicity. Had I known all Hayley’s tour options at the start I would have perhaps chosen The Sage or Bridgewater as being, to me, new experiences and then concluded with Bournemouth.
This thinking derives from excellent reports from Grant, who I think has held back a little so as not to give too much away for those yet to experience the new tour, although Graham’s marvellous camera work speaks volumes as to what this tour is going to be like but also to approach my reporting from a different angle.
My Hayley tour experience started on Saturday with my local orchestra performing in the church: Verdi, Hayden and Bartok. Chatting with some of the instrumentalists later, it transpired we were sitting at the very table where some of those members had sat, with Etherington and the late Mike Garrick (Google for obituaries from The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph) and decided to form the Berkhamsted Jazz Society. This Sunday is the 30th celebratory concert, hence my irritation at having pre-booked Derngate. It’s an all day event.
I am not a Jazz fan but acquaintance with the music through involvement with some superb jazz instrumentalists, two of Mike Garrick’s sons Christian and Gabriel and themselves professors of music, has awakened my wider enquiries into the structural basics and theory of music. The connection is that following my sister’s death my brother-in-law’s second wife is Mike Garrick’s former third partner, whom he always refused to marry since his previous two wives had cost him money in divorces. The irony is that she has booked an away event for her mother and my brother-in-law’s mother to celebrate Mother’s Day.
She and my brother-in-law were instrumentalists in Saturday’s concert. So what? The “so what” is that Mike Garrick once stated that all music was a development towards Jazz. Chatting with Gabriel at a previous Bridgewater concert, he observed to me that elements of Jazz were clearly discernable in much of the underlying structure of all classical music.
For anyone interested in a light practical background to an orchestra and organising a concert, Deetv introduces Berkhamsted’s Bridgewater Sinfonia at www.deetv.tv/#local-musicians-bridgewater-sinfonia.
Being one of the supporters of the orchestra I was only nine feet from the very beautiful Clare O’Connell’s mastery of her cello. Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was completely unknown to me but I was close enough to observe the fingering of several different instruments to observe the technique required to achieve sounds unfamiliar to me.
Now what has any of this to do with Hayley’s tour at Derngate? This. We’ve followed her from little girl to beautifully maturing young woman and noted her voice changing over that period and the techniques she uses as she develops her mastery of her instrument. We have heard her with the quartets of Raven and Pavao and in the early days with just a piano and Fiona. All of them different styles of presentation and additionally as guest artiste with some big bands and full orchestras. Now she has an orchestra of her own and contrastingly she’s been given access to a studio in which to “play around”, experiment.
I started this piece by asking if it was possible to have a surfeit of music? Yes, if you cannot cover all options. The danger with diversity is that you sacrifice depth for breadth. I don’t think Hayley is likely to make that mistake but combine her creative ability with her maturing mastery of her solo instrument and the wealth of scoring and arranging talent around her and I think “we ain’t seen nuthin yet!”
Sunday night I’ll see her on stage and later in person. That sort of relationship is when you really begin to understand music and musicianship. I think I’m in for a wow of an evening.
Peter S
Is it possible to have a surfeit of music? Yes, if the surfeit means you cannot encompass all opportunities. That is my position this weekend and I am once more miffed that Derngate jumped the gun with their advance publicity. Had I known all Hayley’s tour options at the start I would have perhaps chosen The Sage or Bridgewater as being, to me, new experiences and then concluded with Bournemouth.
This thinking derives from excellent reports from Grant, who I think has held back a little so as not to give too much away for those yet to experience the new tour, although Graham’s marvellous camera work speaks volumes as to what this tour is going to be like but also to approach my reporting from a different angle.
My Hayley tour experience started on Saturday with my local orchestra performing in the church: Verdi, Hayden and Bartok. Chatting with some of the instrumentalists later, it transpired we were sitting at the very table where some of those members had sat, with Etherington and the late Mike Garrick (Google for obituaries from The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph) and decided to form the Berkhamsted Jazz Society. This Sunday is the 30th celebratory concert, hence my irritation at having pre-booked Derngate. It’s an all day event.
I am not a Jazz fan but acquaintance with the music through involvement with some superb jazz instrumentalists, two of Mike Garrick’s sons Christian and Gabriel and themselves professors of music, has awakened my wider enquiries into the structural basics and theory of music. The connection is that following my sister’s death my brother-in-law’s second wife is Mike Garrick’s former third partner, whom he always refused to marry since his previous two wives had cost him money in divorces. The irony is that she has booked an away event for her mother and my brother-in-law’s mother to celebrate Mother’s Day.
She and my brother-in-law were instrumentalists in Saturday’s concert. So what? The “so what” is that Mike Garrick once stated that all music was a development towards Jazz. Chatting with Gabriel at a previous Bridgewater concert, he observed to me that elements of Jazz were clearly discernable in much of the underlying structure of all classical music.
For anyone interested in a light practical background to an orchestra and organising a concert, Deetv introduces Berkhamsted’s Bridgewater Sinfonia at www.deetv.tv/#local-musicians-bridgewater-sinfonia.
Being one of the supporters of the orchestra I was only nine feet from the very beautiful Clare O’Connell’s mastery of her cello. Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was completely unknown to me but I was close enough to observe the fingering of several different instruments to observe the technique required to achieve sounds unfamiliar to me.
Now what has any of this to do with Hayley’s tour at Derngate? This. We’ve followed her from little girl to beautifully maturing young woman and noted her voice changing over that period and the techniques she uses as she develops her mastery of her instrument. We have heard her with the quartets of Raven and Pavao and in the early days with just a piano and Fiona. All of them different styles of presentation and additionally as guest artiste with some big bands and full orchestras. Now she has an orchestra of her own and contrastingly she’s been given access to a studio in which to “play around”, experiment.
I started this piece by asking if it was possible to have a surfeit of music? Yes, if you cannot cover all options. The danger with diversity is that you sacrifice depth for breadth. I don’t think Hayley is likely to make that mistake but combine her creative ability with her maturing mastery of her solo instrument and the wealth of scoring and arranging talent around her and I think “we ain’t seen nuthin yet!”
Sunday night I’ll see her on stage and later in person. That sort of relationship is when you really begin to understand music and musicianship. I think I’m in for a wow of an evening.
Peter S
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