The Recorder Group

Leader:  Joan Gibson - recorder@ashbyu3a.co.uk -

The recorder group, meet twice a month, to make music in a relaxed, fun way. I would hope that we would be able to cater for a wide range of experience and skill. We usually meet each month on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays at 10am, but occasionally it varies. Check here for up to date information.

July

We had two meetings as usual this month. The first was well-attended (10 members), but the second was less so (5). We still managed to play a variety of music, with up to 5 parts. It was good that at least 3 of those present can play different sizes of recorder, so could swap between them as we worked through the playlist.

In our first meeting, we played Sellenger’s Round, by Byrd, I think, followed by “Since First I Saw Your Face”, followed by two Italian madrigals by Ghibel. We followed this by 6 airs by Handel from the Water Music, before having another go at “Wallace and Gromit”, which has tricky rhythms. We played 2 spirituals, arranged by Alyson Lewin, who leads the South Staffordshire SRP group, before moving on to pieces involving the larger instruments: Bassano’s Pavan and Galliard, Pie Jesu by Fauré, “Planets’ Feet”, a modern suite by Lance Eccles (Australian), the “Cantique de Jean Racine” by Fauré (again), finishing with “Moon River”.

In the second meeting, we started with the same pieces, changing the Spirituals to Alyson’s second selection “Two More Spirituals”. We missed out the Pie Jesu, as we were short of Great Basses, but we added a new piece, one of a set of dances, “Frog Dance”, by Nicholas Wynne. We decided that we like it, so hope to continue to work at it, and the other 2 dances in the set. Some of the pieces had two descant parts, and others two tenor parts, and one player had to swap from descant to treble, and another treble to bass. What a flexible lot we are!

During the school holidays, we will make a pragmatic decision about which Thursdays we will meet, as we don’t want to hire the hall for 3 people! If you plan to join us, please check on the website to see when we will be meeting.

Conductor Nick with the group