I was in Chinatown yesterday morning to have yum cha with my friends and later in the afternoon I had a rehearsal and concert with Ruthless Jabiru (read previous blog post). So I had an awkward three hour gap in between where my 'spontaneous plan' of visiting the National Portrait Gallery ended up being outside the building, in Trafalgar Square, observing Hello Indonesia 2014. *Scroll through the slideshows to catch glimpses of what I saw!
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Ruthless Jabiru is an ensemble of pro Australian musicians in the UK. Kelly Lovelady, their artistic director, who's also the conductor, asked me 2.5 weeks ago whether or not I would be interested in joining them for a concert coming up on 31st May (which was in fact yesterday). Their recent blog post writes all about the event and its theme. Briefly: we are making an appearance at the Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature & Arts, performing a distinctive programme of Australian and British contemporary works. Each piece reflects and presents 'the past' - magnifying the various corners of heritage and history through the sound of a string orchestra. The programme: Michael Tippett Lament from Divertimento on Sellinger’s Round (or, The Beginning of the World) Chris Williams Altjiranga Mitjina Tansy Davies Residuum Andrew Ford The Past (soloist - Russell Harcourt countertenor) Egidija Medekšaité Sandhi Prakash Rehearsal Day 1 - Wednesday 28 May 10:00-17:00 Rehearsal in the Lecture Room is upstairs on the first floor. Rehearsal Day 2 - Thursday 29 May - 14:00-21:00 Rehearsal Day 3 - Saturday 31 May - 16:00-18:00 AND Concert - 19:30-20:30 For our last rehearsal, we were in the Music Seminar Room - right opposite the Chapel. The concert was a rather surreal experience for me. Imagine the room extremely dark, not a light switched on except the light stands. You're transported 'back in time' to sticks and stones (heavy pizzicatos, accents, continuous quaver open strings, and atonal harmonic changes) and end your journey with hypnotic glissandos (Sandhi Prakash). It was definitely an experience I feel honoured to have been a part of.
Three workshops in two days. Three primary schools, two grades, lots of kids. That pretty much sums up most of my travelling purposes for yesterday and today. I signed up for RCM's lunchtime concert workshop where we (4 students including myself) had to teach a class of primary school kids what they'll be hearing when they come to the Royal College of Music next Thursday - Respighi's Pines of Rome and a few other pieces, including a participatory song, Green Garden by Laura Mvula. Day 1 - Thursday 1 May Left early in the morning at 8am. Bad weather - rainy and cold. Ugh. It also doesn't help that there's tube strike. Took the 94 bus to Shepherd's Bush (7 stops), then changed to 228 to Elgin Avenue Chippenham Road (16 stops). Arrived at St Peter's C of E Primary School at approx 8.50am for 9.30am start. Waited on the couch you see through the glass door of the main office and saw lots of kids running in and out - asking for the register, mentioning their doctor's appointment, smiling cheerfully when they saw their friends first thing in the morning...reminded me of the good old days. For someone (*cough*, me really) to have to walk for more than 30 minutes was definitely enough for me. Yet never have I ever walked so much. The distance between the two schools was much further than I expected. We arrived at St Charles RC Primary School at 11.45ish. All of us were starving, so we dropped down our instruments in the school's reception and went to buy some lunch. *More (long distance) walking* The first school didn't provide any instruments, so we had to get the kids to do some of the composition activities with their hands and feet. Glad St Charles had a lovely music director who gave us plenty of instruments for us to choose and use. Made things a bit more interesting. Successful second workshop with Melissa, Pablo and Phil. Day 2 - Friday 2 May Took 94 bus again to Shepherd's Bush (6 stops) then changed to 49 to Cheyne Walk (21 stops). Left at 12pm hoping to arrive at the school by 1pm. Unfortunately, miscalculated the time and arrived at 1.20pm. At least I still had 10 minutes before the kids came into the hall! After a long walk of searching, I finally found Ashburnham Primary School. The noisy kids at lunch hour led me to them. All instruments prepared. Yesterday we taught Year 3's in the morning, then Year 5's in the afternoon. Today we taught Year 3's AND 5's at the same time. Big group, twice as many kids. Overall I loved the experience. Here were some funny/cute delightful moments I recall in dot point form.
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