Failure is the Key to Success

The following information is adapted from the Orchestras Live website:

Urban Orchestra is a large community musical project involving South Bedfordshire District Council, Orchestras Live and Bedfordshire Youth and Music Services, working together with the Orchestra of the Swan to deliver high quality community work in towns and villages in South Bedfordshire.

Although the programme of events is diverse, ranging from a full classical concert at the new Grove Theatre, Dunstable to workshops in primary schools, a major feature of the activity is the evolution of the Urban Orchestra. This was launched on 2 November 2008 at the Grove Theatre in a concert by Orchestra of the Swan.

The Urban Orchestra is made up of groups of young people who work together with the professional musicians to compose a piece of original music, culminating in them performing it alongside the Orchestra of the Swan at the Grove Theatre on 18th April 2009. These groups will include Gifted and Talented young musicians, students with Special Needs and local young people who are sometimes hard to reach or difficult to engage.

It is an exciting way for local young people to explore classical music, and a Youth Steering Group has been working hard to organise the project. You can follow their progress on www.myspace.com/urbanorchestra08

A parallel strand of activity, Rural Rhythms, will see small ensembles from Orchestra of the Swan perform in village venues across the district. Over 2,000 young people and rural residents will be involved in the project over the next six months.

Orchestras Live forged the Orchestra of the Swan residency in South Bedfordshire in 2007, and has supported its development throughout the detailed planning, delivery and evaluation process, as well as building a funding partnership and leading on the fundraising strategy.

On Saturday 21st March between 10am – 2pm at the Grove Theatre Dunstable, the Urban Orchestra have an Open House.

There is an invite to drop in and see local young people from the Urban Orchestra project rehearsing their music with The Orchestra of the Swan. Chat to the orchestra’s players, Artistic Director, and the young people taking part. Have a go at drumming and music workshops with Beds Music Service.
Two groups from the Dunstable Music Centre have been invited to play during the event. We have a slot between 1pm-1:15pm.

The two groups are handchimes and recorder consort, the later both Jo and I are involved in. We have been practising Scarbourgh Fair and When I’m Sixty Four for the music school concert the following weekend and will play these pieces at the Grove next weekend. I’m still getting the grips with the bass recorder and remembering the treble/bass fingering, but I’m sure it will all be fine on the day.

Tags:Dunstable Music Centre,Dunstable Music School,Urban Orchestra

Over Christmas, the main hard disc on our 5.5 year old Dell mini tower failed, causing us to replace the computer with a new one. We could have replaced the disc, but we had had other components in it fail in the past year, so its time was up. We didn’t really loose any data, as the majority was already stored on our server and backed up regularly. What was more of a problem was the assortment of programs that had been installed and configured over the years. The thought of having to re-install and reconfigure these wasn’t something I was looking forward to, especially if I had to change the operating system to Windows Vista, from Windows XP. Some of the programs would need upgrading to run on Vista and the cost would be prohibitive.

Dell do a range of computers for Small Business, called Vostro which are very well specified and which also offered the option to ‘downgrade’ from Vista to XP for £10. This seemed a very good solution to me. We specified a Vostro 220 mini tower system with a dual output graphics card to match the functionality we already had. This also became the point at which we changed from a pair of 17″ CRT monitors to a pair of 19″ widescreen TFT monitors. The thought was to re-arrange our desk to minimise the items on it. To accomplish this we bought a Belkin OmniView Pro2 KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch which would allow us to run both the new computer and Jo’s laptop sharing one of the screens and the other screen only attached to the new system.

When the system arrived, I was in for a surprise with the dual outputs on the graphics card. I was expecting a pair of DVI (white digital connector on the left) outputs. I should have checked the specifications of the ATI Radeon HD 3650 card that Dell provided more carefully. It had one DVI output (which I promptly had to convert back to VGA to attach to the KVM switch) and a Display Port and HDMI output. I had to get a HDMI to DVI cable to attach the second monitor.
Continue reading » Enabling RAID 1 on a Dell Vostro 220

Tags:intel matrix storage console,raid,raid 1,vostro 220

A couple of weeks ago, I found that the Mediaeval Baebes were going to be performing in Milton Keynes at The Stables, Wavendon in May. I tried to get tickets, but they were only available to members at that point. The tickets went on sale to the general public today at 10:00. At 10:03, I had purchased tickets 1 & 2 on the second row, so that’s sorted. We haven’t seen the Mediaeval Baebes since the Joust in 2006; we would have seen them in 2007, but the Joust was cancelled due to the flooding. The company behind the Joust went into liquidation and it hasn’t run since. There have been a lot of changes to the lineup and their new album Illumination is being released in May and they will be doing a few dates in support of the release. I’m looking forward to 22nd May.

Also at The Stables are The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. We saw them last year in Aylesbury and they were brilliant, so we knew we had to get tickets again. As they were playing in June, I didn’t check this morning to see if I could book tickets. I was surprised this evening to find the tickets on sale already, and knowing that they will sell out quickly, I have snapped up a pair of front row tickets.

While checking out other acts on at The Stables, we came across The Mandolinquents, who are a quartet of mandolin players. Jo plays the mandolin and one of her tutor books is by Simon Mayer who is in the Mandolinquents. It looks like they will be a good evening as well, so the final set of tickets for tonight. I think we might be the first to order tickets, seats 1 &2 on the front row.

Tags:illumination,joust,Mandolinquents,mediaeval baebes,The Stables,Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain