Failure is the Key to Success

The Sunday following our trip to Classical Spectacular, we headed up to The Stables in Wavendon, Milton Keynes to see Emily Smith in concert.

I hadn’t really heard of Emily Smith before September. The brochure from The Stables arrived and I was looking through it to see who was on and the write up caught my eye. I typed in the link to her website and then listened to the tracks on the jukebox, I was hooked. We ordered her latest album ‘Too Long Away‘ and then became annoyed as it looked like the date she was playing was the same as the Classical Spectacular, typical! It was a couple of weeks before I realised my mistake, they were Saturday and Sunday, and ordered tickets for The Stables. She was playing Stage 2 at The Stables, which was going to be a new experience for us.

Continue reading » Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan

Tags:Emily Smith,Jamie McClennan

Better late than never! I will finally get round to finishing and posting this!

Last Saturday A couple of weekends ago, we went down to the Royal Albert Hall in London to see the Classical Spectacular concert. We got the tickets back in April as it always sells out very quickly. It seemed a long way off at the time.

Anyway, on Saturday we went to the Music Centre as normal for the first two sessions and left at break time to take the instruments home. Then we drove over the Hemel Hempstead to catch the train. It takes about 25-30 minutes, which is similar to the time it would take to get to Luton Parkway station, however Hemel is much quieter and there is a huge carpark, so parking is never an issue. After buying our tickets, we only had to wait about 5 minutes for the next train to Euston; we were able to get seats without problem. The train was quick and clean, only stopping at Watford Junction on the way to Euston.

Continue reading » Classical Spectacular

About 10 days ago I received an unexpected email from Kevin “KK” Kerrigan thanking me for the review of the the Mediaeval Baebes album Illumination, that I wrote back in October. In his email KK mentioned that he had produced the album and sure enough, in the credits for the album there it was: Produced and Mixed by KK – A 21stCenturyGenius Production. OK, now he had my attention, just as well I hadn’t deleted the mail as spam.

KK let me know about his new album, The Magic Lantern and asked if I was interested in listening to a copy. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard of him before, so I started checking out the website link on his email, 21stCenturyGenius. He has worked with many artists including Bjork, Kylie, Britney Spears and of course the Mediaeval Baebes.

I googled ‘The Magic Lantern & KK‘ and found some samples on the Amazon website. After listening to the short samples, I liked what I had heard and went back to investigating KK’s site more. While reading the FAQs, I followed the link to KK’s blog, Thoughts from KK.. and got sucked into reading the posts there. I also checked out KKthemusic, which has details of his previous albums. Anyway, I emailed back and a couple of days ago the album arrived. I didn’t really get chance to listen to more than a couple of tracks as during the last couple of days I have been busy in the school installing software of the new computers that were installed over the summer and come the evenings I have been shattered.

Continue reading » The Magic Lantern by KK and the Steampunk Orchestra

Tags:KK,mediaeval baebes,The Magic Lantern

Last night we went up to The Stables in Milton Keynes to see the Mediaeval Baebes on the last date of their tour to promote their new album, Illumination. It has been a short tour, only 5 dates. A big factor in this has to be the fact that Katharine Blake is pregnant with her second child which is due on 2nd June. I did wonder when I first saw the date if she would still be touring, but she was.

We bought a copy of the new DVD (Live at Gloucester Cathedral) that has just been released when we got there; I figured it would be quieter early on. It was a lot busier last night than when we were first here, but we still had good seats, the first 2 on the second row. While we were waiting for them to come on, we were looking at the selection of instruments on stage. On the microphone stands were their recorders. We tried to work out what was there. The closest to us, on the left end of the stage had a descant and what looked like a treble, further round there were what looked like other trebles and finally at the right side, where Katharine usually is, there was a descant, treble and what looked small enough to be a garkleine. As we have seen her play that before, it was a certainty that Katharine would be stood there. In front of the closest microphone was a drum and a violin. At the back of the stage from left to right there was a drum kit with a pair of large drums one on top of the other in front. Then there were a couple of stringed instruments, I’ll admit I don’t know what they were, maybe a mandola? Next to this I could see a bass recorder and something else a bit shorter, maybe a tenor recorder, it was difficult to see, and finally a guitar on the right.

Continue reading » Mediaeval Baebes at The Stables

Tags:joust,Katharine Blake,mediaeval baebes,The Stables

Last night we went to The Stables in Wavendon for the first of our three trips over the next couple of months. Neither of us had been there before, so we didn’t really know what to expect. Following their directions on the website, it was really easy to find and the car park was quite large, although we were there about 45 minutes before it started, so I don’t know how full it gets. It is a smart modern looking building, which has a spacious entrance area. When you go in, there were tables down the right hand side before you get to the bar area. On the left is their shop and then the reception desk is past the first entrance to the Jim Marshall Auditorium. It is carpeted throughout the reception area and really looks smart as do the uniformed staff. We got a couple of drinks at the bar before looking around the CDs in their shop. While we were looking around the shop, Jo spotted someone we know from the Dunstable Music Centre, and so we went and chatted with him and his wife before we went in.

Just a brief aside on the history of The Stables.

Wavendon Allmusic Plan Ltd (WAP), a registered charity, was founded in 1969 by the world-renowned jazz musicians Dame Cleo Laine and Sir John Dankworth, with an aim to provide a centre of musical activity which would break down barriers between music genres and introduce music to as many people as possible regardless of age or social background.

The vision was realised with the development of The Stables Theatre, in some outbuildings at their home, as a venue for concerts and education activities. In October 2000, the new Stables Theatre opened its doors on a 398 seat auditorium which now presents over 200 concerts and over 200 education sessions each year.

So about 5 minutes before it was due to start, we went through the entrance to the auditorium and made our way down to the front row. We had seats one and two and were sat about 5 foot from the stage. The stage was only slightly raised, about a foot, so you felt that you were almost on stage. They weren’t fully booked for the event, only the main seating area was full, the side areas weren’t used.

Continue reading » The Mandolinquents at The Stables

Tags:Gerald Garcia,Hilary James,Richard Collins,Simon Mayor,The Mandolinquents,The Stables

Before Easter, the Dunstable Music Centre had it’s end of term concert. I play bass recorder in the recorder consort and we played a couple of pieces at the concert, Scarborough Fair and When I’m Sixty Four.

I have finally got around to putting up a piece of our work, so here it is.

Scarborough Fair & When I’m Sixty Four

Tags:concert,Dunstable Music School,music centre,recorder consort