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Hi everyone. Well done to the two people who have already pointed out my errors with dates in my post about 30 minutes ago. The Eastbourne Choral Society were a tad concerned that I might be double booked on Saturday 26 November!  I’m not. Please note: next weekend I have just one concert Saturday 26 November – with the Eastbourne Choral Society doing Britten St Nicolas and other lovely things. The Brighton Orpheus Choir concert Magnificat is the following Saturday 3 December (not as I said on 26 November) and is followed sharply by the Brighton Singers on Sunday 4 December (not as I saidRead More →

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Hi there. ‘Tis the season to be jolly’ so I thought I would alert you to the concerts that I have in the pipeline from now until early January. **Cecilia McDowall alert** I am conducting three of Cecilia’s compositions in the lead up to Christmas. If you don’t know of her work, I can really recommend it. My choirs are really enjoying them! Saturday 3 December at 7pm. Brighton Orpheus Choir St John’s Church, Knoyle Road, Brighton, BN1 6RB J.S.Bach: Magnificat and Cecilia McDowall: Magnificat. With full orchestra and soloists. Book tickets here Sunday 4 December at 6pm. Brighton Singers An excellent choir of aroundRead More →

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60 years ago today, Coventry Cathedral was consecrated. The first organist of the new cathedral was David Lepine, who was Organist & Choirmaster for my entire 6 years as a chorister, and my first organ teacher, my hero – to whom I probably owe my musical career.  I didn’t join the choir until several years after the consecration, but I ‘inherited’ this copy of the order of service from David Lepine when he died in 1972. The order of service is a very high quality booklet of over 100 pages, with red and black text, and a rather fine gold on the front cover. TheRead More →

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Hi everyone. Last time I posted, I’d just got Covid visiting Bristol. That was back in November. To my shame, it’s 6 months since I posted that. Many of you are interested in my garden, and I have to say that it’s doing really well this spring. However, today it’s raining, so I can’t nip out and take any photos. And there’s scaffolding out the back as we’re having the back of the house painted. But I promise that as soon as the sun shines again, I’ll get out there and update you on what’s blooming. I’m fast approaching a busy performing time and IRead More →

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Hi everyone.  Last week, Robin and I had a few days away in Bristol. I was at university there (a few years ago!!) and I’ve only been back there a couple of times since, once to play for a trumpeter in a BBC Musician of the Year qualifier (he didn’t get to the broadcast stages), and once to show my son George when he was applying to uni. We were really going away to celebrate Robin’s birthday (she’s many years younger than me of course), but luckily she was just as keen as me to explore Bristol. Thanks to a 9am start from Eastbourne andRead More →

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10 days ago, I was the MD for a concert of opera arias, duets and choruses at the Leconfield Hall in Petworth. New Sussex Opera were due to perform Handel’s Acis and Galatea there last year, but that was coronovirused (I’ve just invented a new word there), so a small chorus together with 7 soloists performed there on 24 September. We thought that Love and Death covered most of the themes in opera. The chorus sang from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice; Wagner’s Bridal March; and the Chorus of Wedding Guests from Donizetti: Lucia di Lammamoor. And soloists sang arias from Dvorak: Rusalka (Song to the Moon),Read More →

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Hi everyone. Robin and I are on holiday in North Norfolk – right on the coast in a little cottage in Blakeney. This is somewhere completely new for me and it’s lovely. Blakeney looks over salt marshes towards Blakeney point and eventually some sandy beaches. You can see the car park on the ‘front’ but we haven’t parked there because it sometimes floods. On Tuesday we took a boat trip from Morston (just along the road) to see the seals on Blakeney Point. There were hundreds of them, both Common Seals and the bigger Grey Seals, which are apparently just as common! First we sawRead More →

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As you will know if you read my blog August: a time to relax, Robin and I went to London at the end of last week, really to sing Evensong with the Lewes Singers at Westminster Abbey. We went on Thursday, early enough to book into our hotel before going the the Royal Academy to see the David Hockney exhibition The arrival of spring which was stunning. Using his iPad he did 400 pictures in a few months documenting the arrival of spring ‘painting’ trees and landscape. The colours were really vibrant and Robin in particular was very moved by them. I liked the idea ofRead More →

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Hi everyone. The last couple of weeks have been full of exciting things, but I’m told I mustn’t let my blogposts ramble, so I’ll let you know how my weekend in London went in another blogpost tomorrow – there’s lots to tell. But today I just want to remind you all that I’ve got a recital this Sunday with the lovely Ruth Kerr. It’s at St Michael’s Church, on the High Street in Lewes, this Sunday at 3pm. It’s a sort of tour of the places you might have liked to go on holiday this Summer if only things had been different. We start inRead More →