Music creator Litha Efthymiou shares her thoughts on her promising partnership with Bury St Edmunds Concert Band, and the influential Christian Brewer's recent passing.
News
Ugie Voices member Sheila Biegala updates us on her group's music making with Ben Lunn, who has recently dovetailed Venezuelan poetry with the National Bard.
We are well into the new year now and can see light at the end of the tunnel as far as lockdown is concerned.
With regard to our ongoing project with Ben Lunn and Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra, Ben has sent us a first draft of his compositions!
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on 22 February and subsequent announcements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Making Music has updated its coronavirus guidance tool to reflect what the roadmaps to reopening mean for leisure-time music groups in the four nations of the UK.
England
29 March – 6 people can meet outdoors, including backgardens, meaning informal small rehearsals in an open space can resume.
Bury St Edmunds Concert Band’s Gary Hawkes pens his thoughts on the group’s fledgling collaboration with Litha Efthymiou for Adopt a Music Creator 2020/21.
Chair Foss Foster pens another diary entry on Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra’s Adopt a Music Creator journey, with a special look at the wonder that is harmonic minor mode five.
We recently enjoyed our first rehearsal of 2021, and as we’re still in lockdown we Zoomed in in what has now become the usual way.
PRS is currently calling for views on how paid-for online live concerts should be licensed. This consultation will be of interest to those who have done or are considering doing such concerts.
A round-up of the changes you might need to make if your group is a charity that meets online, and Gift Aid rules around non-refunded cancelled ticket fees.
Updating governing documents to cover online meetings
There can scarcely be a charity that hasn't had an online trustee or general meeting in the last year. While online rehearsals will fade away once they are no longer needed, online meetings look here to stay.
2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of Britain’s most important composers and one of the great symphonists of the 20th century. The Ralph Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust tell us how leisure-time music groups can be part of the celebrations.
Composer of such popular favourites as The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which define an unmistakably British sound, Vaughan Williams’ extraordinary impact on British music cannot be underestimated.
Many Making Music members recently took part in a nationwide survey of music library service users, carried out by Dr Michael Bonshor (University of Sheffield), which was circulated alongside a survey of music library staff. The survey was designed to find out how music libraries are being used, and to explore ways in which library services could be developed in future.
In Côr Meibion Mynwy (Monmouth Male Voice Choir)’s first blog of Adopt a Music Creator 2020/21, music sub-committee chair Peter Watts outlines how his group’s collaboration with Eloise Gynn is taking shape.