FinishMySong Blog

It's been announced today that a regular at the Bradford Music Club, Ron Newton, passed away last Tuesday at the Bradford Royal Infirmary.

I didn't personally know Ron terribly well but I have listened to many of his performances at the club over the last year or so and enjoyed them immensly. His piano playing was always interesting and he seemed to flourish when accompanying the various singers there. Ron always greeted me - a relative stranger - with a smile and a kindly word. I'm sure he'll be sadly missed at the club by all.

Ron's secular funeral service will be held at Nab Wood Crematorium at 12:40 on Wednesday 5th September.

Over a year ago I visited Bradford's tourist information centre and, as a Bradfordian born and bred, I sat down in their 'You'll Never Do It All In A Day' exhibition and watched a video of Joolz Denby's poem This is Where We Live. When I got home that afternoon I wrote a blog about my first impressions of the poem and the way it was represented in pictures and sounds at the T.I.C. and I'm pleased to say that today I came across it on YouTube so I thought I'd put it up here on my blog so that more people might enjoy it:

I've always had difficulty saying goodbye for good. I suppose it comes back down to that old adage about never saying "never", cause you just don't know what's around the corner. But, sometimes it gets to the point where it's nothing short of obvious that a connection has to be cut once and for all.

And so I find myself typing the words again and trying really hard to mean it this time, like some kind of drug addict promising himself that he'll never touch that stuff again; understanding, as he always has, that his relationship to some substance has only ever been a destructive one and the best possible thing he could do for himself and those around him is let go of it permanently.

But, as hard as it is for those trying to kick heroine or cocaine, breaking the emotional, mental and, let's face it, habitual attachment to another human being is in a wholly different league. I think I could fight for the rest of my life against the illness of needing to be close to someone and still not overcome it. However, moments of clarity present themselves and give me a window through which I see myself and some of the unhealthy relationships I maintain, even if only by means of the most tenuous, fragile links... like the longest, thinnest lines that connect the edge of a spider's web to the corner of a dark room, stretched taut and barely holding on.

During these moments I see that working hard to keep these connections live simply isn't worth it... has never been worth it! Like an upgraded computer network that has outgrown and outpowered the client machines, I simply have to cut off some of the parasitic slaves and to concentrate on relationships that are mutual in nature.

As painful as it is to let go of anything that's just kinda been there for so long, it can only be the sensible thing to do. This process of clearing out the closet and making room for the new brings my thoughts back to a January 1st resolution I had a few years ago and perhaps haven't entirely kept to since then: that we should hold the past dear and have respect for it, but we should always avoid letting the it creep back into our present or our future. I'll try harder to bear this in mind in the coming days... who knows what they might have in store!

What can I say.. I've been a hopeless blogger over the last couple of months!! To be perfectly honest, I've had so much on, what with all the teaching, doing Little Shop with NAPA.. oh, and becoming one half of a brand new relationship. You know, a part from those things I've been at a bit of a loose end!!! ;)

But, I'm going to try harder from now on to get blogging again. But, I've been thinking about this whole web-log thing and I reckon that it might be time for me to try to personalise my blog.. write from the heart rather than the more article-like approach I've taken in the past. I don't know - I think I find myself sounding like a badly written Guardian supplement even if I don't mean to, but from here on in I'll try to avoid that kinda thing!!

So, in the spirit of a new start as far as my blogging is concerned, I start by talking about my Mum's new business as a psychotherapist come counsellor in Baildon. She's worked so hard to get her qualifications sorted out to do this kind of work, and all the time while holding down a full time teaching job aswell, so I'm really proud of her acheivements. She's now in the position to take on one or two more clients so I feel that it's my duty as her son to bring these things to the attention of my friends and associates. For this purpose, I've knocked up the poster you see below:


I'd really appreciate it if any readers of this blog would help out my Mum's new venture by downloading and printing this poster for display in your workplace or club etc. Just right-click on the small version above and choose "Save Target As" to download a high-resolution copy onto your machine. Do feel free to email me to let me know where you've managed to display this picture - my thanks and those of my mother will come straight back your way!

The NAPA production of Little Shop of Horrors has had a glowing review in the Ilkley Gazette:

THIS is not a particular favourite show of mine and on Friday having been caught up in floods and traffic jams mid-day travelling to Ilkley I was not looking forward to battling forth once more to Ilkley in the evening.

Conditions were still awful and I arrived 15 minutes late only to find, luckily, that the 7.15pm start was delayed until 8pm as some cast members had also been delayed due to the weather.

It is all credit to these youngsters that when the curtain did finally go up it was business as usual at the Little Shop of Horrors'.

A plant that as it grows talks and sings, likes blood and eats people I would have thought a bit scary for the young children in the audience.

However, that is basically the story with the love elemnet between Seymour and Audrey threading through.

These youngsters with one or two guest acquitted themselves remarkably well and gave the audience an entertaining evening.

I enjoyed the performance of Matt Dallingwater as Seymour.He was a shy, innocent and appealing Seymour. His characterisation was excellent.So too was Helen Webster as Audrey. She has the nicest song in the show Somewhere That's Green' and she sang it beautifully.

Dale Chadwick was impressive as the bullying dentist/boyfriend of Audrey.

He of course ends up being fed to the plant.

Two people controlled the plant and each time I have seen the show Audrey ll has worked amazingly well.

Paul Rookes as the voice was outstanding and puppeteer Ashley Woodhouse also did an excellent job.

These two roles are very important and cannot be easy to put over.

Mushnick, owner of this rather strange shop, was played by Mark Bixby' Brown. He has some good songs, particularly Mushnick and Son' with Seymour.

He portrayed well the exasperation and confusion with the goings on around him.

Four young girls Megan Brown, Lucy Annable, Sophie Smith and Beth White more or less compere the show in the style of the Beverley Sisters. Their singing was pleasant and tuneful.

Smaller roles were played by Rachel Casper, Rachel Buller, Nick Bellwood, Georgie Hanson and Toby Gallagher.

Choreography was by Ruth Marston who also Directed.

The production was well staged and Producer on this occasion was Greg Silverwood.

Musically there was a group of five who were never seen and were at the back of the stage somewhere. They were outstanding, never too loud and always playing sympathetically when necessary with some noticably fine piano playing.

Damian Oxborough was making his debut as a Musical Director, a name to remember.

Original Source: Ilkley Gazette, by Val Pennett

A concert grand piano valued at £45,000 is thought to have been wrecked after falling off a removal lorry in Devon.

The piano was being brought to the home of John and Penny Adie, the organisers of the Two Moors Festival, an annual music event on Dartmoor and Exmoor.

But disaster struck when it toppled over and fell 2.5m (8.2ft) before landing on a bank, causing extensive damage to the instrument.

Removals firm G&R declined to comment on the incident.

The moments before and after the fall were captured on camera by Mrs Adie, 54, who was hoping to record a highpoint for the festival.

But joy turned to horror as she recorded how the piano toppled onto a bank.

Her husband John, 61, said: "It is unlikely ever to come back to us.

"The piano weighs half a tonne, has 10,000 moving parts and has fallen 2.5m onto the ground.

"How the hell do you guarantee that it will work again?"

The festival had been raising funds for two years to buy the piano at auction in London earlier this year.

It was to go into a concert hall at the Adies' home at Barkham, near South Molton, as a centrepiece for the upcoming spring festival.

The piano is now back in London where it is waiting for an independent assessment of the damage.

The piano was insured, but only for the £26,000 they paid for it at auction in London rather than its likely replacement value of £45,000.

Mr Adie said: "Bosendorfers are like the Stradivarius of the piano world.

"It's more than money that is the issue here. They are simply irreplaceable."

Bosendorfers are made in Austria and are the piano of choice for many of the world's leading pianists.

Mr and Mrs Adie set up the Two Moors Festival in 2001 to help the area recover from the foot-and-mouth crisis.

The two-year long campaign to raise the cash for the piano was spearheaded by Sophie, Countess of Wessex, who is the event's patron.

A spokesman for removals firm G&R said: "The matter is in the hands of the insurers. We have no further comment to make."



Original source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6541457.stm

The eminent percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie DBE has received the Incorporated Society of Musician’s Distinguished Musician Award for 2006. Dame Evelyn, a long-standing member of the ISM, was presented with the DMA medal by the Society’s President for 2006-07, Colin Bradbury, during the ISM Council’s meeting in London on 17 March 2007.

Receiving the DMA, Dame Evelyn said: ‘This is indeed a great honour, which I am delighted to accept’. She spoke with feeling about her early musical education in village schools in Aberdeenshire, where enlightened local authority policies had enabled her to receive free tuition on both piano and percussion – if cost considerations had forced her parents to choose only one, it might not have been percussion. She urged the ISM to maintain its pressure on the government to ensure that top-quality music teaching was available to all schoolchildren, and vowed to continue her personal campaign to the same end.

Dr David Smith, the ISM’s East Scotland Regional Councillor, who had nominated Dame Evelyn for the DMA, said:

‘Dame Evelyn was born and brought up in rural Aberdeenshire, where she attended Ellon Academy before studying at the RAM. She is the first musician to have managed to sustain a full-time performing career as a solo percussionist: this has taken her around the world, typically performing in 100 concerts per year. She displays a dynamic flair in performance, and has acted as an inspiration for a generation of young percussionists. She is also in demand as a teacher, giving frequent masterclasses wherever she travels. As a champion of new music, she has commissioned 145 new percussion works from the world’s most eminent composers, including concertos and solo percussion pieces, greatly enriching the repertory. She has successfully crossed the boundaries of ‘art’ and ‘popular’ music, working with a wide and disparate array of artists: for example, she has collaborated in projects involving music for film, TV and radio, has explored improvised sound worlds, and composed songs with the vocalist Björk. She has received many accolades for her playing, including a Grammy Award in 1989 for a recording of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion. A woman of strongly held views and convictions, she often challenges established orthodoxy. She has received honorary doctorates from 15 UK universities, and was appointed OBE in 1993 and DBE in 2007.’

The ISM established its Distinguished Musician Award in 1976, as a means by which the profession could acknowledge the outstanding contribution of a colleague to British musical life. Previous recipients have been Sir Alexander Gibson, Sir William Walton, Sir Peter Pears, Sir Adrian Boult, James Galway, Jacqueline du Pre, Janet Craxton, Sir Michael Tippett, Sir Reginald Goodall, Sir Charles Groves, Sir Simon Rattle, Norman Del Mar, Witold Lutoslawski, Julian Bream, Sir Colin Davis, George Malcolm, Christopher Hogwood, Sir David Willcocks, Dame Fanny Waterman, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Charles Mackerras, John McCabe, Sir Malcolm Arnold and Pierre Boulez.

Bradford's Urban Colours set to release album through ICC.

A 30-VOICE youth choir from Bradford, Urban Colours, featuring black, white and Asian children, are set to release their debut album. The self-title project features songs made famous by Mary Mary, Cyndi Lauper, Tim Hughes, Joan Osbourne and Hillsong. It was produced by Steve and Velveta Thompson in conjunction with Alove, The Salvation Army For A New Generation. The album was recorded at the Kaiser Chiefs studios in Leeds. 'Urban Colours' will be released by ICC in June.