Dawn of a New Era

I haven't managed to edit and update the information in this blog's right hand panels, (known as the side bar), so have started a new blog (haldensoundnew.blogspot.com) with all the recent posts and updated information, particularly on contact details, and you can reach it by clicking HERE. I hope this solves the problem.

Halden Sound History

Henry Starnes has kindly agreed to write a short history of the orchestra, which should be appearing shortly on this blog.

At last Thursday's practice we played the Mozart Symphony No 40 again, and shall be spending more time on it next week, after which Judy is planning to have us try Beethoven's Symphony No 2. Don't forget you can look at your part in advance by downloading it from the online music library. (Click here or on the link on the right).


Don't forget you can comment on the blog by clicking on the "comment" button at the foot of each post. Feedback would be very welcome.

From our Rye Correspondent

Vis-a-vis the enquiries last term about the female composer whose work we played, Elspeth Wrenn writes:

Eric Blom says that Cecile Chaminade was born on 8th August 1857 in Paris , she died on 17th April 1944 in Monte Carlo and she wrote La Sevillane, a comic opera, songs, music for orchestra and piano, piano music and music for a ballet. Her first composition was begun at the age of 8 and her first concert was given at the age of 18.

October Update

Subscriptions, (still £20), for the term are now due and Aileen will have her receipt book at the rehearsals.

Our half-term break means that there will be no orchestra practice on Thursday 29 October. I imagine the Hall might be available for a group wanting to arrange something without our Director that evening. Please speak to Aileen.

I am trying to audit the use of the blog by orchestra members and to this end would appreciate it if they would send me an e-mail at lyoulten@aol.com when they see this post. If you have any news or views that might be useful to include in my next post, please let me know.

A wonderful website to explore, if you don't already know it, is "Spotify", where you can, with great ease, access recordings of any work you can think of, all free of charge, unless you want to download them to use on your iPods, in which case there's a subscription. All you need is a reasonable broadband connection.

IMSLP: the answer to prayers about missing parts (music, not anatomical)

Robin Fox, our bassoonist, has found a very useful website from which one can download and print scores and instrumental parts for over 17000 works, quite legally and free of charge. IMSLP is the International Music Score Library Project, and is an example of a "wiki" which consists of user- generated content. Anyone with sheet music in the public domain is free to upload it to the site, where it is then available to all. Within a few minutes of receiving Robin's message I successfully found, downloaded and printed a viola part for the Schubert Symphony we started working on last Thursday. The site is readily found by googling " IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library ". No registration or passwords are required. Many thanks to Robin for finding this.

A New Term Starts

We had our first rehearsal of the new term on Thursday 24 September, with an almost full turn-out: Three first violins, three seconds, three violas and four cellos, bassoon, clarinets, oboes and flute. Still a few missing, either away or unwell, and plenty of room in the Northiam Village Hall for more recruits, especially in the violin section.

We shall be working on Schubert's 1st Symphony, D 82 in D major this term, as well as other pieces yet to be decided. On Thursday we made a start on this, after playing through two short works by Arne and Gluck.

Update on orchestra activities

The lack of recent postings on the Halden Sound blog does not mean that we have been inactive since March 2007. We have survived the departure of our leader, Howard Kilner, who headed north accompanied by three of our other string players, aka his family, to live in Derbyshire. Judy Hollis has continued as our director, and we have had a full programme of practices, weekly in term time, in the Northiam Village Hall. We start the next session on Thursday 24 September, at 7.30 pm, with tea and biscuits at half time, finishing at about 9.30. New recruits are always welcome, particularly in the violin section. For more information about us, contact me by phone (01797 224045) or e-mail (lyoulten@aol.com).

The culmination of last term's activities was an afternoon concert in Wittersham Church as part of the Flower Festival on Saturday 28 June. We're getting more and more ambitious, with works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, Bizet and Elgar included in this last concert.

To our great disappointment, Judy has said she wants to retire as Director at the end of this term, so we shall be looking for a successor to take over in 2010.

Watch this space for what I hope will now be more frequent news of our activities.