On 23rd June Rhona Smith, fellow musician and composer, school pupils from the ELM School of Music (www.elmschoolofmusic.com) and myself took part in a fundraising concert in aid of Drake Music Scotland (www.drakemusicscotland.org).
Rhona and I opened the concert with ‘The Flowing Stream and Waterwheel’ my own composition for harp. This was inspired by a trip to Haddington where I heard a waterwheel slowing down at the end of the day. The sounds were mainly of rushing water with a slight grinding mechanical rhythm in the background, getting gradually slower and slower. The instruments used were a traditional Clarsach played by myself and a digital harp played by the use of a switch linked to a laptop aided by software called Notion, played by Rhona.
A lot of the concert then comprised of pieces played by the ELM school pupils. The pieces were adjudicated by grade and for musicality by a mixed panel from Drake Music Scotland and Braidburn School. In addition Lauren Clay, Figure Notes Officer for Drake gave a short presentation on this teaching method (http://www.drakemusicscotland.org/figurenotes/). She was ably assisted by Sophie who had composed and performed her performance piece using Figure Notes.
The final piece was a solo performance on the digital harp by Rhona called ‘Harp Oi’. This piece consisted of 3 different sections; a slow and gentle ‘a’ section followed by a fast, frantic and somewhat spooky ‘b’ section before returning to the ‘a’ section. I say spooky because of the dissonant chords used in section ‘b’. This concluded the concert before the drawing of the raffle and the adjudication.
Overall the audience seemed very appreciative of the music played by Rhona and myself and certainly the pupils became very quiet! The concert was a fundraiser for Drake and the total collected, thanks to the generous audience, was over £245.
Rhona and I opened the concert with ‘The Flowing Stream and Waterwheel’ my own composition for harp. This was inspired by a trip to Haddington where I heard a waterwheel slowing down at the end of the day. The sounds were mainly of rushing water with a slight grinding mechanical rhythm in the background, getting gradually slower and slower. The instruments used were a traditional Clarsach played by myself and a digital harp played by the use of a switch linked to a laptop aided by software called Notion, played by Rhona.
A lot of the concert then comprised of pieces played by the ELM school pupils. The pieces were adjudicated by grade and for musicality by a mixed panel from Drake Music Scotland and Braidburn School. In addition Lauren Clay, Figure Notes Officer for Drake gave a short presentation on this teaching method (http://www.drakemusicscotland.org/figurenotes/). She was ably assisted by Sophie who had composed and performed her performance piece using Figure Notes.
The final piece was a solo performance on the digital harp by Rhona called ‘Harp Oi’. This piece consisted of 3 different sections; a slow and gentle ‘a’ section followed by a fast, frantic and somewhat spooky ‘b’ section before returning to the ‘a’ section. I say spooky because of the dissonant chords used in section ‘b’. This concluded the concert before the drawing of the raffle and the adjudication.
Overall the audience seemed very appreciative of the music played by Rhona and myself and certainly the pupils became very quiet! The concert was a fundraiser for Drake and the total collected, thanks to the generous audience, was over £245.