The title of the concert was ‘The Flutewise Animal Planet’ and this is what we played:

Sheep May Safely Graze by JS Bach arr by Bill Holcombe for 4 flutes. This was played by Amy, Isobel, Laura and Gaby while the rest of the course members came on stage in pairs, bowed and then formed a tableau.

A piece from Funky Flute (which we renamed ‘The Squealing Cat’ so it would fit in with our programme, I hope the composer and publishers don’t mind!) This was played by the beginner fifes with help of some flute players.

The Seal from Animal Flute by Diana Saunders. This was played by more advanced fife players and some flutes.

Theme from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky arr by Phyllis Avidan Louke – Classical Music for flexible flute ensemble.

There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly – everyone sang, with flute accompaniment and actions!

Purple Cow – more about that later

The Animals Went in Two by Two – another song

Then we came to the big piece – My Dog Pooh by Isaacson. We changed the title slightly to My Dog Dexter and added animal sounds and percussion so everyone could join in. The piece has a narration which we simplified.

The grand finale was Sandy’s Celtic piece. If you’ve been on one of our courses you will probably enjoyed playing this. Sandy composed it and he teaches it from memory. We decided we needed to rename it to fit in with the concert, so it was called ‘The Highland Cow Fling’. 

There had been a ‘Harry Potter Worksop’ going on during our Flutewise course and the children demonstrated some of their experiments during a break in our performance. During our finale they released little helicopters from the balcony. It was very impressive. But it started to rain and on the last note everyone had to run for cover!

It was a memorable concert and it was recorded on at least 3 cameras. They make a professional DVD and I think it gets onto their TV.