Getting ready to be like Ian Anderson - playing on one leg!

Yesterday Stephen and I went to Dunnington, Alcester for a flute event at the Barn. What fun we had. We were the guests of Gabrielle and Roger Leese at their beautiful home where they have this amazing concert/workshop venue in their garden. Not only were we in beautiful surroundings, with lovely flute players, we also had amazing food, including homemade cakes and biscuits! Now that’s what I call a good Flutewise event.

The day lasted from 10.00 am until 4.00 pm. We had 12 young flute players aged 8 to 14 and we did lots of work. We started with a warm up of some games and learnt my (in)famous Purple Cow poem. Later we had a look at the notes of the Hungarian Round and discussed how we could make it interesting, after which Stephen taught some funny noises, like singing and playing and jet whistles. We then dived into groups to put everything together for a ‘Purple Cow Performance’. The results were very good. The other music we looked at included Canon of Peace, Greensleeves and Mike Mower’s South Africa from Junior Musical Postcards (Boosey and Hawkes). Everyone loved this piece.

In the morning Stephen did a really good warm up and introduced harmonics and later in the day we did some breathing work with bubble blowing.

Happy birthday Pippa

The chocolate cake Gabrielle baked for us was especially welcome because it was Pippa’s birthday. She was 11 yesterday. What a great way to spend your birthday, at a Flutewise event! I’ve never done that, I wish I could!

We had the cake just before the parents arrived to hear what we’d been up to. We played South Africa, Greensleeves and Canon of Peace for them and Stephen entertained everyone with Ian Clarke’s Zoom Tube.

Everyone welcomed the news of Flutewise Live! with great excitement. Gabrielle has written a version of the Pied Piper and this will be performed at the event – you could even take part. It’s going to be wicked!

I’ll tell you about my adventure getting to the event later…..