Readers who know me in person will know that I can keep talking for a very long time. Regular readers who haven’t spoken to me may still have guessed based on the length of the average post on here. It isn’t that kind of rambling I’m setting out to write about though …
In fact, there hasn’t been much vocal rambling when I can help it for nearly a fortnight now, as I’ve battled with a particularly intractable cold and some engagements I was determined not to break. I have covered a lot of miles in the name of music though!
On Saturday, I was in a performance space in Liverpool Hope University, dressed up in black tie and bringing with me a violin and a mandolin. That combination means a classical gig of course – in this case, ‘bump’ to the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Orchestra, an exceptionally good amateur chamber orchestra with strong family connections (and that I played with myself during the holidays as a student). Despite playing second violin for most of the programme (two Mozart overtures and various arias, duets and trios from the corresponding operas plus one other), the significant reason for me being there was having undertaken to get my fingers round the mandolin obbligato to one particular number, a serenade from Don Giovanni, in three and a half days and one run-through. Considering mandolin outings to date have been folk/Americana territory, and I’m not sure I’d reached top D on the instrument at all, never mind in fully scored scales and broken chords, I’m rather pleased with the result – certainly with the reaction of the orchestra. I’ll certainly be keeping that on record as a skill (even if hoping for slightly more practice time in future!).
Two days later, I was dressed slightly further down and only armed with the usual violin (and pickup), but in the slightly more exalted surroundings of a high-end hotel ballroom in Chiswick. The event this time background music for a formal lunch commemorating the place’s reopening post expansion and refurbishment – a band with function and Irish capacities had been hired in honour of the nationality and tastes of the chain’s owner, and request for a semi-acoustic set meant out with the bass and drums, in with mandolin (not me!) doubling tenor banjo, and with the fiddle. Thankfully as an instrumentalist you can play a good set while being barely able to speak let alone sing for sore throat! Function gigs do have their perks – loss of the odd day’s leave from the desk job is probably more than compensated for by being able to earn at a time of the week other than Friday or Saturday evening, and by being ushered to extra helpings of the guests’ main course and the wine bottles left open but not empty …
That same evening took me down the road to Hounslow, to rehearse with Kindred Spirit – an indication that a more normal version of my gig schedule is getting back under way. This Saturday, the full band play for all comers at the Cross Lances near home base. A week exactly from then, the String Project warm up for a rare gig from members of poetry-driven first-wave punks CRASS (meaning I’m playing a gig in Oxford, which is almost as rare). The following weekend is the nearest to Halloween, and unsurprisingly The Filthy Spectacula are breaking off our post-festival season rest to do a double bill – Friday 28th at Battersea’s Magic Garden, Saturday 29th at Lewisham’s Fox and Firkin. Only plan to come to both if you have a heroic liver (and dancing legs) …
Meanwhile in the slightly more distant future I’ve just been lined up for a very exciting one-off (for now) performance, but being flashmob-style and at a private event I probably shouldn’t reveal too much for now!