The King and I

     On the 12^th of April 2012, my friend and I went to see The King and I at the Theatre royal Plymouth. The show involved singing, dancing and acting and I had seen things like the storyline before (The Sound of Music) but I had never seen Oriental Ballet in such a form as this. We went with the ANLO scheme so we did not have to pay anything.

     Although the start was slow and a bit boring, I found that I really enjoyed the whole thing. Especially the play within it- The little Cabin of Uncle Tom (I think). The dancing was beautiful, as were the costumes. I thought that the balance between humour and seriousness was just right. The role and performance by the children was especially astonishing given the ages of some of the children, it was very well practised and executed. I learnt from it that you never turn your back on the King of Siam- or any monarch for that matter.

I definitely wouldn't list it highly in my favourite things I have been to see because of the fact that the standard was not as high as many others and I didn't feel it was as well polished as previous things. The theater was as good as usual and I felt that the award they have received for the most welcoming theater was well deserved. The video here shows a sort of trailer for the tour we went to see long with comments by other people at the performance in Edinburgh.

Cornwall Youth Wind Orchestra

On the 3^rd of April 2012, the Cornwall Youth Wind Orchestra assembled in the RumStore at Carnglaze Caverns for their annual concert. The orchestra is one of Music Cornwall’s ensembles and includes 60 of the most talented musicians between the ages of roughly 13 and 20 from across the county, with members from Saltash to Penzance. The concert lasted about 2 hours not including the interval and this year the theme was pieces from around the world. The audience consisted of about 300 people including many special guests this year. The program this year:

o   Four Character Studies from Master Humphrey’s Clock, by Malcom Binney

o   Yosemite Autumn, by Mark Camphouse

o   Lincolnshire Posy, by Percy Grainger

o   Nocturne for Harp, by Claire Grundman

o   Wedding Dance, by Jacques Press

o   The White Tower, by Otto Schwartz

o   Outback, by Thomas Doss

o   Encore; Maleguena by Ernesto Lecuona

I didn’t just watch this concert; I took part in it as I am a member of Cywo (Cornwall Youth Wind Orchestra) and I loved it. It wasn’t a new experience as this was my second year as a member, but in a way it was a new experience due to the different musical program, this overall year at Cywo was better than last year because I have made lots of new friends that I have loads in common with and am more likely to stay in touch with due to this. I think last year’s program was better simply because there was music that people would have recognised like West Side Story, and an audience is more likely to enjoy it if they can recognise the music as a lot probably weren’t trained musically and therefore wouldn’t have appreciated the music as much. I would definitely recommend this whole experience to anyone, but it comes with quite a lot of pressure and is a lot of hard work. The meetings are only once a month but are all over the county and are very long days (The longest being 8.30am till 9.00pm!). You also have to be a certain (skill/grade) level as the pieces are not easy and Janet- the conductor- does not settle for ok!  The work is worth it though, when you take you final bow and know you’ve done well.

This is a little bit of information about the orchestra from the music service website!

Link: to the website showing photos taken at the event

Link: to the music service website report on the event