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NEWS and SOCIAL
Our summer musical party for our patrons and sponsors will again be at Threave Gardens on Sunday 13 May 2012.
We are redrafting our Constitution in order to comply with the requirements of charitable status. An Extraordinary General Meeting will be held on Sunday 5th February. Click here to see the proposal.
Our Autumn concert in Easterbrook Hall was a great success with an enthusiastic and appreciative audience, perhaps our largest turnout ever. Murray McLachlan was in fine form, thrilling all of us, orchestra and audience alike, with his superb musicianship. David Sumner's rendition of Shakepeare's Henry V made for a dramatic end to the concert.
David Howdle, one of our violinists, has been co-opted onto the committee to help us look at the possibility of obtaining charitable status.
Our rehearsal venue has moved to Troqueer Church Hall, Dumfries DG2 7AS. Here is a link to a map with directions.
On Sunday 27 March we performed at the Buccleuch Centre, Langholm - our most easterly venue in Dumfries & Galloway. The hall was most impressive with a good acoustic and an enthusiastic if rather select audience. The public of Langholm had enjoyed a packed week of performances at the Buccleuch Centre so perhaps that was a reason for the lower than expected turnout.
Geoff Keating was on good form and the audience were most appreciative of a lovely programme of music. Our soloist, Elaine Moor (oboe) performed Francaix's LHorloge de Flore with great success - a difficult piece but very beautiful, packed with memorable melodies and interesting interplay between soloist and various sections of the orchestra.
Our recent concert in Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries on Sunday 7 November, 2010 seems to have been a great success with a very respectable size of audience despite a clash with other events in Dumfries on the same night. Our tuba soloist in the Vaughan-Williams concerto, Les Neish, was outstanding: his solo encore being particularly spectacular. This is how it was described in the local press:
"Neish's solo encore, featuring beat-box rhythms, harmonics, and singing (and whooping) through the instrument, elicited a tumult of applause to rival the gathering storm outside."
Our Spring 2010 concert in The Ryan Centre, Stranraer was a success with the highlight being Tom Rathbone's stunning performance of Schumann's Cello Concerto. The arrangements with a bus for our members starting in Carlisle worked well although many were exhausted by the time they got home very late at night. The collaboration with Westfest also worked out well and we are grateful to them for all the hard work they put into the venture. The Ryan Centre is a superb facility.
This year's summer musical party at Threave Gardens for the benefit of our Patrons and Sponsors was held on Sunday 16 May 2010.
The 2009 Autumn concert was a great success. Leland Chen's playing was spectaular and we all thoroughly enjoyed playing in Easterbrook Hall again.
Our summer musical party at Threave Gardens for the benefit of our Patrons and Sponsors was held on Sunday 17 May and was once again a great success.
Once again there were questions about the acoustic at DG One for our combined concert with Dumfries Choral Society on 22 March 2009. Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem was conducted by Nicola Junor and theVariations on a theme by Haydn (St Anthony Chorale) by Goeff Keating. There is shortly to be a meeting of interested parties to consider what might be done to improve matters.
Our recent concert in the new concert hall in Dumfries, DG One, seem to have been well received. An excellent audience of 400 turned out. The acoustic has caused a lot of debate with some praising it but others finding it very variable, depending on where you sat. Further to the back of the hall seemed to be the better. From the orchestra's perspective, the addition of substantial baffles at the back behind the wind made it much easier to hear each other - at the rehearsal the preceding weekend this had proved difficult. Our new set of copper Adams timpani that we have just purchased sounded great.
The new rehearsal venue at Lochside Church looks as if it is going to be very successful - bright and with a useful acoustic for Geoff to get the best out of us.
The following links are to various newsletters published primarily for the benefit of our patrons and sponsors and to accounts of previous events (other than concerts).
We recently ran a caption competition for this picture:
The winner was:
"Bass perhaps, but never vulgar!"
.... with three equal runners up:
"Three little maids on stools are we!"
"Base motives"
"Make mine a double!"
Many thanks to all those who contributed!
Threave summer party - chamber group playing the final movement of the Spohr Nonet
