Pam Palmer: Music Teacher, Flautist, Singer

This will be a lovely afternoon of light, bright wind music in Halling directed by the fabulous Steph Godwin. Hope to see you there.

This is why we do it ❤🎶

Some fabulous children from Byron Primary School came to our concert on Saturday. It was great to hear from their music teacher just how much they enjoyed it - "One child, who had never been to the theatre before, described the percussion players as ‘playing the emotions’ which I thought was lovely. At the end of the evening, she declared it had been ‘the best night of her life’." If that doesn't make all the rehearsal worth it, what will?!

This should be a wonderful concert - I'm looking forward to playing in it!

It's not long now till our first performance in over 18 months and we're incredibly excited and hope to see you there.

Tickets are now on sale (£15) and we will be performing The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins on Saturday 13th November at 7.30pm in The Bawtree Hall, Hazelwood School. For further details, please contact [email protected]

The choir of 65 singers will be accompanied by instrumentalists including double string quartet and trumpets and we will be conducted by Dr James Meaders.

It promises to be a great evening and we do hope you will join us!

Here she is, Fenella Humphreys, our favourite violinist, ready for the Bruch. November 6th at the Central Theatre Chatham. We can't wait!

How wonderful to be getting back to live concerts this season! I'm particularly looking forward to this one where I'll get to see and play with dear musician friends from Zimbabwe like Lorna Kelly and Paul Bourdillon.

And it's doubly exciting for me because Richard Hammond-Hall and I will be premiering Mosaic for flute and piano, which the incredible Jacob Bride wrote for me during lockdown.

I'm so happy to be playing with a live band for a real show - my first post-lockdown. And what a lovely team to work with. Hats off to the Sedlescombe Players for getting this big show going so quickly! So much childhood nostalgia in this one ❤🎶

So proud to call this brilliant, phenomenally talented man a friend and colleague. Enjoy Jacob Bride's arrangement and performance of Joanna Newsom's Bridges and Balloons.

Bridges and Balloons (by Joanna Newsom Arr. Jacob Bride) An arrangement/cover of Joanna Newsom's song 'Bridges and Balloons by our Musical Director Jacob Bride, and recorded/edited by one of our choir's Tenors, Jam...

This is The Bradstow Singers & Symphony Orchestra's contribution to The Official Broadstairs Folk Week ®. Massive thanks to Jacob Bride for putting this all together. So lovely to see and hear friends and colleagues we've been separated from for far too long. And so great that we can keep the festival from falling completely silent this year even though it can't happen live and in person.

BROADSTAIRS FOLK WEEK 2020 - Our tribute to "The Missing Year" An online "concert" by members of The Bradstow Symphony Orchestra, The Bradstow Singers, and some of our past guest soloists, to mark the 2020 Broadstairs Fo...

Absolutely loving being part of this wonderful concert.

This is tonight! Really looking forward to performing these with some wonderful musicians :)

Vox Anima London is delighted to release details of their first Choral Festival specifically for Female Choirs. Led by Jamie Meaders, with Emily Dickens, Charles MacDougall, Richard Hall and keynote speaker Cecilia McDowall. Email [email protected] for registration details

City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra - British Classics
Central Theatre Chatham 29 February 2020

Music is a wonderful vehicle for crashing through the barriers of class, age, and education. This is poignantly demonstrated by the contrasted backgrounds of the composers in the City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra’s 29 February concert, British Classics, at the Central Theatre Chatham. This goes from Greensleeves, written by a king, Henry Vlll, to the Viola Concerto, played by Medway born virtuoso, Robin Ashwell, composed by William Walton, a lad from Lancashire.

It was my great good fortune as an orchestral musician to work with two of the composers, Sir William Walton and the Cornishman George Lloyd, who despite being my senior by some thirty three years, I came to regard as a friend. The names of Elgar, Vaughan-Williams and Walton and their works are well known to music-lovers. The name of George Lloyd may be less well known, but he is no less an important contributor to British music, than his fellow composers.

Lloyd began composing at the age of 9, and began serious study at the age of 14. Because of childhood ill health he was mainly educated at home. His first symphony was written at the age of 19, a second symphony had its premiere in 1935 and was soon followed by a third. George Lloyd and his father William, formed The New English Opera Company in 1935, with the intention of establishing a school of English opera. George Lloyd's first opera, Iernin, with a libretto by his father, was performed in 1934 in Penzance, before being transferred to the Lyceum Theatre, London, where it had an unusually long run. His second opera, The Serf, was staged at Covent Garden in 1938.

The start of the War in 1939 was to have a serious long-term affect on the life and career of Lloyd who served in the Royal Marines as a Bandsman on board the cruiser HMS Trinidad deployed on Arctic Convoys. In 1942 he had the misfortune to be one of the bandsmen manning the transmitting station, deep in the hull of the ship when a faulty torpedo launched by HMS Trinidad travelled in a circular track and hit the ship. Many of Lloyd's shipmates were drowned in fuel oil, and he was the last man to escape from the compartment. Not surprisingly he suffered mental and physical trauma which today would have been diagnosed as severe PTSD.
When the war ended, his Swiss wife, Nancy took him to Switzerland where he resumed composition writing two symphonies and an opera, John Socman, commissioned for the 1951 Festival of Britain. A year later when his health had deteriorated further he abandoned composition for a living and for the next 20 years was to earn income by growing mushrooms and carnations in Dorset. Music remained a passionate creative element of his life and he composed regularly from 4:30 AM to 7:30 AM, before the start of the rest of his working day. He continued to write in a tonal, melodic style, contrary to the prevailing climate of modernist styles, because of this he met with difficulties in obtaining performances of his music. He recalled:
"I sent scores off to the BBC. They came back, usually without comment. I never wrote 12-tone music because I didn't like the theory. I studied the blessed thing in the early 1930s and thought it was a cock-eyed idea that produced horrible sounds. It made composers forget how to sing."
As a composer Lloyd never forgot how to sing, or to write joyous music that delighted his audience. In 1972 he sold his market garden business and moved to London to resume his professional musical life. The conductor Edward Downes championed his music and a number of his scores were accepted for broadcast by the BBC, and he went on to collaborate with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and to record 7 of his 12 symphonies and 3 of his piano concertos with that orchestra. My old orchestra the Philharmonia enjoyed a hugely successful collaboration with Lloyd as a conductor/composer, which was when I met him. I commissioned a work for brass quintet for Equale Brass, as a result of which he went on to write a number of popular works for brass band including a moving elegy for the bandsmen killed by the IRA in Regents Park, close to his London home.
William Walton’s Viola Concerto, although virtuosic, particularly the second movement, is rather elegiac in mood, suitable for the darker timbre of the viola. I first met Robin Ashwell when he was a student at the Royal College of Music and I was a professor. As a member of the viola section of the College Orchestra he took part in my debut as an orchestral conductor in Berlioz Fantastic Symphony in 1990. Unbeknown to me, before going to the RCM, Robin had been a member of the CRSO. It is my, and the Orchestra’s great pleasure to welcome him back as a soloist.
I have been moved to write this article because I know that it is likely that the CRSO’s regular audience may not have heard George Lloyd’s music before and may be apprehensive about what kind of music it is. You don’t need to feel any concern, I would urge you to give it a go, and if you don’t like it I will eat my hat.
Peter Bassano
Music Director, City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra

TRY YOUR HAND AT CONDUCTING

Ever wondered what it’s like to pick up a baton? We’re inviting young people aged 9-18 to find out!

The FREE conducting workshop is part of a day of activities for budding young musicians on Saturday, 28 March, culminating in a space-themed afternoon concert Journey to the Stars - Family Concert and Music Workshops

Maidstone Wind Symphony’s Music Director and Assistant Music Director will be on-hand to give you some top tips, as you have a go at conducting a small musical ensemble.

The conducting workshop is FREE to concert ticket holders takes place on concert day from 12:30pm-1.30pm (you’ll be allocated a 30-minute time slot).

Places are limited. To register and buy concert tickets visit https://www.maidstonewindsymphony.org/event-a_festival_for_youth.html

COME AND PLAY WITH MWS

Experience what it’s like to play live music with Maidstone Wind Symphony by joining us on stage for our concert finale next month.

We are offering young woodwind, brass and percussion instrumentalists the chance to perform ‘Jupiter’ from The Planets with us at the end of our Journey to the Stars concert next month.

The rehearsal and performance is part of day of workshops and activities culminating in a family-friendly space-themed concert at Mote Hall, Maidstone, on Saturday, 28 March.

This opportunity is FREE to ticket holders and open to grade 3+ players. We will provide parts to suit your playing level.
Places are limited. To register and buy concert tickets visit https://www.maidstonewindsymphony.org/event-a_festival_for_youth.html

Reminiscing this Sunday evening about our concert last Saturday in Rochester Cathedral.

We were delighted to be the guests of the London Welsh Male Voice Choir, and to unite with them for a performance of 'Somewhere'.

Here's to many more concerts in 2020!

Vox Anima will sing in Rochester Cathedral tomorrow evening as guests of the London Welsh Male Voice Choir. Looking forward to it!

We are looking forward to being the guests of the London Welsh Male Voice Choir in the stunning setting of Rochester Cathedral on Saturday 25 January. We're singing 4 delicious pieces that we just adore:-
Tundra by Ola Gjeilo, Even When He Is Silent by Kim André Arnesen, I Thank You God by Gwyneth Walker and a rocking finish with Music Down In My Soul by Moses Hogan.
The concert starts at 7pm - maybe see you there!

Vox Anima's concert is this evening in Yalding.

Our wonderful principal flautist Pam Palmer will once again be performing as a soloist at our season-opening concert Lollapalooza.

Pam, who played beautifully at our 20th Anniversary Concert at the end of last season, will be playing Taktakishvili's Sonata for Flute and Symphonic Band.

The joint concert with Frisian Symphonic Wind Orchestra is on Thursday, 24 October from 7pm at All Saints Church, Maidstone. Lollapalooza with Frisian Symphonic Wind Orchestra (Netherlands)

PAM PALMER

Pam Palmer is a flautist, singer and a dedicated music teacher who has played with Maidstone Wind Symphony since 2006.

Pam is passionate about orchestral playing, and also plays with City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, The Bradstow Orchestra and Invicta Wind Orchestra. She regularly plays as a guest with The Canterbury Orchestra, for scratch orchestras, and in pit bands for musicals.

Formerly she has played for Cyprus State Youth Orchestra, Bulawayo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Principal Flute for Harare City Orchestra.

Pam founded the Silberlicht Trio and is also a talented singer.

The big orange 50 popped up again. This time it joined in as the City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra put on a concert for school children at the Central Theatre in July.
Our next concert will be a great opportunity to bring the whole family on the 9th November. Wizard wands and light sabres welcome.

A week to go till this exciting concert with The Bradstow Symphony Orchestra. Can't wait to hear the wonderful clarinettist Steph Godwin play the premiere of Jacob Bride's new work Dances from Other Lands, and incredible pianist Jerome Sadler perform Shostakovich's second piano concerto.

We are excited to announce the penultimate concert of our 2019 Season. It marks the official launch of The Bradstow Symphony Orchestra, who will be performing their first purely orchestral concert on Sunday 6th October.
Many of you have enjoyed hearing the orchestra over the last four years accompanying The Bradstow Singers in our concerts, and we would love to see you at this concert to support our Orchestra's first event on their own.

Celebrating exam success with Jack and Becky who have achieved distinctions in their grade 4 and 5 singing exams. Well done!!
And thanks to Elaine Ford for her superb accompaniment.

Tomorrow is the big day! We really look forward to welcome lots of past players and an audience of our loyal supporters and friends for our 20th anniversary concert.

Sadly, the organ at All Saints Church is broken so we will not be able to perform the Saint-Seans Organ Symphony as planned. 😢 However, you get the bonus of two movements of the T-Bone Concerto with special guest trombonist Brett Baker instead of just the one. Every cloud 🌥

Tickets available on the door. See you there 7.30pm.

Fantastic rehearsal with the brilliant Brett Baker last night to work on Johan de Meij's T-Bone Concerto and Rob Wiffin's Shout! ahead of our 20th Anniversary Concert. See you on Saturday.