OCMS-Weblog

London Concertante concert

2005-11-20T06:30:00.000Z

Apologies to anyone who read the notice about London Concertante and expected to hear Brahms and Strauss. They changed their minds about this, and reverted to the programme originally advertised. Their performances were very good, and I particularly enjoyed the Tchaikovsky "Souvenir de Florence".

Music Education for Adults

2005-11-20T06:28:00.000Z

OCMS is building up an education programme for young people. However, I have been asked whether OCMS could provide any kind of education for older members. Some of our members admit to liking music, but not really knowing much about it, how it works etc.

The programme Discovering Music, on Radio 3, guides listeners through many well known pieces, and also some not so well known ones. It is available for repeated listening for broadband users at the BBC web site. See here for details of the programme archives. Note that it is also possible to get free tickets for upcoming recordings of this programme, and these are often very enjoyable. The sound quality is generally far superior to anything you will hear later on the radio too, so if you have time this is a good thing to do. Watch the BBC ticket site for opportunities, both for this and for other programmes. There are several concerts coming up at the present time.

Other possibilities for learning about music locally include the local University of the Third Age, and the WEA.

Concert Tonight - Brahms/Strauss/Tchaikovsky

2005-11-19T17:26:00.000Z

Just in case you're in the Kingston, Claygate, Esher area you might like to know about the concert tonight in Claygate at Holy Trinity Church. The London Concertante will be performing string sextets. For details see the OCMS: London Concertante page.

I believe that the programme tonight will differ from the originally posted programme, due to unforeseen cirumstances, but it still promises to be well worthwhile, with sextets by Brahms and Strauss. I'm guessing that the Tchaikovsky "Souvenir de Florence" will still be included in the programme.

If memory serves me right London Concertante also have another life as Zum. Maybe they'll demonstrate this with an encore tonight - which will perhaps be very invigorating. One day I will go to hear them performing as Zum!

Encore 2

2005-10-31T16:51:00.000Z

The Encore was by the Guanavino.

First post - Ana-Maria Vera

2005-10-30T11:09:00.000Z

This is the first post to the OCMS Weblog.

Last night's concert by Ana-Maria Vera was splendid. She made Mozart's piano sonata in F, K332 sound easy, which it certainly is not. Then she gave a powerful and poetic performance of Chopin's Sonata no 3, Op 58.

After the interval we heard several of Debussy's Estampes, followed by a variation from the published program, with the Laments or the Maiden and the Nightingale (Quejas o la Maja y el Ruisenor) by Granados.

The published programme finished with Liszt's arrangement of Gounod's waltz from Faust, which was powerful and dazzling.

There was a short and atmospheric encore by an Argentinian composer whose name I didn't quite catch.