NEWS

Leominster Supersonics recently won an Awards for All grant from the National Lottery. We gave a concert in June 2008 at Eye Church which included new pieces for bells and voices as well as an improvised piece built on a series of notes generated by throwing dice. The bell piece also included a percussion section on upturned plastic chairs - it certainly made the audience listen to church bells in a new way! In June 2009 we put on an innovative performance at Leominster Swimming Pool, with six of us playing acoustic instruments around the sides of the pool while people enjoyed a meditative swim.

I was delighted recently to read an inspiring article by Tony Harris, senior lecturer in music education at Nottingham Trent University. In the latest edition of Sounding Board, the community music magazine, the article is headed Back to the fore for the avant-garde and explains how community music actually originated in the avant-garde and experimental music of the 1960s. It is important to develop this work in the curent climate when there are only too many people prepared to dismiss the experimental agenda altogether in favour of endless samba and African drumming workshops.

The Musical Remedies project continues to move forward, and now there is a dedicated new website at www.musicalremedies.com . You can link to this from the Contacts page. I have recently rehearsed a group of seven of the pieces with trumpet bass and drums, and as a result of this I have re-written some of the pieces. Six of these seven pieces were included in a programme of Musical Remedies presented at the Lion Ballroom in Leominster in December 2009. In February 2010, several of the Musical Remedy pieces along with the Island Journey songs will be performed in a concert in the South of Spain. Mikey Kirkpatrick and Andrew Morris have been invited to perform at the Dome, attached to a Healing Centre on the Costa Blanca. In March 2010 two further Remedies, Gorse and Heather will be performed for the first time in new versions for violin and piano at a concert promoted by the Hereford Elgar Group at Hellens. Tickets for this are obtainable from the Outback record shop in Hereford.

The CD album of piano pieces by my adult composition pupil Marie Wicks - entitled Dreamscape - is now available for £10 from Andrew Morris. The sheet music can also be purchased. This collection of twenty-one short hauntingly lyrical pieces are suitable for pianists of all ages. The level of difficulty ranges from grade 2 to around grade 7. More recently I have made a recording of another twelve of Marie Wicks' pieces. This has now been produced and copies can be obtained direct from Marie Wicks. Email me if you are interested to have contact details.

I have taken part in the songwriting course at Dartington International Summer School of Music in both 2008 and 2009. The courses were facilitated by Julian Marshall. I have recorded a CD of 'work in progress' - ten new songs created for the most part on these songwriting courses. Do get in touch if you would like to hear these.

In February 2010 I visited the Costa Blanca to give a major concert of Musical Remedies at the Dome in Alcalali. The audience included long term practitioners of the Flower Remedies, and the Musical Remedies were very well received. As a result of this success, I am now planning to make a solo piano CD of Musical Remedies sometime in 2010. Watch this space!