Huntingdonshire Music School Association

The HUMS Classical Guitar Ensemble got interviewed by Sue Dougan at the BBC Cowley Road studios in Cambridge today. This was the product of an initial cheeky email following the concert the ensemble gave in Old Hurst church and quite a bit on communication in the meantime. The representatives of the ensemble were Sandra Buckenham (ensemble director) with students Peter Maylor, Terry Schooling and Lorena Serna.

The interview lasted for something like 30 minutes and ranged far and wide not only about the guitar ensemble but also the music school itself. We always hit the problem of ‘school’ being associated with youngsters so often folks don’t realise that the music school is open to all ages. This has surfaced before when talking with the BBC but apparently Sue hadn’t even heard of the school. Well she has heard now and there’s a tentative suggestion that an future feature might be made on the music school itself, perhaps in September.

For those who’d like to listen to the interview it will be broadcast at around 3pm on Thursday 29th July on BBC Radio Cambridgshire. The schedule for Thursday is available here. You can always listen live from the BBC Radio Cambs website. It will be available via the BBC iPlayer for up to 7 days after the interview.

The photos have been added to the Huntingdonshire Music School group on Flickr.

I suppose it had to happen. Not content with playing in the bowels of the RRS Les Dawson Keith decided to practice in front of a larger audience. Usually this is a good thing and we would advise any music student to practice in front of strange folks in order to build up confidence. Keith took this advice to heart but being unable to find any humans willing to endure instead decided that the local wildlife in Antarctica would do. I don’t think that the BAS have conducted any studies on the tolerance of the penguin to such noise but hope that it doesn’t affect fertility (penguins!). Those with a keen eye will notice that 1 penguin in the centre appears to have been stunned (or at least has found something better to do). 

It does remind of a Creature Comforts clip. I just wonder what the penguins are saying…!

As Keith himself says:-

I was on the afterdeck working when this lot turned up.  They’ve been loitering around the ship (which is moored up at Brunt Ice Shelf at the moment) for a couple of days now, and I got Bruce to take this.  As you will see, he’s enthusiastic about fill-in flash.  These are Emperor Penguins (as if you didn’t know).

Nice scenery.

For the last few summers we’ve organised trips at the beginning of the summer holidays. These are always lively and consist of a mixture of performance, sight-seeing and plain old social relaxation. To date we’ve been to Wertheim (Germany)/Paris [2006], Kirchheim (Austria) [2007] and this summer we travelled to the Isle of Man [2008].

The planning is now well under way for the 2009 trip to Norfolk and is open to anyone at the school. Not everyone who goes on these trips plays - they tend to be very much family affairs. As Norfolk is relatively close to home it will enable some to join us for a short time and return home. This hasn’t been possible for the longer trips overseas and as a result some folks have missed out.

The likely locations are:-

• Forum (Norwich library)
• St Stephen"s Church, Norwich
• Aylsham Church - joint performance with The Ipswich & Norwich Brass Band
• Mannington Hall & Gardens