Huntingdonshire Music School Association - Travel

Huntingdonshire is twinned with Marburg-Biedenkopf in the state of Hess, Germany, about 50 miles north of Frankfurt.  It is a really attractive region with tree covered hills all around. Marburg Biedenkopf has a summer music festival and we have been invited to take part. The trip will be centred around the picturesque village of Bad Endbach. A new swimming pool and spa opened last October and the village also has shops, cafes etc.
Marburg is a very interesting old university town with plenty of shops to visit.

Links: Wikipedia - Marburg-Biedenkopf, Wikipedia - Bad Endbach, city of Marburg website, videos:

YouTube - video 1 (never mind the soundtrack!), YouTube - video 2

The trip is open to any student of the Huntingdonshire Music School - you don’t need to be playing in a band or ensemble.

Itinerary

Thursday 11th August:

• Early start from HRC, travelling by coach and ferry.
• Plan to arrive at 18:00 and have a group meal

Friday 12th August - Sunday 14th August

• A number of concerts, depending upon who goes and the bands we can form
• Coach sightseeing trips, possibilities include:
  • Ski lift and summer tobogganing
  • Edersee and Eder dam and waterparc
  • Other options to be built into the itinerary
• Final group meal

Monday 15th August:

• Early start from Bad Endbach
• ETA Huntingdon 19:00

Accommodation

We will be staying in the village of Bad Endbach. There isn’t a big enough hotel in Bad Endbach that will accommodate us all, so we will have to be split between 2 (possibly 3) hotels situated close together. The rooms are ensuite singles, twins or doubles, and some will have the capability of having an extra single bed put in the room. There may be an option to stay with local families.

Editor - Found this odd link connecting a visitor from Warboys to Bad Endbach

Cost

Adults c £220
Children c £200

We hope to have a donation from Huntingdonshire District Council that will help toward the cost of the trip; we will also hold fundraising events to raise funds for the trip. If there are 40 people on the trip and the fund raising goes well, the adult price could drop to £175.

Included in price:

• All travel throughout the trip from and back to HRC, inc excursion transport.
• Evening meal on arrival at Bad Endbach
• 4 nights Hotel accommodation, bed & breakfast.
• End of tour meal.

Excluded:

• All lunches and evening meals other than the above.
• Travel or instrument insurance
• Spending money
• Additional excursions

A £25 deposit is needed to secure your place at the time of booking with the booking form (see entry in discussion forum) to either Alan Crosthwaite (a.crosthwaite495@btinternet.com) or Joyce Reeves.

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.

The following is an example of how desperate some in the Huntingdonshire Music School get when faced with band practice. Keith Nicholls works for the British Antarctic Survey based near Cambridge and every now and then we lose him as he heads down south to do scientific work at the other end of the world. Or so he claims - personally it looks like a thinly-disguised excuse to get away. Of course a photograph doesn’t actually prove that he’s practising! 

If anyone else has interesting pictures of where they practice or interesting or funny tales of practice sessions that they’d like to share please do so!

Anyway, the story according to Keith is:-

“Have you brought your oboe again, or whatever it is?”
“It’s a clarinet, and yes I have - a nice new one, a Yamaha”.
“Humph…perhaps this one’s in tune”.

I’m not sure the Chief Mate of the RRS Ernest Shackleton was too impressed with my clarinet practice sessions in 2007, the last time I was on board.  But I’m told I should practice every day - lots of scales and arpeggios - so when I do my day job for the British Antarctic Survey on an oceanographic research ship in the Antarctic, the clarinet comes with me.  Unfortunately, this cruise is a very busy one, and opportunities for practice have been few and far between, certainly not daily.  And preferring to practice in solitude makes it especially difficult.  I’ve sought out a laboratory that’s rarely occupied, and sneak off there for the odd twenty minutes or so as often as I can manage.

The cold isn’t an issue, as the ship is heated to a comfortable temperature, but it can be exciting chasing the music around the lab when we’re in rougher seas. Luckily, we spend most of our time in the depths of the sea ice, which completely suppresses the waves.  The only problem then is the banging and crashing through the ice, which jolts and jars the ship in a much more disorientating way than the waves.

Music is important to everyone on board, yet there seem to be no other active musicians.  At one of our Antarctic bases, Rothera, we have a lively music scene, with a home-grown band called Nunatak giving regular performances.  In fact, they shot to fame when they featured in the Live Earth 2007 concert in July 2007 (Nunatek & Live Earth - British Antarctic Survey is a site well-worth visiting).  However, I seem to be the solitary active musician on board this ship, though I’ve seen guitars secreted in cabins here and there, including the Captain’s.

Ah well, on with the practice.  Mike, the Second Engineer pops his head into the lab.  “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I thought one of my engines had gone wrong”.