Huntingdonshire Music School Association

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.

Having an impending ABRSM tuba Grade 4 exam looming I thought it might make sense to see what means of playing with accompaniment were available to me (short of kidnapping a piano player). I’d heard that somewhere there might be some download options available. Unfortunately for me, or rather anyone with a tuba, I didn’t find anything to help me. I did, however, find that the ABRSM does itself now have a ‘download shop’.

The ABRSM Audio Download Shop (http://www.abrsm.org/audioshop) provides the ability to download the piano part for Grades 1 - to 8 for the piano (!) [2009-2012], violin [2008 - 2011], clarinet [2008-2013] and flute [2008-2013]. Individual downloads are GBP 0.79 (79 pence) each or there’s an offer of 1 from each of the A, B and C lists (i.e. your complete exam) for GBP 1.95 available once per grade. Pretty cheap and a lot less hassle than trying to persuade the computer to create a backing track.

From the ABRSM site:

An expanding range

Launched in 2008 with recordings of ABRSM’s Piano syllabus (2009 & 2010), the download service has already proved highly popular with pianists. It now includes almost every piece from ABRSM syllabuses for Violin (2008–2011), Flute and Clarinet (both 2008–2013).

Amongst the huge range of repertoire, violinists will find Howard Blake’s jovial Dance of the Snowmen (from the famous animated film) at Grade 5, and can make new discoveries, such as the charming Sentimental Romance by Wilhelm Stenhammar (sometimes known as ‘the Swedish Elgar’) at Grade 8.

Individual movements from Koechlin’s 14 pieces were reintroduced to the Flute syllabus in 2008, and flautists at Grades 1, 2, 4 and 5 can enjoy these beautiful pieces. Grade 3 clarinettists can discover the highly effective transfer of Mendelssohn’s Song without Words. The Arabesque by Germaine Tailleferre (the only female member of the early 20th-century French group of composers, Les Six) is a wonderful find at Grade 7.

New features and offers

The preview facility allows all users to try out 10 seconds of any track before making the decision to purchase. Recordings of pieces set at Grades 1–5 are priced at 79 pence each, and those at Grades 6–8 are 99 pence each.

For the price of what is normally a single track, those purchasing Violin, Flute or Clarinet exam repertoire will actually receive two tracks: the exemplar recording of solo instrument with piano accompaniment, and a bonus track that includes just the piano accompaniment alone, for playalong practice.

This doesn’t help anyone on any other instrument, including the tuba. Are there any other sites out there than can provide accompaniment downloads for ABRSM (or Guildhall) exams?

The interview of the HUMS Classical Guitar Ensemble with BBC Radio Cambrigheshire’s Sue Dougan is can now be listened to on BBC iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p008zh1y/Sue_Dougan_in_the_Afternoon_29_07_2010/. It will be available for 7 days (usual restriction) which means something like the 2nd August. I wouldn’t leave it that late mind!

The interview starts at around 1h 15mins into the programme.

Enjoy.

PS The Interview features music from the recent CD, ‘El Huertos de los Olivos’ (The Olive Grove). A sample of the tracks from the CD can be heard on the Music Alley site (used to be the Podcast Music Network).