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MabelJane
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« Reply #30 on: 14:42:52, 17-05-2008 » |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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George Garnett
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« Reply #31 on: 17:59:47, 17-05-2008 » |
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George Garnett (not actually my real name either but in all other respects me) - was born just 13 days before Ron Dough in the early 1950s. When Moderator Dough was waving his chubby little legs in the air in the Isle of Wight, the young Garnett was gurgling and waving his in the air in the bracing sea air of North Kent. One Ancient and one less Ancient University later (philosophy and mathematics) he found himself largely unqualified for gainful employment and so became a civil servant. Worked in various Government Departments over the years, wandering aimlessly like The Flying Dutchman of Whitehall from interesting looking job to interesting looking job. Now more or less retired but still does the odd thing for the Cabinet Office if and when asked. Music has always been important but is neither an expert nor a practitioner. Feels privileged, though, to be allowed to join in discussions here with those who are and can't believe his luck in getting a free musical education in the process.
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« Last Edit: 21:34:22, 17-05-2008 by George Garnett »
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SusanDoris
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« Reply #32 on: 19:46:19, 17-05-2008 » |
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Like George Garnett, I think it has been a real privilege, both on the BBC Radio 3 message board and then here, to have learnt so much about music and composers, both classical and more modern. Played the piano and sang a lot; always had music running along somewhere in my mind. Married, divorced, became a teacher where playing the piano was very useful. Two sons, both now later 40s, one married, two lovely granddaughters. I am therefore an ancient person, but tap dance weekly = reason for avatar! ( Not my feet though!) I am now learning how to do a personal web site but only a few of the links go somewhere at present. I don't post a lot, but call in fairly regularly to read what's going on. Had a bit of trouble with the computer last week, but a very helpful young Microsoft tech support phoned me several days in a row to help sort things out. I think this thread is a good idea, because it's something we can refer to when we can't remember who does what. |
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MabelJane
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« Reply #33 on: 19:57:49, 17-05-2008 » |
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I am now learning how to do a personal web site but only a few of the links go somewhere at present. Thank you for sharing this with us, Susan. Great to know that you have magnified writing on your screen and a voice - technology can be brilliant when it works! Good luck with developing your website. And keep those toes and heels tapping! |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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martle
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« Reply #34 on: 19:59:27, 17-05-2008 » |
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Green. Always green.
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Eruanto
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« Reply #35 on: 20:22:48, 17-05-2008 » |
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Eruanto is one of the younger members of the community, currently studying piano at Dracula's castle behind the Albert Hall. However he comparatively rarely listens to piano repertoire, preferring orchestral music, especially that with length (  ). Also plays the organ. As a singer he has appeared at the Proms and Glyndebourne, among others, although such times are now past. Tourniquets: Tolkien-obsession (as his name and current avatar show), off-the-beaten-track religious views, walkin' in the rain, dirty humour. |
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« Last Edit: 15:03:22, 18-05-2008 by Eruanto »
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"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set"
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richard barrett
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« Reply #36 on: 20:24:29, 17-05-2008 » |
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Seconded, MabelJane and martle. This is turning out to be a very nice thread indeed.
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Daniel
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« Reply #37 on: 02:40:33, 18-05-2008 » |
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After an unremarkable start in state education, I then appeared briefly and unremarkably at a non-ancient university in the south west of England , which supplied my life with a bevy of remarkable people. I continued unremarkably in London, meeting more remarkable people including some musical/filmic heroes, then a lady that I knew said one day you really should try teaching the piano, and although at first I wasn't interested she got some people to phone me and I decided to give it a go. Within the space of two months friends of this first family, and then friends of theirs and so on had asked me to start teaching them, which meant I was very busy oliver sudden all of a sudden.
I got all the kids together quite soon to give a small concert to their parents in my cleared-out bedroom where my piano resided (we got 80 people into one small room that afternoon!). I asked the kids to write their own programme notes. Some kids drew pictures, some made sincere attempts to capture the spirit of the pieces they were playing, in words. One boy wrote that when he played his piece "I always imagine a sheep standing on a sofa shivering and then all of a sudden jumping off" and when I saw this I thought yes, that's my kind of music criticism! I have continued to be inspired by such open-minded attitudes ever since in my teaching, and have continued to be unremarkable.
I am about the same age as Nigella Lawson, but do not have black hair, am (sadly) not a talented cook, and resemble her in no other way that I know of.
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #38 on: 08:45:54, 18-05-2008 » |
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I was, apparently, conceived at Expo '70 in Osaka, or at least so I'm told by two people I know quite well who were present and whose testimony I have no reason to doubt. Karlheinz Stockhausen was also in town but as far as I know this is a complete coincidence.
I was then born, the following March, in a house in Trimley St Martin (it's between Ipswich and Felixstowe). This little accident was in those days enough to entitle me to British citizenship which later proved very helpful. My (Australian) parents then returned home with a little Ollie in tow. I grew up in Melbourne, like Daniel unremarkably although there were some amusing incidents. (Apparently my first word was 'switch'.) A clarinet first came my way at the beginning of high school, partly for musical reasons, partly as a possible measure against my asthma. Correctly, no greatness was prophesied and some teachers attempted to dissuade my parents from having me continue with the clarinet on the grounds that my embouchure appeared unsuited. (The fact that many noted teachers and performers differ on the amount of lip in the mouth seems not to have troubled said teacher.) My parents saw no reason to pass on this news and the sentiment that 'since he seems to be enjoying it he may as well keep going with it' has accompanied my musical efforts to this day. They have also remained unfailingly supportive, however bewildered they were at all the funny noises which from time to time was very.
My undergraduate time was nothing particularly special although I did somehow manage not to lose along the way the attitude that playing twentieth-century music (which at that stage was as new as music got) was self-evident. Near the end of said undergraduate time I and some friends put together an ensemble to play a piece by Roberto Gerhard. The prime mover in this ensemble was a guitarist and through him I came into contact with another guitarist who ran (and still runs) a new music ensemble by the name of ELISION. That ensemble was 7 years old at the time and is now 22 and I'm still playing in it.
Various other things followed of which the most important was six months spent at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart in 2002. In one week there I managed to meet a French actress and an Australian oboist. One thing led to another and the other to yet another and for a couple of years I commuted between Paris and Köln (the latter as a member of the ensemble musikFabrik). A few personal but no significant musical upheavals later I now travel far too often between Köln and lots of other places.
There is further professional information to be had but I think Mr Google is now in a position to provide most of it.
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #39 on: 09:36:17, 18-05-2008 » |
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I was born in Bournemouth and raised in the New Forest. Coming from a non-musical family, my first real exposure to classical music came through hearing our school orchestra. I was quickly hooked, but just as a listener at that stage.
I trained as a primary teacher at Winchester and now live and work there, taking photographs to post here just to make martle homesick! I learnt to read music in my late twenties and took up the clarinet, which I now play far too little due to time constraints/ work pressures. Opera is a great passion, especially the works of Verdi. I have a CD collection which is far too large for the size of my house, but proved useful in Syd’s Repertoire Test thread! I also love Russian music. These boards are a mine of information and CD recommendations, but a drain on the wallet when the credit card gets itchy!
I first appeared on the R3 messageboards under my real name, but the moniker Il Grande Inquisitor appeared during the Musical Connections quiz after much ribbing from martle, Anna and mahlerei…it sort of stuck. I can usually be found torturing folks on the New Musical Connections quiz here, largely because I’m better at setting then solving them.
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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rauschwerk
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« Reply #40 on: 10:43:16, 18-05-2008 » |
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When I was in my teens, my science teacher advised me to become a musician, while my piano teacher advised me to become a scientist. That says a lot.
Born in 1945 in Northampton, I was a bright lad and showed early musical promise. At 7 I was with an excellent teacher who had studied with Solomon. That came to an end far too soon when the family moved to Malaya for 2 years. The rest of my musical education was characterised by indifferent teaching and lack of encouragement. The result was that by the time I was 18 I decided I had no talent for music in spite of some evidence to the contrary. I read engineering at two redbrick universities and, achieving a Master's at 27, went to work for BT Research Labs where I remained for 21 years. Not a distinguished career there, but I did publish a few papers on undersea optical fibre systems in peer-reviewed journals.
Somehow I got to 18 without singing in even a half decent choir (brought up in the wrong Christian denomination). It was therefore a revelation to sing Britten's War Requiem in Bristol in 1965. After that I knew I should always be a fanatical choral singer. On moving to Suffolk in the 70s I found myself in great demand as an accompanist (not much competition, frankly) and hurriedly got my fingers back in order. I had the good fortune to play for Fanny Waterman in 1979 and her compliments allowed me to believe that I could play the piano after all. By this time I had co-founded a male voice quartet which quickly became very good. Over the years this metamorphosed into an 8 voice a cappella group with a very wide repertoire.
Aged nearly 50, I became a victim of BT's massive redundancy programme and (not altogether wisely) decided to make a go of being a freelance musician (in Suffolk??? I hear you cry) - teaching, performing, running music appreciation classes. Having always been a keen dancer, I discovered Scottish country dancing about 10 years ago, and that is now my main leisure activity. I married wisely just over 40 years ago and have three adult children.
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #41 on: 12:17:33, 18-05-2008 » |
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I chose the name "strinasacchi" (not my real name, which isn't quite as long) in honour of the late 18th/early 19th century violinist Regina Strinasacchi, of whom Leopold Mozart said, "She plays no note without feeling, so even in the symphonies, she always played with expression. No-one can play an adagio with more feeling and more touchingly than she. Her whole heart and soul are in the melody she is playing, and her tone is both beautiful and powerful." This tribute serves as an inspiration to me, especially as it took me a while to get around to deciding to dedicate my life to playing the violin.
I grew up in a house full of music, although not on a so-called professional level. My parents gave me a proper record player (it was the '70s) before my second birthday, we always had a piano in the house, and my father's interest in early music inspired him to assemble a Zuckermann harpsichord (some of my earliest memories are of peeking carefully into a room full of harpsichord bits). My dad taught me some recorder (and also got me to make hilarious noises into a cornetto), my mom taught me some piano, and I started playing the violin when I was seven.
I was lucky to have excellent teachers from the beginning and progressed quickly. Meanwhile my schooling took place in fairly indifferent public (that's American for "state") schools, vastly supplemented by tutoring by my academically-minded parents. That helped me escape school a couple years earlier than normal, but it meant I faced the decision whether to go to conservatory at the tender age of 15. Unwilling to give up my academics, I headed instead for the relatively ancient universities of the United States.
While I enjoyed studying English, I also ended up in law and dithered with the temptation of lots of money at the expense of my happiness. I decided to go with happiness and came to London to study with David Takeno. I also started studying "baroque" violin with Rachel Podger, falling in love with the repertoire and finding the actual violin provides musical and physical suppleness I had never quite found in the "modern" instrument. I've been in London for nine years now, freelancing with various of the established period instrument groups and trying (not terribly successfully yet) to get together groups and projects of my own.
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martle
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« Reply #42 on: 22:23:24, 18-05-2008 » |
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Strina, after all these months I hadn't guessed you were American! Which 'relatively ancient' universities did you go to? And was Rachel Podger as good a teacher as she is a violinist??
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Green. Always green.
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increpatio
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« Reply #43 on: 23:13:53, 18-05-2008 » |
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I named myself on a whim after a piece by a one C.V. Alkan. Was born in the west of Ireland. I had a bad piano teacher for 10 years back in my home town, and an enormously good one for three in Dublin, where I sort of crashed and burned towards the end, but not without learning an enormous amount of stuff along the way.
I do occasionally write music, and have an interest in things music-theoretic. The advanced counterpoint & fugue course that I crashed last year was pretty much one of the highlights of that year, along with the composition group I was a part of (which has since disbanded).
I'm currently taking a break from my training as a mathematician. Though it's looking more and more likely that I will not return come October, things are by no means settled yet. I have no idea what I might do otherwise.
(This page is turning out to be quite interesting indeed, so I felt I aught add a contribution of my own)
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Andy D
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« Reply #44 on: 00:20:52, 19-05-2008 » |
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My name really is Andy D, with a few extra letters. When I edit concert programmes, one of the hardest things is to condense a composer's or musician's biography into a few sentences, but it has to be done. Here is my biog:
I.....
Musical enthusiasms: Feldman, Robert Simpson, Hendrix, Fall, JS Bach, Ivor Gurney, Rory Gallagher, Andy Kershaw, Finzi, Schnittke, Neil Young, Aldo Clementi, Messiaen,......
Photography: was very into it in 70s/80s, totally lost interest in 90s but I'm really back since I got 2 digital cameras in 2004 & 2006.
Computers: worked with them for years as analyst and programmer. Didn't actually buy one until 2001 (the awful Windows ME was on it) - I've still got it though it's now running Ubuntu & Kubuntu. I've now also got an Evesham Desktop running Windows XP and a Dell Ubuntu laptop.
Food: been veggie since about 1987/8. Used to grow lots of my own veg on an allotment but now concentrating on toms/peppers/chillis/herbs.
Cricket: just love it, spend most of the summer watching it at all levels except international.
[more to follow]
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« Last Edit: 22:34:42, 01-06-2008 by Andy D »
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