Cartagena International Music Festival - day 2

Firstly, I must apologize for this post coming so late - if any of you have been following our Tweets or indeed our Posterous promises of many blog updates beginning at the very start of January, you may have been expecting this introductory blog all week! In my defence, we spent two days travelling, then had some technical wifi issues in our Cartagena hotel/rehearsal space, and well, since then, have just been incredibly busy (and having some fun too!).

So to catch you up, the story so far is that we left London very early on Monday morning. All the musicians arrived on time and there were no dramas with the cellos or bass, so all in all, a wonderful start to the tour! We flew direct to Miami, and arrived late Monday afternoon to a hot and sunny Florida evening. That night, a group squeezed into a mini bus (I'm sure we were at least two people over capacity...) which took us to South Beach. A few mojitos on the beach later, the very tired group piled back into the mini bus back to the hotel. 

Tuesday morning we were back to Miami airport for our flight to Cartagena.  Already in the airport queue everyone around us was speaking Spanish and I, for one, quickly realised that my Michel Thomas crash course in beginner Spanish CDs probably weren't going to get me very far in Colombia...

Arriving  in Cartagena on Tuesday evening, we walked out of the plane to incredible heat - around 32 degrees - and beautiful scenery and people, and for us first timers, it hit us how special this tour was going to be.

Wednesday and Thursday have been packed days of rehearsals. The management team have been sorting out various inevitable teething problems with music, schedules, lighting, chairs, etc. And the musicians have been working incredibly hard and are making an absolutely beautiful sound.  There have been many happy reunions of our players with the professional Colombian musicians they have worked with in past years, who are desk sharing with CLS musicians. We've met some of the soloists, who sound incredible, and have been soaking up the friendly, enthusiastic, massively positive atmosphere that surrounds the Cartagena International Music Festival. 

We often talk of the 'CLS Family' which is in essence, I suppose, a feeling which surrounds the orchestra, from the players, to the management, to the board and especially our audiences. Well, here in Cartagena, the CLS family is part of a much larger family which includes musicians and the hugely dedicated staff from all around Colombia.  What an honour it is to be part of this festival and I look forward to sharing with you all of our ups and downs over the coming week and a bit!  I promise some good pictures too, to bring a little bit of sunny Cartagena to London in the winter.

Our first concert is tomorrow evening and we're up bright and early for a dress rehearsal in the theatre, so I'd better get some sleep!

-Gillian     

Beating the winter blues

Last week, CLS musicians made two very special visits to brighten the days of patients at the Royal London Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

At the Royal London, CLS has partnered with Vital Arts, the arts organisation for Barts and The London NHS Trust, which delivers arts projects for the well-being of patients, staff and the wider hospital community.  So far, we have had four sessions, working on two elderly wards of the hospital, with two CLS musicians playing for patients in their beds. Our last session, on Wednesday of last week, featured Christmas favourites and war-time songs including Lambeth Walk, It's a Long Way to Tipperary and We'll Meet Again. The session was almost cut short, due to one of the wards being closed to visitors because of a sickness bug, but we improvised and spent the remaining time in two of the hospital's waiting areas. This proved to be a great success, spreading the Christmas cheer far beyond the two wards we planned to visit.  The success of our final session means that we will be be continuing the partnership with Vital Arts in 2011, planning a series of visits to provide music in hospital waiting areas and the elderly wards.

Our weekly session at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) had a special Christmas feel for the end of term last week. We've been working with the Hospital School at GOSH for the past 12 years, and currently two musicians visit the wards and the school every Thursday during term time. Last week, children in the Hospital's Activity Centre created their own Christmas rap, with the help of CLS musicians and some stellar percussion playing by nurses and teaching assistants.  From January we will be spending more time on the wards,reaching more children and their families who always welcome the distraction and smiling faces of our musicians.   

Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday season. Look out for lots of updates in early January from the Cartagena International Music Festival in Colombia.

-Gillian, CLS Education Manager

Crash, Bang, Wallop... with Steel pans!

I’m off this evening to meet once again with the wonderful Ebony Steelband who are joining CLS for our Crash, Bang, Wallop! Family Concert this month.  Our presenter, James Redwood, has been working on an arrangement of a traditional steel pan tune which will bring together the Orchestra with the group from Ebony, bringing these two types of music, which are normally thought of as very different, together for a joint piece.  At our last meeting with Ebony we heard them play their own version of Pachelbel’s Canon which we loved so much that we convinced them to play it as part of the concert, paired with a traditional calypso.  Crash, Bang, Wallop! has always been about introducing children and families to the wonderful world of classical music, but through this and other musical partnerships, we’re broadening what that means, sharing and blending musical genres from around the world.  We’re so looking forward to working with Ebony – I can’t wait for the CLS musicians to hear Pachelbel on the Steel Pans!

 

Join us if you can, Sunday 28th November, 12 noon, Cadogan Hall.  Visit www.cadoganhall.com for ticket information.

 

-Gillian, Education Manager

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