I came back from Snape Maltings with two deviations from my normal route. The first was a stopover at the Lodge to continue to learn to make trumpets (I began making my first trumpet bell yesterday) with David Staff.

After staying at the Lodge, the next waypoint on my route home was a village near Thaxted in the Essex countryside - where I performed, on Thursday 20th June 2019, with the Brandenburg Sinfonia as part of a workshop and school performance at Henham and Ugley Primary School.

The performance involved a violinist, violist, cellist, bassist, clarinetist, bassoonist, trumpeter and percussionist from the orchestra and the ensemble was joined by two saxophones, a french horn, two trombones, ukuleles, guitars, a piano, a recorder, djembe and vocalists from the year 5 class at the school.

The workshop and performance featured music that had been composed by the students to fit with the words and the story that they had devised themselves. The students played, sang and narrated. The music tied in with the Renaissance dances from the Capriol Suite (of 1926) by Peter Warlock (1894 - 1930) and concluded with a haunting rendition of Thomas Ravenscroft’s (c.1588 - 1635) round: Ah, poor bird.

The event enabled these students to make music all day with professional musicians and the workshop highlighted the musical opportunities available over the next four weekends in the nearby Thaxted Festival which begins on Friday 21st June 2019, and it will include a performance by the Brandenburg Sinfonia.