New CD at Barnes Festival

A first outing since the appearance of our new CD, Songs of Love and War at the opening concert of the Barnes Festival on Saturday... Only in its second year, it is already growing! - and a delight because of the hard work of Daniel Turner and Andrew Summers and their team.

We were introduced by that irrepressible local boy Gyles Brandreth & once he'd had his say, a lovely crowd in St Mary's Barnes welcomed us to the festival & it is a pity not to be able to see some more of this, as we are off abroad from tomorrow for a while...

We had the splendour of firstly giving, in the afternoon, a masterclass to the six St Paul's Boys School pupils who make up vocal group Motley Croon and then singing together with them in the rarely-performed 1913 piece by Gustav Holst (setting poetry of Walt Whitman from US Civil War time) - A Dirge for Two Veterans; also needing the talents of three trumpets, side drum, bass drum, trombone and bass, all also from St Paul's.  Thanks to their Director of Music Mark Wilderspin for his great help in preparing the guys for the performance. 
Very moving indeed it was...

Excellent to not only celebrate local boy Gustav Holst, but also Sir Tim Rice! (..and we did feel the love that night...)

We were joined on piano by the ever-excellent Chris Hatt.
Our rendition of Richard Stilgoe's bathetic celebration of the English cricket fan was all the more poignant as I was informed onstage that we had capitulated helplessly to New Zealand only a few minutes earlier!

All the more festive it was, as our dear friend Carole organised a party for our more dedicated followers before the concert... & so the church was not only full, but with many old friends there too...

Off to Ankara for a concert Wednesday, and then 8 concerts in Germany...