NEW CD AVAILABLE
The NEW CD is now available and priced at £10.00.Plus postage and packaging.
The main feature of the CD is the music from Channel Four's The Secret Millionaire, which featured the band. The secret millionaire for the band was Carl Hopkins who donated £10,000 to the band. There will be a special booklet commemorating the band's journey with Carl.
To buy your copy contact Scott on 07956957382 or e-mail scott.meikle4@btinternet.com
Return to the Spring Festival!!
The Hares are delighted to announce that we have once again been invited to compete in this year's Senior Trophy competition at Blackpool in May. A delighted Scott received a phone call early last week with this exciting news which was relayed to the Hares at their rehearsal last Thursday. A few withdrawals from the contest had led to a reshuffle and our late invitation.
The test for this section will be Lalo's "Le Roi D'Ys", a fine old piece - and as we all know, oldies are best!! We will be looking for a much improved placing than on our sparkling and exciting performance of "Spectrum" last year, which caught the ear of many in the audience, but unfortunately, not the judge! Of course, this means that we will be working harder than ever (is that possible in Hare-world?) as no sooner will we finish the Area then we will be preparing for the Carnegie contest in Dunfermline in April and after a whistle stop tour of London and Ireland will need to get straight down to business! I'm exhausted just thinking about it and I still have to sort out the profiles yet...
We can't perform properly without a good audience though so we do hope that as many of you supporters and friends of the band as are able, will come and cheer us on at our forthcoming contests, we'd love to see you there!
Area Test Piece Workshop - 21st February 2010
The Hares were extremely pleased to have had the opportunity of working with the one and only Richard Evans yesterday in a day long workshop on the Area test pieces for the benefit of 4th, 3rd and 2nd section conductors.
The band were asked by the Northern Area Committee if they would be able to take some time out from their busy rehearsal schedule to assist and readily agreed, knowing that a day spent with Dickie was not to be missed! We assembled at the Chester le Street Masonic Lodge to kick off the workshop at 10.30 but not before Mr Evans decided to "wake up our brains" with some tricky warm up exercises. It soon became apparent that many members of the band were unable to count to seven (me included) which perhaps explains why we had so much trouble with Tristan....the excuse for most of us being that we weren't normally moving at this time on a Sunday morning! However we set to with the fourth section test piece - "Variations on Saint Saens Organ Symphony", a really beautiful piece of work which the band enjoyed playing and which will really stretch the bands in that section as it's quite a long blow (even by our standards!).
After a break for lunch (and I would like to put it in writing here that the corned beef pie was DELICIOUS), we started work on Labour and Love, the 3rd section test. Now, I've played this piece many times but never before had there been so many strange mental images for me after Richard likened our solo horn player to a "downtrodden slave", stripped to the waist and oiled up.... he did ask whether anyone in the section was willing to oil Jonathan up but sadly, my duties only extend to counting bars rest for him.
By the time we got to 2pm and started on the Kingdom of Dragons, the second section test, it was fair to say that the communal lip was well worn. Again, this is a deceptively difficult piece which caught us out a few times and will be a real piece for the second section bands to get their teeth into, but with some lovely moments in it, it will definitely be worth a listen for any band enthusiast. Indeed, all the pieces were enjoyable and if our rehearsal schedule allows, I may even be listening myself come the 20th March!
On behalf of the band, I'd like to say thank you to the Area Committee for inviting us to be the "guinea pigs", thanks to the staff of the Masonic Lodge for their excellent service throughout the day and thanks as ever to Richard who taught us so much and made what could have been a really arduous day into a memorable and extremely good humoured one! Feedback from the conductors who attended has also been extremely positive so thanks also goes out to them all for supporting the day - we hope you got what you wanted from the session.
Thank you Hares as well, for turning up and putting in such a good performance even in the midst of all our contest preparation! Watch this space for an update on our contest prep - coming soon!
the "Feed from the Form" - January 2010
We're well and truly back in action now, having kicked off 2010 with a fantastic awards night where the great and the good of Easington Band were recognised and rewarded. Although we had yet another worrying blizzard on the day, it didn't stop the hares, their friends and families turning out in force to celebrate and reflect on 2009.
The Welfare proved to be an excellent venue for the event with top notch catering and first class service from the bar - and as you know, these are always important considerations for us hares! Top class entertainer Malcolm Dougall kept us singing and dancing with renditions of everything from "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" to "YMCA" so even our elder statesman Dennis Todd was noted to be throwing a few shapes on the dancefloor! Big thanks go to Scott, Jo and Peter for their hard work in organising the night and also to our very glamorous hostess and Poet Laureate of the band, Keeley Brickle who did such a fantastic job as compere. A special awards night page is in preparation as we speak, with photographs and of course a full list of all our award winners - watch this space.
Area Update 2010
We are also delighted to report that we have renewed our historically successful partnership with David Hirst who will be at the helm for our preparation and performance at this year's Area Finals in Darlington. The band have always relished working with David and we hope that with his inspirational touch we will restore Easington to the status of Grade 1 Listed Building in the glorious heritage of England. And on the subject of the glorious heritage of England, we are also extremely pleased to report that renowned euphonium player David Scholes has joined us. We welcome David to the band and hope that this will be the beginning of a long and happy partnership. Again, watch this space for more player news......
Northallerton Christmas Concert 19th December 2009
Once again, the band made their annual trip down the A19 for a double dose of festive banding delight at the Hambledon Forum in Northallerton, performing alongside the Northallerton Male Voice Choir. We are delighted with our long running association with the choir and the people of Northallerton and though the weather was severe, the audience were much less so, professing themselves delighted with our varied programme of classics, Christmas music and solo performances of a virtuoso standard. We even managed to sell a couple of CDs, thanks to a rather pro-active marketing campaign from none other than our MD for the evening, Mr Roy Curran!
This year saw a change in the format however, as due to the very severe weather (the blizzarding snow had begun during the afternoon interval!) we were forced to re-arrange the evening and have the band perform the entire first half of the concert, enabling us to get away early to make the often perilous journey home through drifting snow and on to an A1 on which it was impossible to see which lane you were in! We did however manage to hear the choir perform such treats as the African trilogy, Softly As I Leave You and some traditional carols in the matinee performance. Thanks to the co-operation of Anthea and the choir, we made it home safely albeit slowly so thanks once again to the choir for being so understanding. We hope you all had a lovely and peaceful Christmas and look forward to seeing you again this December!
