Margaret has been busy writing a bumper edition of our newsletter with lots of lovely pictures so please have a look.
See our newsletter section for copies of this and previous years.
Mar 082020
Oct 102019
It’s the start of the new year here at Everyone Matters and we’ve certainly started as we mean to go on!
Music Matters
Our lecture-recital series started this month. It was such an amazing way to start the season as we had Margaret giving us such an interesting evening with her Clutter of Clarinets starting with a surprise on her bass clarinet playing the opening to the Sugar Plum Fairy-hardly ever noticed with the familiar tune on top. Moving on to her basset home we heard music from Mozart and Mendelssohn who both liked the basset horn then on to the A and Bb clarinets where Margaret showed her dexterity swapping between the two and managing not to lose her reed! The C clarinet has a real lightness and its surprising its not more widely used in orchestras as it blends so well with flutes and oboes. On to the D clarinet which showed where the name clarinet comes from-little trumpet then a contrast with Margaret’s weapon of war-otherwise known as the Eb clarinet though giving an eerie quality to Ravel’s Bolero. Finally the high Ab clarinet-a tiny simple clarinet used in film scores and in the military. A wonderfully intimate and informative start to the season.
We have a lot of great lecture-recitals coming up, with such a variety of topics. Tickets are £12, or you can buy a season ticket for £57, which is great value. They are held at The Chapel at Whitgift House in Croydon at 7 for 7.30. Please see the attached document for more details about the speakers and the venue.
Clarinets in the Community
Every year, Margaret and David Campbell run the David Campbell Clarinet Weekend at Benslow music. This has been going on for several decades, and normally ends in a final performance at Benslow of the different groups that have been practising. However, this year to celebrate Benslow’s 90th anniversary, the final performance was taken to the Leonard Cheshire home in Hitchin.
33 performers went in total, and it was a superb concert. They have a large activities hall which meant there was plenty of space for wheelchairs and a tea table, meaning many of the residents could attend the concert.
The feedback has been brilliant and Benslow wrote a lovely piece about the weekend on their website; https://www.benslowmusic.org/index.asp?PageID=2725
A September Music Cocktail
One of our big events this month was our cocktail evening at Langley Park School for Boys. Margaret has been doing this for many years now, and it was as successful as ever.
The event was tied across two days, with several concerts given in care homes during the day, leading to the grand performance on Tuesday Evening. We are very proud of the Langley Boys as they were all very polite and engaged with the residents, with one comment sating ‘the boys were smartly presented and so smart.’
Margaret also decided to link a care home seminar to the performance, to give Margaret and care home activities organisers a chance to discuss what they all want from the concerts Margaret gives. It was a lovely evening, and enjoyed by all that attended.
Thank you to the Good Luck Charitable Trust for helping us with the funding for these projects.
Conversation Pieces
Margaret has different layouts of the concerts she gives care homes. One of the popular styles is her Musical Menu. On the 11th and 12th of this month, Margaret and Jonathan Duke on the piano headed out to several care homes with their musical menu.
We got lots of positive feedback from the concerts performed in the care homes, with all saying they would love to have more concerts from us in the future. We were also thanked for giving such a ‘beautiful concert!’
Arts in Care Homes
The BBC holds a Music Day every year and this year it was on the 26th September. We were very excited to be a part of it this year, and part of its Music and Dementia Initiative. The care homes and day centres we visit often look after people with dementia so it’s exciting to be part of something bigger that help provides music to those suffering from dementia as we know first hand how powerful music can be.
For this project we worked with Langley Park School for Girls and Langley Park School for Boys. After an afternoon of rehearsing on the Monday, the girls and two professionals, along with Margaret, performed two concerts on Tuesday. They were given at Glebe Court Nursing Home and Bertha James Day Centre. Bertha James Day Centre is always a pleasure to work with, and it’s clear they enjoy having us come to perform for them, as they are already getting a request in for a Christmas concert!
Following these two concerts, the professionals headed off to Baycroft where they met the Langley Boys musicians. They then gave a concert here, followed by a tea and chat. Baycroft are also keen to have us back, which is the biggest complement they can give us!
It was an honour to be part of this initiative, and are proud to be supporting it! Thank you also, to John Morris’ family, as these concerts were given in memory of him, and all that he did.
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Sep 032019
As it’s summer, Margaret has been having a little rest before the next year comes in. However, she’s still been busy behind the scenes, organising lots of events coming up.
Summer Music
We did have one event this month. Charlotte Bartley, one of the Lakeside Clarinet Quartet who have performed for us a few times before, and one of her friends, Elena Smirnov, performed at the Beth Ezra Trust and Wilhelmina House. Elena played the piano and then Charlotte played various different recorders, which I think the residents really enjoyed as not many people know about all the different types, and the clarinet. They performed some lively music, which all the residents of the care homes enjoyed. I think they also really enjoy the informal tea and chat that occurs afterwards as it gives them a chance to talk to the performers, and share memories the music has sparked and tell stories they have such fond feelings for.
Coming up later this month
We of course have the return of our lecture recital series, Music Matters, at The Chapel in Whitgift House. This begins on the 24th September with Margaret Archibald starting the season off.
Tickets are £12 on the door, or you can buy a season ticket for £57. More details are on the poster.
Coming up very shortly, on the 8th is a Clarinets in the Community project in Hitchin funded by Benslow. This is taking place in Symonds House Nursing Home, and should be a great afternoon.
A big evening this month is A September Music Cocktail on the 10th. To begin the evening, there will be a Q&A session with local care home managers where we can have a chat about how we can all make our concerts the best we can for our audiences. This will then be followed by a concert given to us by some young musicians from Langley Park School for Boys. The boys will have had two days of concerts on the Monday and Tuesday given in various care homes around the area.
Finally this month, is the BBC Music Day 2019, on Thursday 26th September. We are going to be a part of that as part of their Music and Dementia Initiative. We have several concerts in care homes on the 24th in partnership with Langley Park School for Girls.
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Aug 052019
It’s been a great month to finish the school year, with three big projects.
Bromley Reform Synagogue concert and percussion side-by-side project
We started off the month with a group of young musicians giving a family concert at the Bromley Reform Synagogue. The musicians, mostly university students that had worked with Margaret on projects in previous years, rehearsed the varied programme during the morning. After tea and cake with the audience, they gave an informal concert. In between the pieces, Margaret introduced all the young musicians and their instruments, making sure to highlight anyone that switched instruments or performed solos. The audience was also included in several pieces; they clicked, jingled bells and sang Drunken Sailor, adding Margaret’s carefully choreographed actions! I think both the audience and musicians enjoyed themselves!
Performing at the Bromley Reform Synagogue
Linked to this concert was a day of workshops for the Year 6s at St Nicholas School in Purley. This is a Special School for primary school children. We began the day by performing the pieces then we got the children involved. Margaret had devised a schedule that meant that all the children got a turn playing percussion in various pieces. The improvement the children showed was incredible. They started the day off hitting the instruments with very little musicality, but by the final performance to the rest of the school, they were playing their assigned instruments in time and with great confidence. I hope the children enjoyed their day of music, and it gave them an escape from their daily routine.
We hope we can return to St Nicholas School again as these projects seem to work really well. All the young musicians seem to love working with Margaret and are keen to sign up for these projects. Thank you also to Sarah Hatch and Elaine So – your work with the children on the percussion is invaluable and you really help the students become part of the music! Thank you also to Clare Britton, one of our new trustees, who helped not only behind the scenes in the admin tasks for these projects but also with the children!
Conversation pieces; Words and music uniting the generations
Everyone Matters was left a monetary contribution in memory of John Morris. John was a great music lover who supported the London Mozart Players and Everyone Matters. With this money, and in memory of John, two days of Margaret’s ‘Conversation Pieces’ project was organised in association with Hayes School.
Organising music into musician’s pads
A group of students had a morning of rehearsals and then visited St Mark’s Church Lunch Club, Park Avenue Care Home, Bertha James Day Centre and Prince George (Masonic) Duke of Kent Home to give concerts.
Even though we always think our concerts have gone well, and the students tell us they enjoyed themselves, it’s always so pleasing to hear that the residents have enjoyed it too.
We got some very nice comments from the residents at Prince George (Masonic) Duke of Kent Home. Most of the residents there have dementia, and the home manager said that it was lovely to see most of the audience not only awake, but also interacting! One resident even came in from gardening to hear the “wonderful” music!
The Lifestyle Coordinator of Park Avenue Care Home also told us that the residents had a wonderful time.
Getting feedback like that is so uplifting because it reminds you how powerful music is. These projects are also so good for the students involved as it gives them opportunities to perform, and with very little rehearsal time, and practices their social skills because we always finish our concerts with a chat with the residents. This gives the students a chance to mingle with people they wouldn’t normally chat to, and the audience to interact with the performers and find out more about who they are.
We hope John would like how we are remembering him.
Rutherford School Summer Club
Every year Margaret goes to Rutherford School to provide a day of workshops to the children that attend the Summer Club. Margaret always devises a new project based their theme for the year. It is a lot of work but it always goes down well with the staff and children enjoying themselves.
The children play the percussion with the help of the staff whilst Margaret plays the clarinet or piano, and Katie Clemmow a music therapist, plays the oboe, cor anglais or piano.
In one piece, the children very successfully added jungle animals and a rainstorm sequence with an assortment of percussion instruments. In another piece they tried to get the children to add harmony using combi-bells, which wasn’t totally successful to begin with. However, with some quick thinking, Margaret worked out a way to indicate which students should play when, and then it all came together very nicely!
Even though there were fewer student this year due to the hot weather, everyone enjoyed themselves, and we hope to keep returning to Rutherford School.
We’d also like to thank Katie for all her hard work in helping to organise this project!
We have a well deserved rest in store for August, until the end of the month. There is then lots in store for September!
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Jul 092019
Midsummer Music
The main event of this month was the glorious Midsummer Music on the 21st June.
Prior to the big performance at Ripley Arts Centre, Margaret and her troop of musicians; Maya Magub, Jonathan Duke and Clara Heffes, gave concerts in three different care homes. On the Thursday, after a morning of rehearsals, they travelled to Lavender Oaks Care Home in Sutton to give a performance, followed by their usual tea and chat. On Friday, they visited Bertha James Day Centre and Coloma Court Care Home.
The big evening then began with drinks and nibbles in the beautiful gardens of Ripley Arts Centre. Over 70 guests then settled down to a varied programme in the elegant music room.
Margaret, Maya and Jonathan opened with Suite Op.157b for violin, clarinet and piano after the incidental music Le voyageur sans bagage by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). Milhaud was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century composing incidental music for plays and films and this suite comes from the music he wrote for the play Le Voyageur where a WW1 soldier returns home suffering from amnesia – the missing baggage represents his lost memory.
The Lakeside Clarinet Quartet with Charlotte Bartley, Clare McEvoy, His Lam and Julia Raga Pascual then treated us to the Histoire Du Tango by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). This was one of his most famous compositions, originally for flute and guitar but works brilliantly with 3 Bb clarinets and 1 bass clarinet. The music gives the evolution of tango from the bordellos to cafes and nightclubs up to the concerts of today.
Maya and Jonathan then gave us Sonatina in G, Op100 for violin and piano by Anton Dvorak (1841-1904). Dvorak wrote this piece during his time in the USA. He wanted his 15 year old daughter and 10 year old son to be able to play it and wrote “ It is intended for youths, but even grown ups should be able to converse with it….” There is inspiration from Indian melodies and Negro spirituals and it has a nostalgic last movement where he longs for home.
To end the first half of the night, Margaret told us about the work of Everyone Matters with some very moving pictures, before everyone refreshed themselves with drinks and summery bites.
The musicians then entertained us once again: Margaret and Jonathan with Fantasy Pieces Op.43 by Niels Gade (1817-1890), a Danish composer from the mid Romantic period influenced by Mendelssohn and Schumann, yet stays true to his Scandinavian roots by bringing in Nordic folktales.
Maya’s daughter Clara will be a name to look out for in the future as she is an assured performer at just the age of 10. She first entertained us on the piano with Bach’s Minuet in G, Burgmuller’s The Little Party, and Bartok’s Children’s Game before switching to the violin to play the Concertino in the style of Mozart by Millies arr. Magub with her mother.
The Lakeside Quartet gave us a lively Rumba Sequence by Kazuhiro Morita (b.1952) a Japanese composer and arranger who enjoys reworking pieces and arranges anime scores.
Finally the whole ensemble assembled and gave us a rousing finale of Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho which ended a magical evening on the longest day of the year.
Thank you to all of you who attended and made this a very special evening.
Carnival Performance Workshops for St Giles School
On the 12th June, Margaret with her clarinet and Martin Smith on the violin embarked on a day of workshops at St Giles School, a school for children with very complex needs. There were four workshops, each an hour long, with 6 or 7 children in each.
Before any of her projects, Margaret always plans meticulously so that she can play as much music as possible, including listening and interactive pieces. For the interactive pieces, she will come with a big box or two of percussion and hand out maracas and shakers and bongos etc so that there is plenty for the children to hit and shake and really immerse themselves in the experience. The theme was Carnival, so the repertoire included songs and dances inspired by the Latin traditions of ‘Carnival’ and the percussion instruments used are typical salsa instruments of the Afro-Spanish-Caribbean music.
These projects in special needs schools have so many benefits for the children they are taken to. They allow children with sensory deprivation to experiment with exciting sounds and new tactile experiences, and encourage them to engage in social interaction and maintain eye contact. They allow the children to escape their mundane daily routines and enter a new, exciting world full of music, even for just an hour or two.
We’d like to say a big thank you to the St James’s Place Charitable Foundation for supporting this project and the rest of the series. These projects can make such a vast difference, and our work wouldn’t be possible without your financial help.
If you would like to help contribute to our work, please send a cheque made payable to:
Everyone Matters c/o Margaret Archibald, 21, Stone Road, Bromley, Kent, BR2 9AX.
Alternatively, you can make a direct bank transfer. Please phone, text or email Margaret for details – tel: 020 8464 1645; text: 07970 123105; email: margaret@everyone-matters.co.uk.
Any donations would be put to such good use and help give music to those who often need it most but can’t easily access it.
Make sure to follow our Twitter, @EMCharity, and Facebook, Everyone Matters, to keep up to date with all that we’re doing.
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Jun 122019
Although May was a quieter month on the project front, our artistic director Margaret Archibald has been very busy behind the scenes.
A big part of what’s been going on has been lots of meetings with various people. One exciting one was with Philip Emery about a possible pilot project in prisons. Despite the difficulties there’ll undoubtedly be in getting this project off the ground, it could be very exciting and rewarding. Hopefully we’ll manage to organise it and get the funding to carry this out as I definitely think it could be a great thing to do.
As many of you will know, Everyone Matters does a lot of concerts with care homes. We are trying to set up a seminar Q&A session with the activities organisers and managers of many care homes and day centres in September. We’ll be able to hear what the care homes and day centres want from us and they can hear what we need from them, and discuss ways that we can improve our concerts. This will then be followed by a cocktail party and music at Langley, that everyone will be invited to. More information will come out closer to time so keep an eye out for that!
For many years, Margaret has been doing a project with the boys at Langley Boys School in September, and it seems to have become an annual fixture which is great news for us! The initial conversations for this year’s have now started and it’s nice to know they enjoy our projects that they can’t wait to have us back!
In preparation for this partnership with Langley Boys School and a couple of projects with young musicians in July, Margaret has ordered a lot more music so we can expand our repertoire. I know some ABBA music has been purchased and I hope they are part of the line up in the July concerts as I am one of the musicans!
This month, we have our Midsummer Music. This will be a musical evening at Ripley Arts Centre. The Lakeside Quartet are playing, and they performed at our final Music Matters last term and were incredible so I’m excited that they’re back again so we can see more of what they can do. Margaret will of course be playing, this time along with Maya Magub on the violin and Jonathan Duke on the piano. There will also be refreshments which, fingers crossed, will be able to be enjoyed in the beautiful garden. This is always a very popular evening – so much so that we’ve had to move to Ripley, instead of Margaret’s house, in order to accommodate everyone coming – so it would be great to see as many people there as possible! Please R.V.S.P. to Margaret if you would like to come.
This event is free, but if you would like to make a donation to Everyone Matters, it would be greatly appreciated. We are always needing money to help make our projects a reality. If you would like to help contribute to our work, please send a cheque made payable to:
Everyone Matters c/o Margaret Archibald, 21, Stone Road, Bromley, Kent, BR2 9AX.
Alternatively, you can make a direct bank transfer. Please phone, text or email Margaret for details – tel: 020 8464 1645; text: 07970 123105; email: margaret@everyone-matters.co.uk.
Any donations would be put to such good use and help give music to those who often need it most but can’t easily access it.
Make sure to follow our Twitter, @EMCharity, and Facebook, Everyone Matters, to keep up to date with all that we’re doing.
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
May 052019
Music Matters
The last Music Matters of the season was held on the 2nd April. To finish off the season, the Lakeside Quartet performed a thrilling programme of dance music. The Lakeside Quartet is made up of four postgraduate students from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; Hui Lam Lo, Charlotte Bartley, Clare McEvoy and Julia Raga Pascual.
The music they chose was varied, ranging from the tango to Jewish wedding music. We were all amazed at how tight they were and how well they portrayed the different styles of music. We thoroughly enjoyed our evening.
The Lakeside Quartet
The Lakeside Quartet and Margaret Archibald
Music Matters has now finished until September. We would like to thank all the musicians for providing us with such enjoyable and interesting evenings; Whitgift House for letting us use their beautiful chapel; and Margaret for organising the whole series. We look forward to the next series with anticipation!
The Children’s Trust
We had a great day at The Children’s Trust holding workshops for children and young people with brain injuries. Everyone involved had a great day, and although the children were given specific time slots, many stayed after their allotted time to create a rolling day of workshops.
The aftermath of our workshops at The Children’s Trust
The children and young adults were helped to play an assortment of percussion instruments, such as the bongos, claves, maracas, egg-shakers and guiros. They also got to pretend to be Morris men as we attached bells to their wrists, which I think everyone loved!
On top of adding some rhythms to music, they could also add Tonic-Dominant harmonies to three Latin-American tunes with the help of combi-bells. These are bells that you can strike, like a desk bell, or shake.
They could listen and play to a range of music, including traditional melodies from north and south America and from the UK.
We would love to thank The Children’s Trust for working with us on this day of music, and hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did!
Our AGM
We have also had our AGM for the past year. It’s always nice to look back on our year’s work and reflect on our goals to see what we have achieved, and what else we want to work towards. We also welcomed two new trustees, Clare and Chandrika, and myself, Alice, as the social media manager. We are all pleased to join the team!
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Apr 122019
Music Matters
This Illicit and Devious Business
Juggling accountancy, playing as a professional flautist, acting as fixer for orchestras and rock bands and a professorship at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, we were lucky to be able to entice Trevor Ford to come and speak about his “Illicit and Devious Business” at Music Matters.
We discovered that your basic job as a fixer is hiring and firing. The majority of musicians in this country are free-lance and, as music is a “No Vacancies” profession, every concert has to have exactly the right number of people. And you just have to trust that the right musicians turn up at the right place ready to play the right music in the right clothes! The fixer then also has to run the whole of the rest of the event from sorting out the stage, lights, seating, piano moving and often feeding hungry people in limited time.
Trevor linked music to his talk with Sibelius’ “The Swan of Tuonela” demonstrating just like swans, fixers are calm on top, whilst paddling like mad underneath! Mendelssohn’s Wedding March showed the similarity between concerts and weddings – years of preparation with lots of working behind the scenes, and then just like that, its all over in an hour or so!
Trevor’s last anecdote with Holst’s Jupiter showed what could have been a fixer’s nightmare; the first performance of The Planet Suite in 1918 was performed in the Queen’s Hall with Holst’s friend Adrian Boult conducting after only a two hour rehearsal-not bad!
Trevor Ford
‘Cellos Series Five
Mother and son, Julia Desbruslais and Tim Posner, gave an intimate family concert and talk exploring the history of music for two ‘cellos.
We started with Gabrielli, who composed a canon in the 1500s which was the first piece of music written for two cellos. The players play the same piece of music but one starts a bar after the other, and it is still musical!
Then, Boccherini, in the 1700s, was one of the first people to use the left thumb position on the fingerboard thus increasing the range and versatility of the cello. Knowing this fact it was fascinating to listen and watch it being demonstrated with a lovely sonata.
We were then introduced to Mozart’s Table Music. One piece of music, two cellists on opposite sides of a coffee table – what a thing to dream up!
We shot forward to modern times with a boogie and blues number from Aaron Minsky, a rock guitarist turned professional cellist who has written copiously to inspire young cellists and really showed the versatility of the instrument.
Our evening ended with a beautiful sonata by Romburg from 1767. Beethoven had great respect for the young composer and offered to write a piece for him but Romburg told him he preferred his own compositions-the precociousness of youth!
It was a truly magical evening.
Julia Desbruslais and Tim Posner playing Mozart’s Table Music.
We’d like to thank all the Friends of Everyone Matters and everyone who comes to Music Matters, as your donations and tickets help keep Music Matters going and what a wonderful and varied season we have had so a huge well done to Margaret for organising it all.
Music for two ‘cellos
These concerts were given by Julia Desbruslais and Tim Posner, both on the ‘cello. Julia has been working as the co-principal cello at the LMP for the past 25 years, and has recently become its Executive Director. She has a particular passion for inspiring and educating children, which has led to the production of TV workshops and compositional projects. Tim Posner, Julia’s son, is a student of Leonid Gorokhov at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover. He has won many awards, most recently being the Gundlach Musikpreis for his artistic excellence.
They performed a varied programme at four venues. This included the Jack and Jill Club in Croydon which is a club that provides musical entertainment and biscuits for the retired. They always love a good dance there, so the programme included some dance music for them to enjoy – and of course they danced to it! We have been asked to come again next year, so Julia and Tim were obviously a hit! Later that day, they also performed at Orford House, a beautiful care home n Sutton.
Julia and Tim were out the following day too. They gave concerts at St Cecilia’s Leonard Cheshire Home in Bromley. This is a home that provides care to severely disabled adults. They look after adults of all ages and whenever we visit there, we always have such heartwarming encounters. The final concert was at Bethlem Royal Hospital Chelsham House.
This series of concerts was supported by donations from the homes which we are very grateful for, and the Friends of Everyone Matters, which give us voluntary contributions to carry out our work.
Conversation Pieces – Musical Menus
This was a set of concerts given in two homes in Hitchin; Highbury Rise Residential Home which caters mainly for sufferers of dementia, and Elmside Methodist Home.
Margaret was joined by Sarah Butcher on the ‘cello for these two concerts. Sarah Butcher is passionate about chamber music, and was the Artistic Director of the Chamber Players for 10 years. She has played in many orchestras and ensembles, including the London Mozart Players and Glyndebourne Touring Opera Orchestra.
At Elmisde, the concert was given in the style of Musical Menus. Margaret prepares a ‘menu’ of different pieces the musicians can play organised in the style of music, such as ‘TV themes’ or ‘A trip to France.’ The audience members can then choose what pieces they want to hear. This is often old classics that they know well, or new pieces they haven’t heard that sound interesting. It’s a great way to interact with the audience and makes it more fun for them!
Music for Mother’s Day
To celebrate Mother’s Day, Margaret was joined by Jonathan Duke on visits to Burrell Mead care home in West Wickham and Greenhill (Missioncare) nursing home in Bromley.
They performed a variety of music, based on the theme of “Listen with Mother.” To fit with this theme, they started each of their concerts with “Are you sitting comfortably?” To which they got a delighted response of “Then let’s begin!”
Margaret and all the musicians have had a very busy month, and aren’t slowing down in April either, with lots of exciting projects planned. We’d like to thank all our funders and everyone that comes to Music Matters. You allow us to keep putting on concerts and running projects, taking music to the people who need it most.
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Mar 072019
Margaret’s birthday party
We enjoyed such an amazing party in honour of Margaret Archibald’s 70th birthday. Not only were we served a delicious dinner inspired by South African dishes, prepared by the wonderful Rory Baynes but we were also treated to some beautiful musical performances. Margaret herself, Julia Desbruslais and John Flinders opened the evening with Beethoven’s Trio Op. 11 which they had been playing last month in Care Homes for Everyone Matters. After the excitement of that piece, we had a lighter but just as entertaining piece set to the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Troll. This was such a fun number that was really brought to life by Rob Archibald who narrated the story and Margaret, David Campbell and Peter Nichols, who represented the three Billy Goats Gruff on their B♭ clarinets and Ian Mitchell as The Troll on the bass clarinet. And then to finish off the first half of the evening was an absolutely incredible performance of Il Convegno by Ponchielli by Margaret, David Campbell and John Flinders. I think all the guests were in awe at their performance of such an amazing piece of music. After dinner and of course cake, Rob Archibald’s rap group entertained us, performing their numbers. It was certainly quite a contrast to the music at the start of the evening, but no less entertaining. My favourite is still definitely baked beans rap!
It was certainly quite the party and the perfect way to celebrate all that Margaret has achieved in her fulfilled life!
Julia, Margaret and John perform Beethoven’s Trio Op. 11
The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Troll and the Narrator!
Margaret, John and David performing Il Convegno
Happy birthday Margaret!
Music Matters
We have had two more of our lecture recitals in this term’s series. They are always so interesting and so informative about aspects of music you never normally get to hear and learn about. This month, we were definitely treated to two amazing evenings of music!
Weber’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings
Margaret didn’t draw breath after all her birthday activities but gave us a wonderful evening taking us through this beautiful Quintet with her friends Nicoline Kraamwinkel, Martin Smith, Michael Posner and Julia Desbruslais. Margaret has enjoyed the challenge of this piece since her school days, where she first started studying the clarinet. She found it no less of a challenge in her last month of being 69!
Not only did Margaret challenge herself with the repertoire, but she also challenged herself by putting together a slideshow to complement her exploration of the piece in the first half – no mean feat for a 69 year old and well done to Rob teaching her lots of new tricks! She managed expertly and entertained us all with snippets from the instruments and analogies to Mickey Mouse, the Lone Ranger and William Tell.
Before we settled down to a wonderful performance of the quintet, we were treated to her 70th birthday cake, made and decorated by Julia and a glass of cava or elderflower!
It was lovely to see the Chapel packed as so many people came out to celebrate Margaret’s birthday once again.
And I’m sure it was a lovey end to the musicians’ day, as they had given a concert of the piece to the residents of Whitgift House earlier that day!
Happy Birthday Margaret!
A wonderful performance of Weber’s Quintet for String and Clarinet by Margaret and her friends
All that was left of Margaret’s birthday cake!
Learning from the Past: Building the Future
Colin Lawson, Director of the Royal College of Music, gave us an enthralling talk about the history of the College and its astounding historical collection and performed different pieces on period clarinets and chalumeau. The chalumeau is a single reed instrument, used in the late Baroque and Classical period and one of the predecessors of the modern clarinet.
Colin Lawson playing a classical boxwood clarinet
He started with Donizetti’s Study No. 1 – intriguingly named as he never got round to writing a second then we learnt a little about the Royal College of Music.
The College was bought in 1884 by the great grandfather of Edward Fox and was soon being left all kinds of objects. They now have the oldest known stringed keyboard in the world circa1480; the oldest guitar circa1581; Elgar’s tenor trombone which he largely taught himself to play; and a wonderful score of Mozart’s 1785 Piano Concerto where he had decided to write all the other instrument parts first. However, this meant he had to try and cram sixteen notes into a bar that was meant for just four – a complete mess and how the pianist ever read it is a thing of wonder. The museum re-opens in November.
With a finale of various pieces of music on period instruments taking us through the evolution of the clarinet we certainly had a memorable evening. The sounds these instruments make is captivating and wonderful to think we have a member of the Guild of Game Calling Devices to thank for the clarinet mouthpiece-its a wonder we don’t attract ducks from far and wide when we play!
Music Matters is a great way to learn more about music and to hear from some great professionals in this business. Tickets are £12 on the door (unless otherwise specified), and all money goes to running the series, or funding the many projects Everyone Matters runs throughout the year, offering music to the people that need it the most. They are every other Tuesday in The Chapel and Whitgift House, Croydon. More details can be found on the Music Matters page.
I’m looking forward to all March has in store for Everyone Matters. Follow us on Twitter, @EM_Charity, and Facebook, Everyone Matters, to get regular updates about all our work.
Alice Britton
Alice Britton is a former pupil of Margaret’s and has worked with Everyone Matters as a young musician for a few years, helping organise and give concerts with other young musicians in special needs schools and care homes. After learning about all the amazing work Margaret and Everyone Matters does, she wanted to help spread the word and so is now the Social Media Manager for the charity, running the Twitter and Facebook pages, and doing the monthly blog.
Feb 022019
We’ve now had two of our lecture-recitals in our Music Matters series. These are lovely evenings, where we are given an informal lecture about a specific area of music from an expert on that topic. Music, both recordings and live, is also always incorporated into the talk, which makes it so much more of an experience rather than just a talk.
David Juritz gave the first lecture, in which we were brought the music of the tango from South America. Not only did we learn about some of the techniques used in the dance and its musical accompaniment, especially those used on the violin and bandoneon, but we also had extracts played for us, both recordings of music from some of the most of prominent artists and composers of the tango, such as Astor Piazolla, and live performances by David Juritz himself. It was a very immersive and educational audio visual experience, and has definitely inspired me to listen to more tango, as I didn’t know much about it beforehand!
David Juritz giving us a demonstration of some of the techniques used on the violin.
Our second, with Paul Barritt, was very intriguing, exploring the use of birds and their calls in classical music. Despite the high prevalence of birds in music from cuckoos and nightingales to quails and blackbirds, many of us don’t realise they’re there. So now we know they are, and what to listen out for, we’ll be hearing the birds in all the music we listen to! This lecture-recital was a follow on concert, after a trip to the Surbiton Club for the Blind. The concert there went down a treat as well. We provided them with entertainment they don’t normally get, but as one resident said, it was ‘very illuminating and enjoyable’ which I think is a rather nice complement!
Paul Barritt enlightened us to the music of birds in classical music
We have also had our ‘Beethoven and Beyond’ concerts, in which we played some great repertoire, including Beethoven’s Trio Op. 11 and Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, in care homes in Bromley, Croydon and Kingston, with John Flinders on the piano, and Julia Desbruslais on the ‘cello. It’s great to perform music to such a receptive audience that really appreciate the music, and can’t easily access it themselves. One comment from one of the audience members was particularly lovely: ‘Thank you for such a wonderful afternoon. For many of us, the music touched different parts within us. Thank you for making it happen for us and for your kindness and thoughtfulness.’ This is why we do what we do here at Everyone Matters – music touches these people in a way words and other actions can’t.
The coming month looks just as exciting. We are starting the month celebrating Margaret Archibald’s 70th birthday. In honour of this occasion, we are holding a gala for Music Matters, where Margaret herself, Nicoline Kraamwinkel, Martin Smith, Mickey Posner and Julia Desbruslais will perform Weber’s Clarinet Quintet. They are also performing at Whitgift House in the morning, having a chat to all the residents afterwards as well.
Alice Britton