Top flight musicians

Do you know that feeling when someone asks directions, and you want to say "well I wouldn't start from here...."? In the interval of tonight's concert I was asked if I would photograph some of the musicians. I was not properly equipped for this job, with my little Sony in my bag, sporting a 35 mm lens. I wanted to say that I didn't have the best camera with me for the job. However, I had a go!

The lighting was all high up, so I worked out that a shot from the same level would result in horrible shadows on the faces. I climbed onto a chair and shot from above.

Here you see Alice Neary, Lucy Gould and Mark Simpson with Ben Frith at the piano. Mark was young musician of the year a few years ago. He was at the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival to play his clarinet, but mainly because his piano trio was being performed. It is very modern (Mum's words) and emotionally draining. You cannot fail to be disturbed by the music. He was inspired by 4 photographs by Richard Avedon. I found his choice a bit bewildering and there was no Q & A.

We started the day with a morning concert of Russian Music, "In the twilight of the tsars". I loved it all. In the afternoon, Jamie Lea, spoke about the Russian works in the festival. He is lovely, but has a soft spoken American accent, and I found it hard to distinguish his words. Consequently, I had the embarrassment of nodding off in the front row. Ouch! Sorry Jamie.

There were two evening concert: Mendelsshon, Simpson, Tchaikovsky then Simpson and Rimsky Korsakov. Amazing. I wish I had energy to write about them. We left the second concert at 11.05pm.

Time for bed.