Sunday afternoon concert - in memoriam

I had eight bars rest in which to take this blip before picking up the mallets and carrying on bashing the bass drum! Composition (artistic, not musical) was not foremost in my mind!

I was invited to play at this outdoor concert at Vivary Park as a guest of Taunton Concert Band of which I was a member for a decade. It was in memory of the lovely Helen, the bass clarinetists, who died recently, and to 'inaugurate' a memorial bench for her, in 'pole position' beside the bandstand.

Clarinets heavily featured, of course, hence the music on the stand! Lots of sight reading, which is a little hair-raising when it's glockenspeil, cowbell or even humble triangle! The cowbell fell off the stand during this piece and did a solo all by itself, with awful timing. And there were battles with a brisk wind which does unhelpful stuff to music even with clothes pegs and windbars, and makes page turning a challenge. The sunshine, however, was wonderful and a little unexpected.

A very jolly audience and, apart from the park warden (who insisted that we couldn't park the trailer in the park for which the band leader has written permission, and said unpleasant things to us and refused to switch on the power supply), there was no rain on our icecream today, literally or metaphorically. Hurrah!