The Ruskin Ensemble rides again

News of a concert in Bursledon by the wonderful Ruskin Ensemble - oh, wait a minute - I can't say that, I'm IN the Ruskin Ensemble...

But it's true all the same, there really is a concert in Bursledon by The Ruskin Ensemble. It is at the Greyladyes Arts Foundation on 27th September. The event is 'All True Love' - an Evening of Romantic Music Poetry and Prose. The performers are  Jane Gomm, violin; Jo Easthope, cello and me on guitar. We play music by Vivaldi, Paganini, Beethoven, Schubert, Granados; and, from the contemporary repertoire; pieces by Paul Lewis and Gordon Carr. Gordon Carr's piece is 'True Love' as in the event title, and it was commissioned by The Ruskin Ensemble and premiered a few years ago at the Brighton Festival. Here is the show described on the official Ruskin Ensemble website: All True Love: Passionate, stimulating, intimate. Romantic music, poetry & prose for violin, guitar and 'cello .  

Readings from D.H. Lawrence, Laurie Lee, Byron, Blake and Burns... with Music by Vivaldi, Beethoven, Schubert and Granados. Two works by British composers: Gordon Carr's, 'All True Love', which ingeniously entwines great love poetry with music, and, 'Trois Serenades', by Paul Lewis, complete this unforgettable evening.

I'm really looking forward to it and meanwhile having fun rehearsing the music. There's nothing like playing as part of an ensemble and it is very invigorating. I have never been to the Greyladyes Arts Centre before. It used to be a monastery I believe (so someone told me).

 

The Ruskin Ensemble

a younger incarnation - I still have that guitar though

I was reminded of all the tours we used to do when a fellow member of The Ruskin Ensemble, its leader, in fact, the violinist Jane Gomm, came to my concert at the Chequer Mead Theatre in East Grinstead last night.
For a  few years we went up and down the UK and did two or three tours in Scotland as well. I have a sudden nostalgia for the fun of performing those pieces!...
It was a time of collaboration, rehearsal, fitting cellos into small cars and playing composers I can't play as a soloist like Guastavino (I miss him), Vivaldi and Paganini. It was a time when I had only just begun going to the Edinburgh Fringe to perform, when I worried more about where I was in the Hampshire squash league than where my next gig was coming from and when I had more hair.
In April The Ruskin Ensemble is planning a concert in Kent - I will post more details when the arrangements have firmed up - and I am really looking forward to it.