Safely at Helsinki Airport

Waiting to board the plane

We had a lovely send off this morning and will be emailing later to give a dedicated email address for you to send a selection of photos to be included in the trip DVD.

See you later!

Peter & HYM

Final Day

We finished our week with an eclectic programme of music in our final concert, ranging from the sublime moments at the end of Sibelius' "Pelleas and Melisande" suite to a massed performance of "ABBA Gold" when we were joined by several members of the local wind band.  After the concert we all had a party in the school.  Now we just need to get all the players, staff, instruments, luggage and passports back to the UK without incident.  Pray hard.

Peter

Hannah & Ion playing Bach conducted by Juhani

Some people took the party very seriously

extra video clip

Tom Davidson playing part of "HYM"

Here is another short clip from our concert in Kankaanpåå on Monday.  We hope to have a DVD of the whole concert to bring home.

Friday 31st August

Today we played 2 concerts in Kauhajoki church.  The first was to a few hundred school children in the morning and we played a selection of the more upbeat pieces in our repertoire, including "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse - featuring Finlay McGregor on distorted electric violin.  We then walked to the school for lunch before taking buses to a food festival on a farm a few kilometres away.  On our return to the church we had a workshop with Niina Kiprianoff, a violin teacher who is the head of the local music service.  Niina taught us some challenging clapping games before getting us to play through a selection of typical Finnish folk tunes.  The workshop was rounded off by everyone playing and singing a short excerpt form the Olympic Symphony which we performed last Easter.  This included all members of our ad hoc choir making the famous Ussain Bolt pose at the line "Faster than Dash"; to general amusement.

After what was probably our best meal of the week, in the local church hall, we had a final rehearsal with Junhani Numminen before our evening concert.  This was a serious and fairly heavy programme, including 3 movements from the Sibelius "Pelleas and Melisande" suite and 2 from the Bach double violin concerto featuring Ion Buinovschi and Hannah Gardiner.  Both of these performances (conducted by Juhani) were exquisite.  Other items in the programme included solos from Tom Davidson and Alex Rigby, Kodaly's "Hary Janos" Intermezzo and the finale from Dvorak's 8th Symphony.  These performances were stunningly executed, making the most of the rich acoustic in Kauhajoki church.  We rounded the evening off with "Moonlight Serenade" which is now sounding almost as good as the original "Boston Pops" recording.  The audience were very appreciative and a good time was had by all.  Every player was given a chocolate bar as a present.

Final performance tomorrow, back in Jalasjärvi, where we have been based, followed by a disco!

Peter Desmond

Today we had a very thorough rehearsal as well as some great workshops with Raine Rautanen (wind, brass, percussion and some strings - ABBA medley) and Juhani Numminen (strings - Bach double violin concerto).

Here are some clips from Monday's concert:

Thomas conducting "Crown Imperial"

"The Lord of the Dance"

more info

A short clip from our school concert today.

This is Alex Rigby playing the opening of Weber's Concertino in the second of our 2 short schools concerts today.  The playing of the orchestra continues to improve and they have given some stunning performances.  This evening we had a BBQ with the host families at a lakeside.  Various combinations of lake swimming, rowing, sauna and cooking sausages on a open fire were enjoyed by all.

Eve & Georgia, our 2 youngest members, cooking sausages

Very tired now........ more tomorrow.

Peter

The Trip to the "Devil's Nest" (Bunny Ears, Risque Sweets and Chocolate Boobs)

The calm moment before the scramble to the bottom of the hillock.

Sleeping Beauties! (Frances, Frankie and Will).

Turning the frog into a Prince.

The supermarket(!)

Charlotte screaming, again... 

The best Headgear in town

Frogs weren't always worn by choice.

On our first adventure into the wild woods of Finland, we were faced with a long intrepid journey into the bowels of the earth. In the 23 metres deep hole we met rare and poisonous frogs which now after being stepped on are a bit rarer. They may now also be too traumatised to function normally as are several of the group who were sporting the latest in the growing frog headgear industry, the hole will always be remembered by those lucky few...

Anna and Shona determinably facing away from the edge!

As are Luca, Bryn and Patrick.

It didn't seem so high from down here...

What you can't hear are the words "Don't leave us up here!" from Tom and Peter Austin (A local School's head of music).

The girl taking the superwomen pose is Izzie standing with Fraser, Ethan and Joe

After the traumatic frog incident there were then more steps to climb, all the way up the water tower were the holey floor let us all see just how far we could fall. And Eddie showed us how safety can be cool...

"Safety Swag"

We then got on the coach to go to what promised to be a shopping centre but was actually the biggest supermarket ever, there we had our first junk food of the trip, found moomin and angry bird sweets and bought Peter some presents (see title).

The one we all aspire to!

The (very very high!) view.

Our "best" photo!

We were taken back to the school on the coach and were picked up by our hosts, we then went back to our houses to in some cases walk cycle and explore but mostly (like us) to sleep! Then in the the evening the teachers and and the musicians (Frankie, Lucy, Jacob, Anna, Shona and me) who were lucky enough to be staying with the organisers were invited to Raine and Paivï's for dinner where we had an incredibly delicious meal and at the present moment the sauna and hot tub is filled with the teachers whilst we wait our turn!

Frances Bennett

Reflections on today from Eddie Krish (bassoon) and Claire Bowden (French horn):

Today was eventful. I woke up to my host clapping his hands together to wake Ben and myself up. I groggily sat myself up and immediately fell back down again. I’d had our hours of sleep and wasn’t feeling up too much. Fortunately my ever-helpful room neighbour Frankie was there to slap me in the face in order to wake me properly.  I can only guess he was sore after I’d won three euros off him in last night’s blackjack episode.

We made our way downstairs to find a huge breakfast awaiting us. We devoured the delicious spread and got ourselves into the car to drive to the school where we had to meet the coaches and load up the stands, percussion instruments and our own instruments.

The coach journey was boring. The only excitement was picking up a mysterious red-headed lady. It was a real disappointment when we learnt that she was actually a percussionist.

Once we arrived at the first school everyone was called upon to help unload the coach and once everything was inside the school hall we were told to unpack our instruments and tune up. We ran through the program for the first concert. That was as normal until I was reminded I was to be playing the tubular bells in “The Lord of the Dance”.

We got to the first concert about an hour after my spectacular performance on the bells.   It was largely successful, the only minor problem being the electric violin not being electric.   I think I can safely say however, that at that concert, I experienced my proudest and most nervous moments.

After packing up the orchestra, travelling to Kankaanpåå and repeating the same unpacking procedure, we were ready to rehearse once more.  It had already been a long day and most people were quite tired and quite hungry.

When our rehearsal finished we were banished out of site and Francis started an amusing game. It was basically ‘Lets see how many outstretched legs we can jump over before we brake a leg or Peter turns up. Thankfully, for the tour’s sake, Peter turned up and after he declined our invitation to join in, decided it was for the best to put a stop to it and ensure a trip to the A&E was off the cards.

Eddie Krish

The second concert was much longer and much fuller than the first. It contained the majority of the pieces we had practised, including the pieces for the three soloists. One highlight of the concert was when Tom Davidson went AWOL just before his solo piece. A brief pause, wherein Peter was heard quite clearly calling for the missing trumpeter, ensued. Luckily, he was located and the rest of the concert went as planned.

Our grand finale, “The Lord of the Dance”, was spectacular and met with a thunderous round of applause (as, indeed, did the others), and Peter promised that we would play the end faster (‘in under twenty seconds’, I believe, were his exact words). The audience greeted the second finish with another great roar.

Clare Bowden

All arrived safely

Everything went very smoothly with our journey. Check in at Heathrow was fairly painless and the plane arrived early in Helsinki, where we were greeted by two old friends from the school, who escorted us to our waiting coaches.  We left Helsinki at 4.30pm and arrived in Jalasjärvi at exactly 9.30pm, having stopped for a meal on the way as planned.

After brief introductions and locking of instruments in the school hall, all students left with their smiling hosts and nobody seemed at all anxious.

The only slight hiccup was the non-arrival of one French horn (as they say on the BBC, relatives have been informed) and one suitcase, the latter belonging to Rebekah our violin tutor who seems very relaxed and fairly interested in my offer to buy her some clothes out of the tour budget!

The Finn Air rep was confident that we will soon be reunited with the missing items and we can borrow a French horn in the meantime if necessary.

Tomorrow we will give our first 2 performances.  That will possibly be our biggest test, as we will probably all be rather tired and still a little under-rehearsed.  I am always very confident of the talents and tenacity of our young musicians, so look forward to reporting back positively tomorrow evening!

Best wishes to all

Peter Desmond

Welcome

FINLAND 2012

Welcome to the Haringey Young Musicians blog for our Symphony Orchestra trip to Jalasjarvi, Finland.  We plan to post messages to this blog on each day of the tour to share news of our musical adventures.

Rehearsal Day: Saturday 25th August 10am to 4pm (briefing 3pm to 4pm), Alexandra Park School

ARRIVE Alexandra Park School 6.30am on Sunday 26th August

DON'T FORGET YOUR PASSPORT!

Peter Desmond