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