Was talking to nicki_flute yesterday (who's such a bad influence on me )

We were talking about events and suchlike, and a couple of ideas came up...

1) Find a festival (competitive or (ideally) not) and enter a load of forum members into it.

2) A large-ish clarinet day, along the lines of the Royal Northern's Saxophone day. This is ambitious, and therefore likely to be 2011 rather than 2010.

Does this sound good to some of you?

Could you enlighten us as to what the Sax day involves please so that we know what to expect in a clarinet day? (Sorry if this is a stupid question) Also I see from your signature strip that there is a Chester concert 19/9 . Are there details of this somewhere, or is it yet to be sorted out?

The Sax day is each November, in the Royal Northern's premises in Manchester. I go each year. There are opportunities to play in groups, participate in masterclasses, browse stalls, listen to frankly top class sax players, that sort of thing. I'd like the clari day to be similar, but it'll take a lot of work...

The Chester concert is indeed the 19th September. The web pages are done, and will be online imminently (am awaiting confirmation from one or two people that they're coming before launching). This is a chance to play a solo, and/or in a group, to a friendly audience of friends and family of performers. Time limit will be 5 minutes per 'act'. Performers of any standard, from pre-grade 1 to grade 8 plus most welcome. There will be an orchestral finale, and all participants are welcome to play in that.

Thanks for showing interest in the forum events, there's lots going on, hope to see you at an event soon

Barry, I realise it's not convenient for many forum members but are you aware of the clarinet convention that Leslie Craven organises at RWCMD? This seems to be along similar lines to the sax day you describe. Details are here. My daughter and I enjoyed a day there last year.

I am Halka.

It's not dissimilar to the sax day. Possibly it's a larger scale than the sax day, without the evening concert that the sax day has, and perhaps rather more in the way of performance opportunities.

It's generally not on a weekend I'm around though, and it's always dangerously close to, or indeed sometimes it's the same weekend as katyjay and AmandaL's Teddington concert.

I'd probably look at somewhere more accessible to more of the UK too.

Pencil in Saturday 17th April 2010 for a forum concert in Durham : Flossie, nicki_flute and I are looking very much at this date as a first choice.

I'm currently looking into venues (we have a shortlist of possibilities). The date is not absolutely definite yet, as it will be dependent on the availability of a suitable venue ( nobody wants to get married that day in any of the possibilities ), but it is our ideal date.

A large-ish Clarinet day sounds fantastic to me.

I'm also hoping to go to Leslie Cravens 'clarinet convention' next year - dates permitting.

I'll keep you informed smd



When I know the date of that, I'll put it on the 2010 forum calendar : which I'll put online late this month/early next.

I've just seen BM's post about a bellringing day, unfortunately, its not really possible, as the only suitable venues would have to be a church thats out the in the sticks, and even then away from houses, as it would cause quite a racket, and i doubt there would be enough people to actually teach it - its rather a difficult thing to teach, and you don't really get to a decent level until after about 10 weeks of tuition, so its not something that could really be covered in an afternoon. If there was a handbell event near a church, i suppose something could be organised for say 30 minutes open ringing, where those who wanted to could come watch, but I wouldn't really feel comfortable teaching anyone, as you can probably imagine its not the safest of activities when you first start. Even that wouldn't be too likely, as the only forum-associated ringers I know of are Myself, Andante in C & Husband and Sarah_123. So thats only four, unless sarah ropes in her parents .

Its a possibilty, but not a very likely one unfortunately.