PERFORMING GROUPS

An initiative that brings together primarily Norfolk-based professional musicians to perform concerts of chamber music featuring short pieces of good contemporary classical music cushioned by more familiar music from past centuries.

A first concert was played in 2002 as part of the North Norfolk Exhibition Group’s summer exhibition in Salthouse Church. An all-British programme for soprano, clarinets/saxophone, viola, cello and piano featured music by Mark-Anthony Turnage, Michael Tippett, Christopher Fox, Judith Weir and Jane Wells alongside three of Purcell’s Fantasias.

In 2003 On The Edge Ensemble string players joined forces with Nicholas Daniel and Caroline Dearnley from Britten Sinfonia to play a programme of British and French music in Cromer, North Norfolk. The programme included music by Gavin Bryars, Xenakis, Judith Bingham, Thea Musgrave and John Woolrich alongside arrangements of Machaut and Janequin.

2005 saw the most ambitious venture to date with a new programme entitled Across Europe and Back funded by an Arts Council lottery award. This concert programme for counter-tenor and string trio toured to four venues in Norfolk and Suffolk. Music by Arvo Part, Penderecki and Stravinsky and other twentieth century composers wes performed alongside Haydn and Bach. The performers were Derek Ragin (counter-tenor) and a string trio from the Bingham String Quartet led by Steve Bingham.

In 2007 a new programme, Lines, Loops and Phases, was piloted as part of the Halesworth Festival. Steve Bingham led the playing, sharing the platform with Jane Wells (composer/saxophones) and Mark Fawcett (sound projection/guitar). Music ranged from Bach and Telemann to Piazzolla and Chick Corea. A choreography of Jane Wells’ Air Field, commissioned from Caroline Mummery, was a one-off feature for the Festival. The dance was ably performed by a small company of local young dancers.

“It certainly made for an entertaining evening, with old and new music receiving the same treatment, enabling Jane Wells to generate the accompaniment to her atmospheric Ultramarine for alto sax, and to hear both parts of a canon by Telemann played on electronic violin by Steve Bingham” (East Anglian Times)

HOOFBEAT STREETBAND

Initiated in 2003 this group reaches places other groups can’t reach! Playing on the ‘street’ or ‘green’, the line-up of five East Anglian musicians brings together saxophones, accordion, trombone and percussion. The music is at its best unamplified – it’s already noisy enough! – so if required the band can move speedily to different locations ‘around town’ between sets.

Repertoire ranges across musical styles with short and lively pieces composed especially for the group in jazz, folk and rock styles alongside arrangements of music ranging from Kurt Weill’s Mac The Knife and Tango to Bulgarian wedding music. New ‘world music’ arrangements were added in 2007 through working with Tony Haynes, director of the internationally acclaimed London-based Grand Union Orchestra.

From a first public outing in front of ARGOS in King’s Lynn for Festival Too and the King’s Lynn Festival, the group has since played at many venues including: from the bandstand in Hunstanton and during summer Carnivals in Attleborough, Aylsham, Sheringham and Wells in Norfolk; in the villages of Fulbourn, Linton and Sawston as part of a Cambridgeshire Summer of Music event; for The Forum in Norwich; during celebrations of a new sports complex in Dereham; and for the switching on of Christmas lights in Thetford – a first woolly hats Winter gig! In 2010 the group will be touring as part of Creative Art East’s ‘Village Stage’ summer season – see News page.

“The Carnival was deemed a huge success. Hoofbeat’s musical contribution was very much appreciated…..” (Aylsham Blooming Marvellous Carnival)

The musicians are Chris Balch, Jane Wells, Dawn Loombe, Richard Hall and Derek Paice.

SOLO SAXOPHONE

Mind The Gap at Chisenhale Dance Space, London

As a soprano and alto saxophonist, own compositions have been performed including Mind The Gap (1986), Ultramarine (1991), Squabbler Flying (1999) and Airfield (2005)

Squabbler Flying at Kelling Village Arts Festival, North Norfolk

FOR AVAILABILITY, REPERTOIRE AND FEES FOR EACH GROUP SEE CONTACT page. PROMO CDs ARE FREE ON REQUEST.