Orquestando and Parque Kennedy

Yesterday was possibly the most musically rewarding to date.  In the morning we visited Educadores, which is a school in a more deprived area of Lima where the Orquestando programme runs on Sundays.  The director there is Wilfredo Tarazona, who also works in the National Conservatoire of Music and is highly esteemed by everyone who knows him from students to professors.  A very clever, gentle and kind man.

His orchestra played some Peruvian music to us and then we squeezed in amongst them (it was not a big room!) to read through Danzón no. 2 by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez. This is an exciting piece of music with lots of contrasts and some very exciting rhythms that are a little unusual for European players to sight-read.

After this we played the first of Malcolm Arnold's Four Scottish Dances to them before inviting them to play Lord of the Dance with us which is the music taken from the show Riverdance, featuring some mean Irish fiddling in the violins.  It was fun to see the Peruvians grappling with that too!  I was very emotional conducting this huge orchestra of young people and realising a dream that started with my visit here a year ago.  It was very exciting.

As the room was so small and we could not rearrange quickly, the Big Band then played Impact Zone, directed with great energy by Chris Stripp. Some of the Peruvian trombone and tuba players joined in, resulting in an awesome sound at the moments when it cheekily quotes the main theme from Holst's Mars, which we have also been playing this week.

Nick Walker was nervous that the guitar group would be an anticlimax after this, but Wilfredo told everyone to be very quiet and listen.  The guitar group performed Wild Mountain Thyme (aka "will you go lassie go") to all of us and many were moved to tears by this sublime moment.  We then had a group photo in the playground.  We will meet Orquestando again tomorrow, when we will give a joint concert (our final performance) at Markham College.

The afternoon was no less exciting with the Big Band & Stage Band performing in Kennedy Park.  On arrival I realised that my romanticised memory of a park full of ferule cats was somewhat incomplete as the smell, particularly in the small sunken auditorium where we were to perform, was a little overpowering!  Setting up was a challenge as the steps on which we had to sit were already occupied by several pensioners who go there everyday to dance Salsa (albeit very sedately!).  Most of them moved for us but one old couple stubbornly held their ground despite some deliberately enthusiastic warming up immediately behind them, much to the amusement of others in the audience who could see what was going on!

The auditorium was packed and we played for an hour and a quarter to rapturous applause, alternating Stage Band and Big Band numbers, but daring not to change seats for fear of losing them.  Our last item was Sing, Sing, Sing, which concludes with the whole band standing and playing with assorted moves, making for quite a spectacle.  The audience insisted on an encore, so we then played Blues for John, and every member of the band stood at some point to improvise a solo.  It was very exciting and Nathaniel's drum solo at the end was fantastic.  Everyone was delighted and we left on a high.

PD