Playing Day with Sophie Middleditch – Society of Recorder Players

Sat 12Apr2025

Bishopstone Village Hall, Butt Lane, Bishopstone, near Salisbury, SP5 4AA

10:00 - 16:00

£15 for visitors. Dorset Branch members £5

All sizes of recorders will be welcome. Tea and coffee will be provided for breaks, and from 10am before playing starts at 10.30. Please bring your own lunch, and a music stand.

See the branch website for directions, NB this is our alternative venue. Booking form is on the branch page, too.

Contact:

www.srp.org.uk/dorset

April 2025

Tue 15 - Sat 19Apr2025

NYRO's annual Easter Course takes place in the beautiful setting of Rugby School.

Rugby School, Rugby

15th April 15:00

£475

This relaxed and informal course includes technique and beginner bass classes as well as chamber music and recorder ensemble sessions.

No audition is required and it is the perfect starting point for younger and less experienced players as well as providing playing challenges for the more advanced.

Players will work in smaller groups according to their playing level. There will also be sessions when everyone plays together.

The course will culminate with a concert at Rugby School on the Saturday afternoon for families and friends. No tickets are required for the concert.

Contact: / 07932158538

www.nyro.org.uk/whats-on

Thu 24Apr2025

Dunster Castle

Dunster Castle, Dunster, Minehead, Somerset, TA24 6NY

18:00 - 22:00

£35

Come with us on a musical journey back to England in the Middle Ages.
Enjoy the splendid sounds of their loud musical instruments, as well as some quiet ones too! Learn how they work and were made.
Listen to some lovely Medieval songs, and even join in!
Enjoy seeing a group of three talented musicians, singers and dancers in their fine Medieval costumes.

Learn about the life and estate of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell who lived in the 1200s and 1300s. He commissioned a beautiful book of prayers and the psalms. It has been described as ‘England’s most significant Medieval manuscript’. It’s in the British Library. On most of its over 600 pages there are scenes of Medieval life, beautifully illustrated in the margins’.

The psalter's significance to musicians is that the book contains images of 17 different musical instruments, and in this concert you will see and hear all of those different instruments. During the interval you will be able to see the group’s own folio copy of the psalter as well as see these instruments close up and learn how they were made and used.

The Luttrell family lived in Somerset from the early 1200s when Sir Geoffrey Luttrell – great, great grandfather to the commissioner of the psalter – married Frethesant Paynell and through that marriage the Luttrell family acquired a number of estates throughout the country, including that at East Quantockshead. Towards the end of the 1300s Lady Elizabeth Luttrell bought Dunster Castle from Joan de Mohun after her husband died.

A recent member of their audience said of this show:
'That was a really good thing you did last night - I don't want to call it a gig, a show, a presentation - what you do is more interesting, fun, stirring, insightful than any of those would suggest. I loved the layers of it: the costumes, your combined knowledge, skill and humility, sense of humour, interaction with the audience; all three of you convey your own interest and delight in the history, the music, the lifestyle - the importance of the psalter itself as a thing of beauty as well as a document of history.'

A journey back in time. This is one concert not to be missed.

www.demowbray.info

https://www.youtube.com/@deMowbraysMusicke-kd3ho

Contact: / 01643821314

The Luttrell Psalter - an evening of medieval music

Sat 26Apr2025

Full playing day of varied recorder music with conductor and composer Michael Graham

St John's Church Hall, Abbeydale Road South Sheffield S17 3LE

10 for 10.30 am - 4.30

£20 (£10 Students in full time education)

Contact: / 07305254931