Sterling stuff
On Saturday 26th of April the Leighton Buzzard Music Club’s 68th glorious season concluded with a very well received recital by The Sterling Trio.
The trio comprises Sarah Atter on flute, Lauren Hibberd on piano and Thomas Verity on clarinet and bass clarinet. This is an unusual trio combination and the original repertoire available to them is not vast. As a result they ‘beg, borrow and steal’ (their words – not mine) whatever interesting material they find and re-arrange it to suit themselves. This approach enables them to play an astonishing variety of styles from the gamut of musical periods. For example, the programme included a re-arranged Baroque sonata for trio by J J Quantz (1697-1773) and a piece in which ‘two incisive motifs swirl and clink together … to replicate the raw energy of techno music’ by Guillaume Connesson, who was born in 1970 (and which, at points, required the strings of the piano to be brushed). It was marvellous to be introduced to music from composers like the, frankly, obscure (Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) as well as to enjoy pieces by more famous composers (Brahms, Fauré, Arnold). In all we enjoyed a smorgasbord of nine different composers. This was a tasting menu that the Heston Blumental himself could be proud of!
Although a this is a rare combination of instruments, it was apparent from the first notes played that it was a happy one. The three musicians were finely attuned to each other. The different timbres of the flute and the clarinet complimented each other beautifully, framed and underpinned by the piano.
LBMC’s new season starts on 20th September with the exciting Japanese pianist Aisa Ijiri playing amongst other things Mendelssohn and Da Falla. I look forward to sharing that with you.
http://thesterlingtrio.com/thesterlingtrio.com/Home.html
Published by Judi Moore
Hi there,
I hope you find something to interest you here.
In July of 2022 I published my fifth book: a volume of short stories set in and around Weymouth. I came to live in Weymouth in 2016, and one of the first things I looked for was a creative writing workshop. In fact I was lucky enough to find two – Off the Cuff and Weymouth Writing Matters – both of them exercise based. Those twenty minute exercises every week produced a lot of very short fiction that could only have been made here, in Weymouth.
When Covid closed down our lives in March of 2020 I immediately cast about for a writing project to keep me busy for the duration. There sat 10 notebooks full of workshop writings, never revisited. I wondered, what’s in there?
So through lockdown I keyed up the draft scrawls in those notebooks, finishing some stories, editing and polishing them all. While I was doing that, I was lucky enough to pique the interest of a talented artist friend, Mat Cross, who has made a full page illustration for each story in the collection (and a kick-ass cover for it too). Nowhere is the pandemic mentioned, because all these tales were told between 2016 and 2019. I’m sure there are many stories to be told about our Covid experiences, but these are not they. I don't believe you need to be a Weymuffian born and bred to enjoy these stories. Give them a go, why not.
In December 2017 I published my fourth book – ‘Wonders will never cease’. It’s a satirical campus novel set in the fictional Ariel University in 1985. If you enjoyed Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse novels, Willy Russell’s ‘Educating Rita’, David Lodge’s campus novels or Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ back in the day, you may enjoy revisiting the ivory towers of 1980s’ academe thirty years on. See what you think.
In the autumn of 2015 I published a volume of short fiction: 'Ice Cold Passion and other stories'. It contains 9 of my longer, better stories. Some of them won prizes before I collected them up and published them.
In 2014 I released a novella 'Little Mouse', which is an historical fiction set in Berlin and Edinburgh during and after World War II. It attempts to consider how war pursues those caught up in it for many years after the actual events.
My first novel, 'Is death really necessary?' I released in 2009. It is an eco thriller set in 2039, the basic premise of which is that petrol is, suddenly no longer available. I'm rather chuffed that the book is still topical nearly 15 years on. And my take on future technology (which has, of course, long since been overtaken by events) stands up pretty well [preens]. Take a crack at it, why not, and see if you agree.
All my books are available from all good online bookshops and FeedARead on paper, and as e-books on Kindle.
On a semi-regular basis, and about a month after the event, I post here reviews which I do for Big Al & Pals, the premier reviewer of indie books, based in the States. My interests tend to thrillers, SF, magic realism and other quirky stuff.
On this blog are also posted the reviews I did for Leighton Buzzard Music Club between 2010 and 2015. LBMC present annual seasons of eight monthly chamber music concerts at the Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard, Bucks. They select young musicians just beginning to make their name - and the concerts are usually magnificent. I was very proud to be associated with them. I am delighted to report that they have survived Covid and are still running. Here is a link to their webpage. If you live in the area their concerts are well worth attending. https://www.lbmusic.co.uk/
From time to time I review other books I've enjoyed, and occasionally music, theatre and exhibitions.
BTW - it says the link to Facebook is broken. I dispute that. Click it and see what happens? In any case I am easy to find on FB, and very happy to see you there.
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Judi Moore 