25 September, 2010 in Music by Aonghas

Memories Behind Glass

This morning at Lincoln Heights School I passed a glass cabinet in the hallway and noticed myself in a faded photo from years ago when we performed at Westcity! Ahh good times

Young Aonghas in the middle

26 August, 2010 in Friends, Music by Aonghas

KBB Music Festival 2010

I had my last assessment for the first half of the semester this morning, which was a 20% interview for my design project. I had felt a bit iffy about the whole interview beforehand but it turned out to be not too bad (well, fingers crossed!). The interviewer we were assigned to asked a couple of curve ball questions but ultimately I was just pleased when it was over.

Throughout this week the annual KBB Music Festival is being held at the Town Hall. Calum went to listen to a few sessions earlier in the week so I thought I’d go to watch this afternoon seeing as I didn’t have any lectures after my interview. As luck would have it, this afternoon’s programme included various schools’ symphony orchestras including Cleo’s orchestra from Epsom Girls’ Grammar School. Calum and I arranged to meet outside the Town Hall before the afternoon session started so we could sort out the cameras for filming and taking photos.

Epsom Symphonia played well at the KBB Music Festival

The afternoon bracket of performances started at 1:30pm with Macleans Symphony Orchestra. They played a few pieces and ended with Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 by Elgar. The Avondale College orchestra followed before Epsom Symphonia took the stage. As the players started moving into their places, I scanned through the orchestra until I spotted Cleo at the back near the huge bass drum. Their conductor Peter Thomas was applauded on to the stage before the orchestra opened with their first piece, The Barber Of Seville Overture by Rossini. Their following pieces, Nimrod by Elgar and Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre were played just as well as their first. I’m not sure what it is, but I think orchestra performances are always that much more exciting when you know someone who’s playing in it.

Calum had to leave quickly straight after Epsom performed because he needed to get back to uni, but I thought I’d stick around just to hear some of the other orchestras since I had no other commitments for the rest of the day. After a couple more orchestras performed, I was pleasantly surprised when I was tapped on the shoulder by Cleo. She had returned from being backstage and introduced me to Sunny, a school friend she was with. I later found out that Sunny played the oboe in the Epsom Girls’ orchestra and was also the same year as Cleo. For the rest of the afternoon bracket, I sat together with Cleo and Sunny in the audience. There were a few pieces that didn’t sound particularly appealing to me, though I thought the combined “St Peter’s and St Mary’s Sinfonia” orchestra played quite well to finish off the session.

Highlights from KBB Music Festival Thursday 26 August 2010 (Orchestras)

Thanks to Calum for filming and uploading the video!

From left: Sunny, Cleo, Aonghas and Jordan (from Studio 2)

While everyone was leaving afterwards, I noticed Jordan from Studio 2 was doing some filming outside the main entrance at the Town Hall. In the spur of the moment, I decided to approach Jordan to ask if I could have a photo with him. I asked him if he remembered reading out my email on Studio 2 a couple of weeks ago and surprisingly enough he remembered me! Following the celebrity photoshoot with Jordan, I joined Cleo and Sunny through town on their food-hunting escapade. They were both hungry for food, though they didn’t know what they wanted to eat. After searching around for an undisclosed amount of time, they finally settled on Korean pancakes at this popular place on the corner of High Street and Wellesley Street. As if that wasn’t enough, we then made our way to Wendy’s afterwards to have another feed. Don’t get me wrong though, I did enjoy the experience and I found it amusing how we spent more time deciding what to eat than actually eating. We had an interesting conversation at Wendy’s including such topics as curry, porridge, teachers and lesbian friends. I also had a sudden realisation when Cleo told me that Sunny was in one of the dances at Chinese Extravaganza – I thought she looked familiar! Although we could have stayed and talked for ages, it was soon time to make tracks and head home.

Finishing all my assessments before the break, listening to awesome orchestra performances, having a photo taken with a television celebrity and making a new friend – not bad for a day’s outing .

Update: Jordan’s video clip was shown on Studio 2 a couple of weeks later and we managed to make an appearance in the background! Check it out here.

9 August, 2010 in Music by Aonghas

My New Favourite Band

They’ve been around for a while and I’ve heard some of their other songs which I thought were pretty cool at the time, but recently I’ve been really impressed with some of OneRepublic’s songs. Here are a couple of my favourite songs right now – Marchin On and Mercy. I didn’t even realise the second song was by them until I randomly found it tonight on YouTube!

Enjoy

OneRepublic – Marchin On

OneRepublic – Mercy