Music
CDs
My big love is classical music. Having given away my LPs, the fruits of 40 years collecting, my CD collection is growing - slowly. And now I'm gradually transferring all CDs to iTunes, on my computer (enabling me to listen to everything throughout the house and via an iPod in my car). Here is a rather crude list, generated from iTunes.
Cello
I started as an indifferent and unenthusiastic viola player. Then in 1995 I took up the cello, with lessons from Kitty Gregorson, who had taught our daughter Jude. By now a marvellous 93-year-old, Kitty was an astute, understanding and exacting teacher, who deserved a more talented pupil and one who had the time to practice. (She kindly described my lessons as my weekly practice sessions.) These lessons came to an end in the months leading up to my first hip replacement in 2000.
After a two-year break I resumed the cello but have not yet found a locaql teacher. However, I'm kept busy playing with fellow amateur musicians in AMA, and with my friends Charles, Pierre and Christine.
Salon de Musique
We started our ensemble in 2009, our repertoire is principally baroque, and we seem to put on an ever growing number of concerts, beginning to venture beyond le Vigan and its surrounds.
AMA (l'Association des Musiciens Amateurs)
I also play with three other local AMA members in a quartet. Our current repertoire features a couple of Haydn quartets and some Vivaldi.
La Chorale Rinascenza
With no equivalent amateur orchestra in our part of France, I turned to singing - in La Chorale Rinascenza - whose repertoire was initially medieval and Renaissance music. Singing and performing this period of music are new experiences for me, but I love it. The founding conductor, Dominique Guillaumont, moved to the north of France in 2004. His successor is Louis Nègre who has extended the repertoire to include later works as well. The chorale has also proved a source of many friendships.
Edinburgh Open Orchestra
I have very fond memories indeed of my years playing in the Open Orchestra, first in Lasswade and later in Edinburgh. I created chaos initially in the viola section and then in the back desks of the cello section.
The orchestra was founded by a remarkable musician, teacher and friend, David Crisp. He visited us in France three times, and the whole orchestra came for a memorable week of music in 2003, culminating in three splendid concerts. Later David basically suffered, like many teachers, from burnout, disillusioned with what life in a modern comprehensive in an area with much deprivation had become. He took early retirement and went to live in Thailand. I was all set to go and visit him in 2009. It was not to be: in January 2009 he was murdered, apparently by people living in his compound who mistakenly thought he had money to steal.