another shot of what is soon to be my third (and final, for quite some time) saxophone.

the King C-mel who's soon to join my family!

it's been rather a long time

well - my last post here was an unforgivably looooooooong time ago - apologies if your life's been on hold awaiting my next riveting installment. Since my last bulletin, on March 8th, Prom Praise at the Royal Albert Hall has passed - with the cd of it coming out in a couple of months time. I've even heard some of the live monitor mixed tracks of the soloists.

Saxophoneally, life's been trundling along with practise fitting in wherever a couple of minutes become free. I played in two services (yes, services proper) in All Souls on March 13th - bonkers to do so the day after a concert, I know. I took both Yani and Clyde with me so I could pick & choose my key signatures. For the evening I'd done crib-sheets of the melodies, but having only been booked for the morning service on the preceeding Friday I didn't have time to do any for the morning. That was okay - I just had to trust myself to be able to transpose & honk away. I think it was fine - I got away with it anyway!
rumors of my appearence in the band appear to have rustled through the All Souls muzo population - a few peple have said things along the lines of "I hear you were playing in the band on Sunday..." or have asked others "Did Kirsten really play in the band already?". Hee hee - I've confused, befuddled and puzzled them all :)

Oh - due to a chance 'meeting' with a guy on eBay who was selling a C Melody sax, his having introduced me to another friend of his who was also selling a few C-Mel's - with a rather nice looking nickel-plated King one also on eBay. Its price SOARED up to £750 - which he says he's rather embarassed by. Although I didn't get that one, he's got another one - gold-plated this time. It also happens that this month's paycheque will be containing some backpay. I'll be spending a little of that (nowhere even approaching near the auction-winning bid on his nickel one). It'll be good - I can play in church and stuff and really think about the words, the sound I'm making, the riffs, shapes & textures I'm creating, at least until the playing/transposing/embouchure/breathing process becomes subconscious like it is on viola (or even violin/recorders).
I'm really excited. The minute I know my pay's cleared into my bank account I'll be spiriting a bit of it away to purchase the c-mel from Devon.

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Sophie's been rather a clever little musician this term - she's through to the final (i.e. top 3) in TCM's Concerto Competition - probably Trinity's highest profile competition.
That's really cool

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She's the first sax player ever to get to the final, and she'll do her concerto with one of the college orchestras at Blackheath on a date the College hasn't revealed yet! Trinity College of Music may have flitted to another area - but it's not changed much, by the sound of it!

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