opera singers anon

Well, I completely forgot to tell you that it's not me that does the opera singing - definitely not!!!
I have been accompanying James Hutton for about 10 years or so now. He lives in Stanbury near us and is officially a Baritone ... but has been known to sing Tenor on occasion. In fact he tells me his voice is getting higher and is trying to change the keys of a few tunes. I say 'trying'. It is sometimes impossibly difficult and takes a huge amount of time to change keys on the tripleharp. Every 'move' has to be planned and practised - not like the piano where you can learn your scales and it gives you a thorough grounding. Also whereas the piano has 5 'black notes' for every 7 'white notes' the multistrung harp has 7 for each!

Anyway, back to the point, James and I have a gig coming up in Haworth at Cobbles and Clay on 3rd September and will be dueting our mostly Neapolitan repertoire - with added bells ... hmmmm! (James wasn't sure at first but I persisted and the audience loved the added touch of flamenco.)

I am at Burnley Community Festival - on main stage and mostly in the Woodland Tent this Sunday. Last year I had a wonderful afternoon. Robin Shepherd was making his clogs and did a spot on his violin every now and then. Fantastic stuff. All my kids wore clogs for the first 5 years (alas the school couldn't stand the noise of them clattering across the wooden floors...).

More news of harps very soon - with pictures - amazing developments afoot ....

Chinese Lanterns

We tried to launch one of those Chinese Lanterns last night. The weather conditions were 'perfect' just as the sun was setting. We struggled not to tear it as we wrote 'Happy Birthday Olivia, we love you, miss you and will never forget you'. Then we took it outside, following the instructions. It lit well, inflated and then the moment of truth! It went up ... sort of ... then drifted off towards Hebden Bridge and crashed! We will try again!

I finished putting the strings on at 9.30 pm last night - phew. Dav-Al is hung up in the rafters of the barn drying. A fantastic sight - one day there will a a whole row of them!! (Barn-Awls?)

Do you fancy a Night at the Opera - Haworth style? Informal with a glass of wine (or two), good company and lots of laughs - September 3rd - Cobbles and Clay - their telephone number is on the dates page