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Sir Malcolm Arnold & FABE
New (old) music for quintet...
After our recent concert at Wymondham Abbey, Norwich and the attendance of Sir Malcolm Arnold, we’ve received a call from his publishers asking if we would like to arrange some of Sir Malcolm’s other brass music for our quintet. As many of you will know - Sir Malcolm wrote his 2nd Brass Quintet for us back in 1988 for the Cheltenham Festival and so our relationship with him goes back a long way. More details will obviously follow as this exciting project develops. Plans are now afoot to record a complete album of Sir Malcolm’s brass music by FABE.
UAE and Saudi Tour March 2002
Angela Writes of our Saudi Arabian Adventures...
I’d like to start by thanking Venus, John, Penny and Celia for all their hard work in making our trip to the Middle East a memorable occasion for one and all in FABE.
Our tour consisted of a series of concerts and masterclasses around the various societies and international schools in both the UAE and Saudi. We performed to varied audiences of internationals and UK ex-patriots. We were particularly pleased with the ovations (mostly standing) we received at all of our concerts, followed by a frenzied stampede to the CD stall afterwards. Fortunately for us, we sold out of discs pretty early on in the tour, which made the £133 excess baggage charged by Emirates Air at Heathrow all that more worthwhile!
The educational concerts were given to people of all ages. These were often followed by a masterclass, where we were able to help some brass players with their AB exam pieces, coached a big band and added the final touches to some brass fanfares that a few of the budding young composers were including in their music portfolio. Since we returned from our trip, we’ve been inundated with emails from some of the people we played to. Looks like we’ve been given the thumbs up from our audience of tomorrow!!
The Saudi part of the tour proved to be a bit of a culture shock to us all. The boys had to face up to life without beer and I had to adjust to life as a woman Saudi Arabian style..... ! It almost became the standing joke of the tour as I had a 100% success rate at being frisked at every Saudi airport, whilst the boys casually walked through.
Our accommodation on the tour was at a series of splendid hotels, but it was particularly nice to be the house guests of Celia and Bill and Walter and Anne Marie when we arrived in Jeddah. A huge thanks to them for their great company and wonderful hospitalty. This was only topped by our upgrade to 1st class on the flight home with Saudi Air- how the other half live !!
All in all we played in some fantastic venues (I shall personally remember the grand hall of the American University in Sharjah for a long time to come) and the opportunity to meet some truly wonderful people. Fingers crossed for a return trip soon.