Planning your Christmas Concert…?Find it all in one place in the June Emerson Wind Music Christmas Catalogue! Produced annually, it contains everything
Christmassy from our four main distribution catalogues (from instrumental solos up to flexible ensembles for schools) extracted and put together in one booklet to make choosing easier. Free of charge to anyone who'd like one.
This year's catalogue will be available soon.
Serenades for Val – Sunday 19th September 2010This summer, Valeria Watts died at the age of 67. She was, amongst many other things, a part-time member of staff at JEWM and a real character.
Valerie Watts
It was her wish to be sent off not with a funeral but with a concert and a tea party, paid for by her estate. This went so well! The Helmsley Festival Wind Ensemble, conducted by Geoffrey Emerson, got together in the morning to rehearse and then performed in the afternoon to 70 of Valerie’s friends and colleagues who’d come along to remember her. All the musicians were friends of hers that she’d played with over the years, many of whom hadn’t seen each other in a very long time, so it was a wonderful reunion.
Valerie Watts' Memorial Concert
The concert began with words specially written by Valerie to introduce the concert, which made everyone chuckle! The programme consisted of Gordon Jacob - Old Wine in New Bottles, Richard Strauss - Suite Op.4, Percy Whitlock - Homage to F.D. (Frederick Delius), Peter Warlock - Beethoven’s Binge, Glazunov – Concert Waltz, five short pieces by George Gershwin, Richard Strauss - Serenade Op.7 and a piece commissioned by Valerie and written by Geoffrey Emerson incorporating specially requested tunes that meant a lot to her.
The concert was followed by a buffet and drinks which Valerie had insisted on paying for from her estate. She really did us proud.
You can read her obituary that appeared in The Guardian
here.
A thank you to loyal long-time staffIn October this year one of our staff members, Barbara Watson, who has a huge variety of responsibilities but is mainly the Accounts Dept assistant, will be celebrating 20 years at JEWM. She's done a wonderful job over the years and we're very lucky that she enjoys it here so much!
She's not the longest-serving, though - Tracy Battensby (Office Manager) has been here for
24 years and John Toll (Accounts Dept) has been here for 29!
A big thank you to them and all the staff at
June Emerson Wind Music for all their hard work.
June Emerson Wind Music, Windmill Farm, York
