June Emerson Wind Music

What Do Bassoonists Have in Common with a No.52 Bus?

by Graham Sheen

former Principal Bassoon, BBC Symphony Orchestra & 
Academy of St Martin in the Fields,
teacher, composer & arranger.

Apologies if you have heard this in a slightly different version, but the answer is that first you don't see any and then they turn up in bunches. And there will be a bunch of twelve assorted bassoon students and professors giving a concert at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on July 7th at 1.00pm in the Music Hall. ADMISSION IS FREE and all are most welcome to our wide-ranging programme of both arrangements and original works, spanning music of four centuries and from the serious to the frivolous.

At Guildhall we have long had a tradition of the bassoon department presenting an end of year recital, though it has never been possible, owing to an ever more crowded events calendar, to hold one every year. We hope that as a result of timetabling bassoon ensemble playing on a regular basis and the support of Head of Department, Richard Benjafield, the bassoon department show will become annual treat.

It’s often said that Bach is indestructible, a claim which we be challenging with a performance of the first movement of the third Brandenburg Concerto (9 bassoons and contra). The central work will be the marvellous Triangulation by Richard Bissill (7 bassoons and contra), a beautifully conceived and brilliant balanced three movement piece which has deservedly established itself as a bassoon classic. Interspersed will be some of Michael Norris’s Bagatelles for trio and some new transcriptions for large ensemble of Rameau, Lotti and Gabrieli’s Sonata Pian e Forte. Our traditional finale will be, as always, Leroy Anderson’s Bassoonist’s Holiday, once mistakenly called Bugler’s Holiday.

That date again: July 7th at 1.00pm in the Music Hall of GSMD, Silk Street, Barbican.

LINKS

Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Website