A Souvenir from Beverley
Thu 30 May 2013
Education Director Cherry Forbes discusses her time at the Beverley Early Music Festival.
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And now for something completely different…
Thu 16 May 2013
It’s that time of year again, when we reveal our ‘look’ for the new season. You might have seen a few things that hinted at our forthcoming brochure, most notably our recent video showing it on the printing presses, but here for the first time we can reveal the full set of pictures.
Read MoreOAE Tots go Strings: what you heard
Mon 15 Apr 2013
We had great fun in our OAE Tots go Strings concert on Saturday and hope you did too. If you’d like to know a bit more about what we played, read on: Most of our concert was made up of Telemann’s Don Quixote pronounced ‘Don Keyshot’. See what we did there with our donkey theme!…
Read MoreMe, Cecelia’s Bass, and I
Thu 21 Feb 2013
Tuesday 29 January, Budapest 10am. Feeling very lucky that I had not gotten up at 5am to travel back with the Orchestra, though feeling a little bit anxious about carrying a 2mx1mx1m 45kg double bass in its case back to London. All on my own.
Read MoreOAE TOTS go brass!
Sat 3 Nov 2012
Our TOTS concerts this Sunday at the Southbank Centre are fast approaching so we thought we’d give you a little idea of what to expect, especially if it’s your first TOTS experience.
Read MoreGreenwich TOTS playlist
Fri 10 Aug 2012
Thank you to everyone who joined us and jumped, danced, sang, bumped and rowed their way round Europe with us at our TOTS Concert in the Little Top at Greenwich Summer Festival last Saturday (4 Aug). What an amazing atmosphere… For those of you who’d like to listen again to anything we played, here’s the…
Read MoreTeachers, towers and tidying up
Thu 9 Aug 2012
We piloted a new education project this year, when OAE musicians visited a special needs school, Willow Dene, in South East London during the Spring & Summer terms. Here’s a little taster of how the workshops went…
Read MoreTOTS playlist
Tue 3 Jul 2012
It was wonderful to see, and hear, so many of you at our Tots workshops last Sunday at the Royal Festival Hall. If you grown-ups would like to know what you heard and maybe listen again at home, here’s a summary.
Read MoreNot all audiences are the same: Melissa and Cecelia
Wed 23 May 2012
The second of our blog posts featuring an interview with audience and orchestra members featured in our new pictures. This time it’s the turn of audience member Melissa and Double Bass Cecelia Bruggemeyer.
Read MoreA 21st Century rehearsal…
Wed 28 Mar 2012
One of the bigger problems musicians face is finding slots of time when we are all free to rehearse for chamber concerts and so on. So, when Cherry Forbes, OAE Education Director, asked Double Bassist Cecelia and me to put together a programme of music for an education project in Plumstead, Cecelia had a brainwave…
Read MoreWhat you can get in a Zafira if you really try….
Wed 7 Mar 2012
It was the day after our wonderful series of Berlioz Romeo and Juliet concerts had finished. Our final, and very successful concert, had been in Paris, involving a day trip there and back on the Eurostar. We even had time for lunch, though probably at a faster speed than the French would approve of.
Read MoreFebruary Podcast: Sir Mark Elder, Laurence Cummings and frothy tea…
Thu 9 Feb 2012
It’s time for the latest packed edition of the OAE podcast, this time with added snazzy intro music. In this edition we speak to Sir Mark Elder about Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet, chat with Laurence Cummings about Bach, talk to composer Sally Beamish and writer Melanie Reid about Spinal Chords, a new piece for the…
Read MoreRecipe for Success: My week in Bradford on Avon
Tue 18 Oct 2011
1. Take: A fairy queen and her feuding king 4 mixed up lovers A mischievous sprite and a powerful love potion Oh! and of course – a donkey’s head 2. Mix with: 8 Year 7 classes (age 11-12) – 240 in total and their very trusting, game and able music, dance and drama teachers…
Read More(Orchestra) Picks of the Season
Wed 28 Sep 2011
Following on from our staff picks below here are some from the Orchesta… “My picks of the season: All of them of course….but if I really have to make a choice I’m really looking forward to the French romantic programmes. I can’t agree with Mendlessohn – I love Berlioz’s orchestration and particularly the subtle…
Read MoreThe Fab, er, eight…
Wed 21 Sep 2011
If a change is as good as a rest then we OAE musicians should be well refreshed after this summer. For me one of the highlights was playing the rarely performed Liszt Faust Symphony, a piece that required us to expand our numbers somewhat. One day we were a double bass section of two playing…
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OAE Tots
Wed 14 Sep 2011
So how old were you when you first heard professional musicians live? You’re never too young to experience the OAE, as I and Rachel Beckett (recorder player and flautist) showed last Sunday, when more than forty 2 and 3 year olds had their first taste of baroque favourites. The ethos of the OAE education programme…
Read More300 children, Don Giovanni and a lot of guts
Wed 6 Jul 2011
One of the things I most love about playing with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) is the variety- the spice of a freelance musician’s life. I’m currently halfway between Kings Lynn and Glyndebourne (somewhere in Essex): halfway between schools and family concerts of Don Giovanni and the second night of Rinaldo:…
Read MoreSir Simon Rattle – what makes him so special?
Thu 16 Jun 2011
As I write this the OAE is downstairs in Hall 2 of Kings Place where they are in day three of rehearsals with Sir Simon Rattle. Sir Simon is one of the OAE’s closest collaborators and has worked with us almost since the Orchestras inception – his first concert was in 1987, just a year…
Read MoreTour Diary: Sheffield
Mon 11 Apr 2011
A short video from our trip up to Sheffield back in February – a concert which was part of our Green Tour initiative which saw the OAE ditch individual cars in favour of coaches and trains. Though we now know that trains are noisy places in which to film interviews… turn the volume up to…
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