Blow your trumpet

Classical guitars in Northern Ireland Robert Cuthbert, Chairman, introduces the Classical Guitar Society of Northern Ireland (CGSNI)

The CGSNI was founded in the 1980s by two adult guitar students who first met at a Protestant-Catholic cross community event. People were encouraged to come simply by homemade posters and ringing around, and word of mouth through the guitar teachers at the School of Music. The first meetings were held in a number of venues in Belfast until the Society settled in the Ulster College of Music in 1996. The Society also created strong links with enthusiasts in Derry-Londonderry through travelling Belfast teachers, and the support of a professional guitarist.

Today we are a mixed-ability amateur society with around 30 members, and 10-20 or more attending society meetings regularly. Our members range in age between their 20s and 70s, with most in the older bracket. We have skilled tradespeople, doctors, lawyers, teachers, businesspeople, architects - all sorts of professionals, quite a few retirees and some professional musicians as associates. Some members are beginners, or have transferred from acoustic guitar, while some members are grade 8 level and beyond.

Members meet in small groups to try out new pieces and discuss various aspects of performance, and then the whole group meets together for an informal recital. Performances include solos, duos, trios and occasional larger ensembles. We play predominantly classical music, but the range extends to any music played on the nylon strung Spanish/classical guitar. We have quite an interest in arrangements of the Irish harp music of Turlough O’Carolan, and in contrast we have even been known to play an arrangement of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’!

Enfield Community Orchestra meets on a weekly basis and performs three concerts per year. Our members range from 22 to 70 years old and come from a variety of backgrounds, from IT and aromatherapists, to teachers and retirees.

We had to cancel our rehearsals because of the coronavirus outbreak with just two weeks to go until our spring concert. When it became clear that the situation was not likely to return to normal any time soon, we knew that we needed to act quickly to support our members, and we launched our Online Music Centre on the day that our spring concert would have been held.

One of our trustees, Hayley Butchart who has a career in graphic design, took the initiative to produce the Online Music Centre on our website, and I am working closely with her. Our MD Eddie Morgan is providing content, including videos of himself introducing some weekly 'challenges' for members.

One step for Enfield Community Orchestra A not-so-giant leap to moving online. Orchestra Founder and Manager Adrian Bullock explains.

These include: setting new music for members to practice in readiness for our next concert, a virtual pub quiz, music theory activities, and individual practice guides. We have also created a 'Useful Resources' area which has a list of helpful practice tools, like the ABRSM Speedshifter, where our members can play along to a backing track that we provide and adjust it to their own practice speed; this was the nearest thing we could find to simulate playing along with an orchestra. Plus a handy online calendar of free performances to watch online.

The social connections that are built during our weekly rehearsals are so important especially now with social

Planned performances this year at the Ards International Guitar Festival and Belfast City Hospital Arts Care Spring Festival have unfortunately been cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis, but we hope the Derry guitar weekend will go ahead in Bangor in August. In the meantime the Society has set up a WhatsApp group to keep in touch, where at the moment we are discussing the subtleties of the Leo Brouwer studies. CGSNI.org

distancing. We already had a WhatsApp group in place but not all of our members had the facilities to join, so we have added a 'Chatter Box' chat feature in our Online Music Centre so that all members can interact with each other.

We have had a fantastic response from our members, but you simply cannot beat meeting and playing in person, which we hope we will be able to do soon. enfieldcommunityorchestra.co.uk

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