Serenading Santa

I  met Santa when he visited Ennis last week and of course I took the opportunity to tell him that the boys and girls of Blazing Bows have been very good indeed. He was sorry to have missed the concert but I played him a tune anyway 

Blazing Bows Debut performance at SCR Hall Ennis



Jordan leads the ensemble




 The House Band 

 The Blazing Bows Violin Ensemble                

The 4^th class with David McMahon at Scoil Chríost Rí   in their inaugural performance at

                            Tuesday  14^th December.

With director Cathy Desmond  and  Karen Vaughan on keyboard

Programme           Vivaldi on G

                                O Come All Ye Faithful

                                Silent  Night

1.     ***************************************

                                 First finger on E to Irish air

                                 Toreadors March   

                                 Fox Trot 

                               

                              ************************************

                                Rudolph Retakes  

                               We Will Rock You     Queen  

                               Finale Jingle Bells (Down Up Bells )   

 4th Class Blazing Bows    You Rock !   

I am very proud of you all today .  You performed very well and I really enjoyed the concert.
The school band were brilliant and what about that Christmas rap number - fab! The singalong was great too !
Thank you Dylan, Damien Mafouz and Jordan for introducing items and leading the ensemble . Well done Mary on double bass.

What  did you enjoy most about the performance today?  Do you have a favourite piece. 

Weren't your fellow pupils a great audience . It was great fun! Bravo !



The audience settles down



Group in place



All together pizzicato



percussion section

Violin Floor

Bilkees Saidi past pupil

You're the top!
You're the Coliseum.
You're the top!
You're the Louver Museum.
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare's sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse.
You're the Nile,
You're the Tower of Pisa,
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

How many metaphors can you count in these Cole Porter lyrics?

This was our final rehearsal before our first performance next Tuesday .  Here is our draft programme

Vivaldi  on G /           
 O Come All Ye Faithful   same riff as Vivaldi on G
 Silent Night   Broken Chords    [ D A]   
New Note E   (Irish Air - keyboard accompaniment)
Jingle Bells   Down Up Bells on
Rudolph Retakes    Down Bows  on D and A
Foxtrot      Sidestep & Dip  pizz on  D and A
Toreadors March       pizz  on D and A repeat
Rock You          Down Up   Bows  on A

Thanks to Ms Howard for her help in setting up. 

Over the week 4th class will be practicing their spoken introductions. Well done 4th class . A super terms work!

Ms Desmond

Getting ready to put on a show




Ms Howard  rosins the bows

  


Conductor Gearoid Grant



 leading  the Foxtrot



Todays class focused on preparing to perform and  stage etiquette *



Rule  1 Follow the leader.  Dylan , Mafouz and Dana took turns to lead the class ensemble today  and practiced introducing the pieces loudly and clearly . We practiced our Vivaldi pizzicato on G, Foxtrot , Jingle Bells (Down Up Bells ) Rudolph (Retakes)  We played  pizz first finger on E  to Ms Vaughan's Irish air .   We whizzed through our flash cards and  had a quiz on the  web site video clips . Bravo eveybody. Excellent attention and we will have our final practice next week.

The class are really looking forward to seeing Anything Goes  by Cole Porter at Colaiste Muire tomorrow . The new  clip this week is from a London production  of the show. I hope you enjoy it .

I spent the weekend rehearsing and performing at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and I include a photo of myself and  bass player Seamus Doyle  aand  one of the conductor discussing a point with one of the brass  players .



Little and Large Violin and Bass Seamus Doyle  Conductor St Agnes Orchestra Crumlin





* Etiquette .     Way of doing things

 





































Learn and Explore at National Concert Hall

 

Check out  the link  on the right to the Learn and Explore section of the National Concert Hall's website.

You can check out the Hall of Fame. Can you see anyone from Clare ?

Try out the Guess the Instrument Game

RUDOLPH RETAKES AND JINGLE BELL CHORDS

Yippee  Well done everybody .We have finished our first  ten lessons in the project today. With a Christmas Concert coming up we began rehearsing our concert programme to Ms Vaughans wonderful keyboard  accompaniment. We learned how to do  long retake bows  or big circle bows on D  to Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.     We played shadow  Down Up Bows to Jingle Bells before putting our bows on the violin strings ., and playing little down up bows and we learned how to make a chord .  Blues on D and Browns on A to make a two notes sounding togethe,r  a chord . 

Here is our  programme  for a preformance in two weeks time

Foxtrot  (with sidestep ) , Toreadors March , Vivaldi on G (O Come All Ye Faithful),  Jingle Bells , Rudolph the Red  Nose Reindeer and Silent Night, Rock You  .


Remember follow the leader  .