Since January it has been a busy and fun few months of activity for the society. It has been exciting to have the opportunity to play everything that we have been rehearsing at several public performances. Our Afternoon Group activity, playing for residents in care homes and other social well-being events, tends to finish for the summer during April, but then the whole orchestra has had several concerts and festivals to play at.
On Saturday 22nd April the orchestra travelled to Elgin to participate in the evening concert at the end of the local society’s competition day. Each of the evening participants are adjudicated too and we were pleased to be awarded first place.
In May we played at the Banchory Fiddle Festival on Saturday 14th May, again this was an adjudicated competition and we were awarded second place. The orchestra played the required set “Mr Marshall’s Compliments to Neil Gow” (March), “Cameron’s Got His Wife Again” (Strathspey) and “Miss Barstow” (Reel). This set has some interesting transitions and a few technical challenges, (which is probably why the adjudicator chose it!!), but once mastered it was certainly rewarding and enjoyable to play.
Every year, in April or May, the society puts on what we call our Annual Concert, this differs from the Fiddler’s Rally in November in that all the participants (soloists and groups) are members of the orchestra. This year we held this event on a warm evening in May (Saturday 22nd) and the programme consisted primarily traditionally Scottish music. Interspersed with the sets played by the orchestra there were two soloists, each from the Junior and Senior section, the Junior and Afternoon groups also entertained everyone with music that they play regularly.
The venue for our Annual Concert was Ferryhill Church in Aberdeen, it has lovely acoustics and is beautifully appointed and the volunteer staff there did us proud with fancy pieces and liquid refreshments at the interval.