Hello everyone and welcome to our New Year
Newsletter complete with news, New Year resolutions…. and
requests for your input.
New Years Day Concert
The
Abbey reported 801 people in the audience; and the retiring collection
made a tremendous £1027 now sent half each to ARCH and Over the Wall
children’s charities. John Manning’s review in the Herts Advertiser
gave great praise to the orchestra (whilst slightly unfortunately
disparaging the changed Abbey acoustics). The Audience Survey gained
220 replies from 270 issued, a terrific response of which more below.
All
in all a good day’s work – well done everyone.
Dates
28th
February – St Cecilia Society are running a charity fund-raising
bring-and-sing event in Homewood Rd Church, for choirs and orchestra.
The work is Brahms A German Requiem and will be conducted by John
Gibbons, Music Director of St Albans Chamber Choir. Cecilia Society
members are ourselves, St Albans Chamber Choir, Hardynge Choir and
Radlett Choral Society. There will be over 100 singers from the choirs
and we need to turn out a strong orchestra.
On
17th October the Society, including ourselves, will be
performing Verdi’s Requiem in St Albans Abbey, again conducted by John
Gibbons.
Our
next symphony concert is of course 14th March. Rehearsal
details (including times for brass/woodwind) are at
www.saso.org.uk Rehearsals
page.
April 29th Repertoire Evening – your ideas please!
On
29th April 2009 we will run through a work chosen by the
orchestra, with a guest conductor. We would like YOUR SUGGESTIONS of
what the work should be – to engage all members it should be a
large–scale symphonic work or similar, but not one we have played in
recent years (or plan to play next season – see next section). Please
email your ideas to me by Jan 31st (better still, do
it now!).
2009–10
Here are dates and draft alternative ideas for main works next season
and beyond. Again we would like your feedback on these (or other) ideas
- by email please by Jan 31st.
17th
October 2009 – this is fixed - Abbey: Verdi Requiem, St Cecilia Society
1st January 2010 – Abbey: Russian New Year?/ English New
Year?/ The Planets?
10th March 2010 – St Saviours: Tchaikovsky 4? / Berlioz
Symphonie Fantastique?
24th April 2010 – Harpenden: Bach Suite in D?/ Schubert
Unfinished?
12th June 2010 – this is fixed - Abbey: Mahler 2nd
Symphony with Watford Philharmonic Choir
4th July 2010 – Childrens Concert - ideas?
16th October 2010 – Hallowe’en Concert (yes I know its not
Hallowe’en but we want to avoid half term Saturdays 23rd and
30th – a possible alternative is Sunday Oct 31st)
- mixed programme to include favourite film scores
1st Jan 2011 – ideas?
1st Jan 2012 – Chariots of Fire
Acoustic screens
In
September we took delivery of two acoustic screens. These were judged by
our wind sections to be useful and effective, so we have bought four
more, which were successfully used on Jan 1st.
Setting Up for Rehearsals
For
some years now the main brunt of setting out the chairs at Homewood Road
has fallen on Jerry and Frances, with some excellent help from a few
others who arrive early. At the December committee meeting it was
resolved to ask members to share this workload. This will be achieved by
the section responsible for tea/coffee each week also arranging for 3 of
its members to arrive at 7.10pm to set up. (Reminder, tuning is
supposed to be at 7.25pm!)
The
rota for both setting up and tea/coffee is at
www.saso.org.uk via the Members page. At the end of the evening
everyone should be helping to clear up.
Rehearsals Attendance and Punctuality
There was discussion at the committee meeting regarding attendance at
rehearsals and punctuality. Some local music societies have strict rules
eg miss 3 rehearsals and you must re-audition. Whilst not wishing to go
this far, we do need to encourage our members to attend most rehearsals,
both to maintain performance standards and out of respect for colleagues
who do attend weekly. Our policy therefore now will be as follows: if
you are going to miss 3 or more rehearsals for any concert, please
advise and consult with your section principal, or with Jenny Wigram.
It
is also clearly visible that some members struggle to arrive on time. So
the same request applies: if you have regular difficulty with arriving
for 7.25pm tuning please discuss with your section principal.
The
aim here, for both attendance and punctuality, is to understand the
difficulties and try to find ways of solving them.
Leavers and joiners
After many years with the orchestra, both Geraldine Marshall and Theresa
Cory (flutes) have left us to explore opportunities with other
orchestras. Theresa will be returning to play in our Concertos Evening
July 15th.
Katie Lazarus (violin) has exams and will be taking a gap year; and
Katherine Faulkner (violin) has moved to London.
Our
thanks and good wishes go with all.
On
flutes, Janine Weyers has joined us and Hattie Webster will join us next
month.
Jane Thorburn (violin), Elaine Threlfall (viola) and Alice Wainwright
(cello) have joined us. You are all most welcome.
Audience Survey
I
am attaching a document summarising the audience responses. There is
much we can gain from this and it will be a useful guide for our future
plans for programmes and publicity. We also now have an email list of
nearly 200 names to go alongside our paper mailing list.
There are no great surprises (good news I think) in the Survey but some
preliminary conclusions follow:
Audience Profile: - 87% are aged 41 or over: clearly we need to continue
to pursue programmes that interest a younger audience (as well as this
audience) and communication channels to reach them.
Geography: - only 10% travelled more than 45 minutes: we are probably
effective in reaching a relatively local audience (ie St Albans and
nearby towns) , we need to consider whether we can attract a bigger
audience from further afield.
Publicity: - all our publicity channels (including local radio) were
mentioned, which underlines the need to maintain a wide spread of
channels and intense marketing effort. 32% named Orchestra members as
their primary source and a further 24% named Word of mouth, which
emphasises the importance of personal contact/recommendation.
Reason for attending: - approx. 1 in 3 (31%) came because they know a
player (again, personal contact) and another 1 in 3 (35%) for the
programme items. We can boost these numbers even if we cannot easily
influence more to come because it is the Abbey or because it is New
Years Day.
New
audience: - an amazing 36% said it was their first SASO concert (or
possibly their first New Years Day concert): we need to continue to
develop programmes (and anything else) that attracts new audience.
Attend again?: - an equally amazing 98% said they would attend again
(34% depending on the programme etc). The odd 2 people said No only
because they live too far away!
What music would you like to hear next New Years Day?: - a very wide
range, from Adams to Zappa – see attached file for full details!
