December 2014 – Christmas Concert
December 2014 – The Christmas Party
Almost every year, the RTO has a concert/party at the end of the year to allow the orchestra to feature “works in progress”. This gives us a chance to play new music in an informal environment with an invited audience of friends and family who are even more tolerant of our musical attempts than our paying audiences! The players and the guests bring food to share and drinks are provided courtesy of the RTO wine cellar (the Chairman’s garage!). We usually hold it in St George’s School music hall where we also normally rehearse.
Richard Ingham, who had been taking some of the rehearsals during the course of the year, conducted the orchestra. We made a valiant attempt at Rossini’s Thieving Magpie for the first time in public and we managed most of it! The orchestra also usually plays something Christmassy, and this year it was Leopold Mozart’s Schlittenfahrt (Sleigh Ride) with various sound effects like sleigh bells, whip cracking, etc. Great fun!
As it is a party, there were various party pieces performed by small groups from the orchestra (the cellos and the trumpets), their children (we had some really sweet family performances by the Holts and the Macfies) and occasionally we have invited guest musicians.