[Music] Christmas caroled out

It's been a looooooooooong weekend of Christmas carols. At this point I'll be happy if I don't hear any more for at least a week, but I know that's probably a faint hope. I guess I'll just have to avoid shops for a while (which shouldn't be hard), and console myself with the fact that it was all for several good causes.

On Friday my orchestra, the Leamington Sinfonia, had another of its Wroxhall Abbey events. These are odd affairs, and I think I wrote about the last one a little. To recap, the Monkspath Rotary Club have regular dinners at the Wroxhall Abbey hotel, which is a lovely little place not that far out of Coventry. After dinner, at which they seem to consume substantial volumes of wine, they troop into the Christopher Wren Chapel where we serenade them with a concert for about an hour. There's lots of singing and audience participation, and the whole thing's a lot of fun. Plus it raises valuable money for the orchestra, which it puts towards music hire (which is actually incredibly pricy). The only downside is the timing. Because we play after their dinner, we don't start until about 9:30pm!

This time around, we obviously played a selection of Christmas music. Carols, Sleigh Ride, Rudolph, and White Christmas obviously all featured, but we also fit in some of the movements of the Nutcracker Suite, as well as a jazzy number that the clarinets particularly enjoyed. Afterwards some of us retired to the bar, where we enjoyed the drinks, mince pies, and company.

(Credit: trendsimages.com)

Yesterday the orchestra was again out raising money for itself. Or at least some of it was; sadly we didn't get a great turnout for our caroling in Sainsbury's. Admittedly there was another opportunity today which I wasn't able to make, but still. We were playing for two hours, right in the entrance area of the store, and we raised about £250 for the orchestra. It was tiring work, but we had a nice little audience at several points in the set. We even managed to pull off Sleigh Ride, complete with horse whinny on the French Horn!

Then today I travelled down to London for yet more carol playing. One of my friends from university has started the tradition of an 'arrive and play' wind band at Christmas time - the Big Christmas Wind Orchestra. One Sunday in December, we go to Spitalfields market, set up under the awning in the square there, and play carols for about four hours (or until it gets dark). Obviously we don't play constantly; that would be ludicrous. But we play for about 45 minutes at a time, then have a quick break to grab a coffee and visit the loo before starting up again.

The Big Christmas Wind Orchestra in action. (Credit: Vicky Gray)

The point of the Big Christmas Wind Orchestra is to raise money for Clic Sargent, and this year we were very successful. Lots of people were stopping to watch in spite of the weather, huddling together under the coffee shop awnings and braving the rain to donate money. It's was heartwarming really, and it was almost a shame to stop at times as it destroyed the little audience that we were building up. Eventually we were brought to a halt by fading light; it's hard to read tiny little notes when under an awning when the light gets bad! So we retired to the pub, and I got to catch up with some old acquaintances that I hadn't seen in a long, long time.

It's been a long weekend of music, and it's been fun. But as I said at the start, if I don't hear another Christmas carol for a while I'll be a happy man.