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Dear CGO members,
I hope everyone is keeping well and giving their guitar some regular exercise.
Valerie wrote with an update (Note to Mike Lloyd – Could you add the attached score & parts .PDF to the Website please). She says:
“I hope you are all staying safe. I miss seeing you at rehearsals. Apologies for not being at our recent Zoom meetings. I spend my life online (as I imagine, many of you are doing too) so on weekends I unplug. I will join in at some point for a meeting, no worries.
In the meantime, I’m hoping I can encourage you to pick up your guitar and get ready for when we will meet in person. Perhaps knowing our plan for the Manchester concert would help? Our 2 concerts are not canceled, only rescheduled. It’s up to you how you want to learn the pieces. Perhaps learn 2 pieces the 1st month and add 1 each month? Every time you add a piece, play through the parts you learned the months before so you don’t lose out on your work. There’s good news! You already know many of the pieces and have practised them numerous times pre-Covid. So, that rep should be all about dusting it off and working on upping the tempi.
LA VALSE DES BRUMES by Thierrry Tisserand. He contacted me after he found out I was posting his music on YouTube. He dedicated this piece to me which is sweet. We could learn the 1st one and it would be a lovely way to start the programme. It’s not hard and we could get it under our fingers quickly. I think we’ll need to do that in order to be properly prepared for our concerts. Manchester: I’m performing a 25 min solo programme so that will take the pressure off of CGO. For the Moolight Mandolin, we are sharing a concert so again, that takes loads of pressure. We are not doing a full concert next year which will be great easing back into the performance seat.
BRUMES: Guitar 1: Mat, Tom, Mike A, Antonio Guitar 2: Colin, Mike L, Hannah, Hans Guitar 3: Anne, Lily, Huw, David
Programme: Start after my solo, we’ll do a short set before interval 1) La Valse de Brumes 2) Concertino III (all 3 mvts) 3) Tico Tico Interval
1) Dulcinea 2) Two Themes 3) Touch her Lips 4) Villanesca 5) Wilde Mountain Thyme 6) Fairy Pools 7) L’elephant
Encore: Cantilena
We need to time this, to be fair. We may have too much in the 1st half. Might have to move Tico to 2nd half and end with that. We’ll know more closer to the date but I think that’s enough music. To do the 2nd Granados and the Schubert we will need more people.
Please stay safe and drop us a note (🎶), we would love to hear how you are all managing during the lockdown. I’ve been teaching, recording solo videos, doing the Brouwer Etude challenge, the Tisserand challenge (my student challenged me to learn his music during lockdown), collaborated w/a virtual guitar orchestra and with an artist who’s doing a lecture at the Guitar Foundation of America. Plus, we take advantage of nice weather with rambling in the middle of nowhere w/hubby (who is shielding me & teaching online) with our 15 & 1/2 yr old pup Jodie. Next up, notating on Finale 2 of my compositions and writing more music. Looking forward to hearing from you all. Lots of hugs,
Valérie”
Michael

LA-VALSE-DES-BRUMES-DES-SOUVENIRS-COND.-ET-P.S..pdf

Dear CGO Members,
Mike Lloyd has now set up our own Zoom Personal Meeting ID which is:3177567251
The password is: CGO@Zoom1
These can be entered into the Zoom App if you already have it loaded on your machine.
But if you want to get in via a browser you can simply click on this link:
us04web.zoom.us/j/3177567251?pwd=N0VxbVM0NityTWU1bS9SaXV0ZDEyQT09
This information can be reused for all our zoom meetings (until such time as we decide to change the password).
Michael

Dear CGO Members,
We had a very nice Zoom meeting on the 19th April. Apologies to those who didn’t get the email with the link in time. I’m posting a bit earlier this time around. Also I’m giving two links, one for 2pm and another for 3pm in case we carry on for a bit. Short coffee/tea break interval between the two.
Zoom Meeting(s) for Sunday May 3rd:
2pm us02web.zoom.us/j/83270278359?pwd=bkFzVGIzb2k5bmxSaTlMU20vak51UT09
3pm us02web.zoom.us/j/85058029091?pwd=dFBqZzgzd3c5Q2pZeU5BLzNCZHV6dz09
Now at the last meeting Valerie talked a about two new pieces to add to our repertoire. These were tried out at Classical Minds weekend and judged to be hits. Mike Lloyd has put the music up on the CGO website in the usual place. Here are the part allocations.
Cantilena (K. Jenkins):
1: Colin and Michael 2: Tom, Mike 3: Antonio, Huw 4: Lily, Hans, Hannah 5: Mat, Anne, David
Concertino III (P. van der Staak [Note to Mike Lloyd – not “Valk” Mike, that was a TV detective back in the 1970s!]): Soloist: Mat 1: Michael, Antonio 2: Colin, Hannah, Hans 3: Tom, Lily, Anne 4:  Huw, David, Mike
And now I must get back to the Bach Bouree that I plan to play on Sunday. Still only at half the proper tempo! Michael

Dear CGO members,
After consultation with the committee and following the government advice it is my sad duty to inform you that we are going to have to suspend CGO activities while the coronavirus outbreak continues.
I have spoken to Chris Dumigan (Manchester concert) and Hugh Boyde (Mandolins concert) and we concluded that both of the concerts, currently scheduled for June and July, will have to be postponed. Please don’t forget to cancel any hotel booking you may have made for Manchester.
I do not know when we will be able to resume normal activities, but I’m hoping that things will have resolved by the start of the autumn term. It may only be when a vaccine is available. We will just have to wait and see how things develop.
Please keep practising, it’s a good pressure release valve for daily life. I’m going to set myself some goals to motivate me as Ray Burley suggested at the Classical Minds weekend, which was a great success by the way. I’m sure Valerie would be pleased to advise on homework that could be done. She is now conducting private lessons via internet video link so please consider that if you think that would be helpful for you.
Existing payment for rehearsals will be carried forward to when we restart.
Stay safe,
Michael