Music in the afternoon

Live music is always a special treat and an afternoon of chamber music in a private house in Bridge of Allan makes it all the more exceptional, especially when it starts off with drinks and home-made canapés served in a beautiful garden.

The occasion was a fundraising event for 

Pollok House Arts Society and the musicians were a group of women who first met as students at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Fifty years later, Shona Gidney, Angela Welch, Phyllis Strachan and Anne McKinnes still maintain that friendship, they love of music and today after a lifetime working as  professional musicians they now play for pleasure.

Shona, their leader, explained that this is how Schubert would have performed -in a private house to a group of friends.

   

Playing the ukulele

Ken Fraser always wanted to play a musical instrument but he never had the opportunity.
Now 72-year-old Ken is fulfilling a lifelong dream. He is one of a growing number of people taking up the ukulele.
 
He attends the weekly ukulele group in our local golf club, Bridge of Allan, one of 16 people who have taken up this instrument  for the first time.
Ken says in his busy life as a project manager for a construction company working all over the UK he never had the time to learn to play.
“Playing the ukulele is great fun and we are now doing gigs too, so if we can entertain others then all the better.”
 
   
Well, I am thinking of taking it up myself…