My children’s father
– Roger Wilcock, my first husband – is an extraordinarily gifted musician. He can take a bunch of any old ordinary
people and make a choir out of them. He
is a really good conductor, a choirmaster of excellence, and he has a most
beautiful voice.
If he sits down with a couple planning a wedding, as they
wonder aloud about the organ music for entry and exit, he can play almost
anything they suggest with no sheet music in front of him, because he just
knows it. He can transpose effortlessly,
an important skill for the beginners’ section of brass bands and church music
groups.
He plays all kinds of instruments – any brass you care to
name, piano and organ, violin, sitar, gamelan, electric and acoustic guitar . .
. all sorts. When he was at York University
studying for his music degree, his main instruments were organ and voice.
Here he is with his sweet and dainty wife, Carol.
And here he is looking grand as president of NAMM.
And there's a picture from the Hastings Observer of him with his choir - the Hastings Big Choir - in the Observer article all about it here.
The reason I am telling you about him today is in case you
like to have carols playing in the background at Christmas time. We do.
Every year in our house we get out our CDs of his recordings
of Christmas carols, and they make the festive season perfect for us. He is the kind of musician who knows better
than to try to gild the lily. He allows
the music to speak – draws it forth – lets it be what it wants to be, what it
really is; and so his playing has a very satisfying, timeless quality. When he made his recordings of Christmas
music, there were two CDs – one piano and woodwind, the other piano and
cello, and we have them both. I can’t find the piano and
woodwind one online – I think it might have got absorbed into this boxed set
somehow – but the piano and cello tunes are available for download (see the links below). The cello was played by his good
friend Ian Gill.
Christmas, for us, is not really complete without Roger
playing the carols in the background – it’s become integral.
He’s a composer too.
Though he hasn’t got round to publishing all his compositions, there are
two you can get online. One was written
for someone making a Tai Chi demonstration video, to go with the movements –
almost dances – of the Tai Chi exercises.
It’s called Vitality. The other
is a set of beautiful meditational pieces.
It was commissioned for a book of Celtic meditations as an
accompanying CD of original music, an evocative and inspiring piece to go with
each meditation. At the time (I was
still married to Roger then) I took the phone call from the publisher, who said he wanted this music but it would have to be written in a week, ready for
the next publishing meeting, and could Roger do that? “Yes,” I replied without
hesitation, because at the time he was just starting out as a freelance
musician, and all such opportunities were seemed valuable. He did it.
He worked FLAT OUT for a week, and managed to compose an entire CD of
original – beautiful, inspiring, thoughtful – music to go with the meditation
CD, in time for the deadline. Then after the publishing meeting they came
back to him saying they’d changed their minds and thought they
wouldn’t use his compositions after all.
They did publish it in the end, as a stand-alone set, but it was written
to go with the Celtic meditations, and I think it’s a pity they got separated
like that.
Anyway, I thought you might like to sample his music. He’s here on this boxed set from Classic Fox
– I don’t know the whole set, but it has his piano and cello and his piano and
woodwind in, I think.
Here's an album he's done with Classic Fox, called Advent Promise - a set of traditional Advent pieces - and this one called Approaching Christmas. These two Advent ones have some overlap, but some different ones too (I think).
He’s here with the piano and cello Christmas carols, which
are just lovely - these are the ones we play at home. Listen to the previews - oh, it's so fab! Take, for example, Ding Dong Merrily On High - listen to how he knows just how long to linger on each note and when to move on, so it's sprightly but not hurried; lyrical.
He has an album called Classical Christmas too - though I have no idea who the Eden Symphony Orchestra might be!
His Tai Chi pieces are available here.
His Celtic Spirit album is on i-Tunes here.
But mainly I wanted to tell you about the Christmas music,
in case you wanted to get hold of it for the peacefulness and holiness of your
Advent season – okay, I know we aren’t there yet, but it’s coming!
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Two DVDs explaining all about the health benefits of jumping
on a trampette. What more can I tell you?
This . . . er this . . . well I think it was a plastic
cradle to house some element of the gadgetry connected with our Wii Fit. We still have the Wii, and engage in bursts
of virtuous exercise that do us the world of good. But this plastic cradle turned out to be
surplus to requirements.
Crew-necked T-shirts.
I look awful in crew-necked T-shirts.
A lot of women do, especially if they have got a bit plump and reached
the age when the bust is sliding south.
The neckline needs to kinda slide with it a little way.
Hmm. Two Raymond Chandlers, I think, and A Writer’s Notes On
His Trade, and maybe that one with the front cover gone missing is The Witch of
Blackbird Pond. Evidently old favourites
in a state of disintegration.
A hairdryer. To avoid
complication, I try to stick with the kind of hairstyles that will just dry
themselves without attention. Every now
and then if I’m going somewhere that matters in a hurry I do need the
assistance of a hairdryer, but our Alice kindly lends me hers.