Sat, 19 May 2012 05:10:28 -0800WeeblySat, 31 Dec 2011 10:54:21 -0800http://www.primavoltaensemble.com/1/post/2011/12/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit.htmlIt's now about a month since our first tour came to an end, and I want to say a huge thank you to all who came out to hear us at our various concerts. We discovered that when performing a Prima Volta concert, we experience a level of communication between each other and the audience unlike any other concert, and the wonderful audiences we encountered on this tour gave us the chance to find this out. When we give a concert, we genuinely never know what's about to happen, and often experienced excitement, extasy, terror and even bewilderment side by side.

Many moments stick in the memory, such as the time at Aldeburgh when we asked for a theme from the audience so we could perform a set of variations, and were given Waltzing Matilda. Believe it or not (maybe it's our age!), none of us knew it, so the person who suggested it started to sing it, only for the entire audience to join in a jolly sing song, only for us to admit at the end that while the whole audience knew it, none of the three of us had ever heard it! Personally a high point for me was performing our first ever three movement improvised sonatas in concert. Earlier in our rehearsals, this ambition had always been a motivation but felt like an impossible dream, and I still can't quite believe we have done it. 

An audience member who came to two concerts commented that she found each concert a totally different experience from each other, so if you came and liked what you heard come again to see if you agree!

Now the serious work begins again promoting and organising more performances and workshops, not to mention the onging work of rehearsing and exploring new exciting ideas for future performances. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in 2012! ]]>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:24:00 -0800http://www.primavoltaensemble.com/1/post/2011/11/tomorrow-is-our-first-winter-tour-date.htmlTomorrow is our first concert in our latest series and we believe we are the first group to ever attempt to improvise a strict sonata live in front of an audience as a chamber music ensemble. We believe that folk used to do it hundreds of years ago, but merely as a solo exercise- so lets cross our fingers and have fun tomorrow! Hope to see you there for a world premiere in more ways than one!! :) ]]>Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800http://www.primavoltaensemble.com/1/post/2010/11/the-beginning-of-prima-volta.htmlI remember joining Prima Volta so many years ago now that I can't ever remember when it actually was.... All I do remember was Simon asking me- well, we have this group.... its... well... ermmm, kind of a group- sort of .... just needs.... well.... some members :) good times..... we've been rehearsing together for years and in a few months we have some concerts to perform. 

I stand by the simple fact that it takes more rehearsals to prepare an all improvisation concert than any other type of performance :)  ]]>