HemiHelp
Children helping Children Concert
Cadogan Hall London Saturday 24th February 2007
I had been taking part in a number of music workshops, organised by
the charity HemiHelp which helps children with hemiplegia like myself,
try different instruments and play some specially adapted instruments,
which took place at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, the
workshops were run by members of the Landon Ensemble, a group of
experienced workshop leaders and highly talented musicians from the four
major London conservatories.
A few weeks later, my Dad had a letter saying I had been selected, as
one of only eight children, to perform at the prestigious “Children
Helping Children Charity Concert” in London in the presence of HRH
Princess Alexandra the charity’s patron; it was a very exciting
opportunity.
I thought my Dad was joking when he first told me about it, as he often
teases me, so I wasn’t sure at first. When I realised he was serious, I
felt butterflies in my tummy, at the thought of performing in front of
royalty, and hundreds of people, but my Dad reassured me I would be
fine, and it would be an excellent opportunity for me to participate in
such a prestigious event, anyway it seemed a long way off at the time,
and I thought no more of it until a few months later when rehearsals
were scheduled to start in London at the Guildhall School of Music and
Drama on Sundays before the event. It didn’t feel very real until we
were in my Dad’s car driving up to London for the first rehearsal, then
I started to feel a little pensive.
I met the other seven selected performers, some of whom I knew as they
were at workshops I had attended, and some were new to me, as they had
been selected from other workshops. We were all a little awkward and
nervous at first but the adult musicians taking the rehearsals soon put
us at our ease.
We did lots of musical warm up exercises, to get into the swing of
things, and some breathing exercises too, before the rehearsal which
usually made us laugh a bit and broke the ice very rapidly. Then we
started actually rehearsing the piece we were going to be performing at
the charity concert itself, all through these rehearsals the HemiHelp
girls from the their London HQ were made to join in so it was a good
bonding exercise all round, they were lovely and very friendly and made
us laugh. We all met up again the following Sunday and had another
rehearsal, this time we were quite relaxed, and could concentrate on
what we were doing.
There were other performers participating in the charity concert, who we
never saw until the big day itself, as we were all rehearsing our pieces
independently of each other, and in different venues across the country.
Our offering was called “The Haunted House” and was great fun to do,
most of us had to used several musical instruments during it, my main
instrument was the Dolmetsch descant recorder, which I had been playing
for about 18 months, and my additional instrument was the boomwahackers,
which were nice and easy, and were used to create sound effects during a
narrated part of our piece.
We rehearsed in different rooms at the Guildhall School of Music and
Drama, some were small and cosy, and others were like a mini theatre
with a set stage and seating for an audience on a rise, so it gave us a
little more of an idea how it would feel to perform in the Cadogan Hall,
Sloan Terrace, London, where the fundraising concert was going to be
held.
It was very intense, and we all worked very hard to get things right,
but every so often one of us would either, not play their instrument
when we should be, or play it when we shouldn’t, and we would all stop
and break out in fits of nervous laughter, this didn’t seem to worry our
musical directors who were very patient with us I am not sure if they
were worried about how things might turn out if we made a mistake on the
big day, but they never showed it outwardly.
We had a chat with the
HemiHelp concert organiser Alice Doyle, and she
told us how well we all were doing, and proud she was of us, we were
told to all wear black so we would all look the same on stage, and no
one would stand out from the others, we were also told not to be late
for our final rehearsal slot, which was booked for 10am on the day of
the actual performance, the concert was scheduled to start at 7pm, so it
seemed like it was going to be a very along day, but we had to fit in
with all the other performers too, who had to rehearse on the Cadogan
Hall stage, and up to that point we didn’t even know where the Cadogan
Hall was, it was just a name to us and didn’t mean anything special.
We did know that we would be meeting Her Royal Highness Princess
Alexandra (the Queen’s cousin) during the interval and she would
hopefully talk with us, and we also found out the other performers in
the concert included the multi platinum selling singer
Hayley Westenra,
and young musicians from the
Purcell and Yehudi Menuhin Schools, and the Royal College of Music
Junior Department, so we were in amazing company.
We did lots of musical warm up exercises, to get into the swing of
things, and some breathing exercises too, before the rehearsal which
usually made us laugh a bit and broke the ice very rapidly. Then we
started actually rehearsing the piece we were going to be performing at
the charity concert itself, all through these rehearsals the HemiHelp
girls from the their London HQ were made to join in so it was a good
bonding exercise all round, they were lovely and very friendly and made
us laugh. We all met up again the following Sunday and had another
rehearsal, this time we were quite relaxed, and could concentrate on
what we were doing.
There were other performers participating in the charity concert, who we
never saw until the big day itself, as we were all rehearsing our pieces
independently of each other, and in different venues across the country.
Our offering was called “The Haunted House” and was great fun to do,
most of us had to use two musical instruments during it, my main
instrument was my Dolmetsch descant recorder,
which I had been playing for about 18 months, and my additional
instrument was the boomwahackers, which were nice and easy, and were
used to create sound effects during a narrated part of our piece.
All About Me
What Katy did
Living with hemiplegia
HemiHelp
BBC Ouch - It's a disability thing
The Children helping Children
Concert 2010
Listen to me talking on Mix96 about
the "Children Helping Children Concert" in London
bh Magazine artricle on concert
Me playing my one handed
Dolmetsch Descant Recorder
One of the Music Workshops. Phil Cornwell is in the middle leading the group, assisted by Julie Groves, Michael Grant, and Dan James all members of the Landon Chamber Ensemble.
Phil Cornwell introducing me to the claves
Me playing the Pan Pipes
Sarah & Alice from HemiHelp with Michael of the Landon Chamber Ensemble.