© Painting Copyright Philip West
NO BUSINESS LIKE SNOW BUSINESS...
The scene at Southampton Airport on Thursday 2nd December 2010, after heavy overnight show, which meant we wouldn't be flying today...or performing our concert in the airport main concourse!
The students at Woodlands Community College were scheduled to be premiering a new piece of music - "Fly Away Mozart - K5054" - along with members of the London Mozart Players and composer Michael Omer, but the weather had other ideas! The Spitfire was built near the airport, flown by amongst others the youngest pilot in the squadron, Geoffrey Wellum aged 19 - and one hundred years ago Edwin Moon perfected flight in the meadow which is now part of the airport.
TERRIBLE TEENS TO TRIUMPH
Cleverly bringing together these events, the new piece makes connections between the teenage Geoffrey Wellum, the teenage composer Wolfgang Mozart - and the students - themselves all teenagers bursting with new ideas! Including a new song "I Have Touched the Sky" and a rap called "Two Different Lives", highlighting the contrasts between young Wolfgang and Geoffrey, the work is a great example of how new ideas can come from almost anywhere!
SNOWED UNDER
Composer Michael Omer, and orchestra members were poised to battle through the snow from London, when frantic phone calls and texts at 6am, announcing the school would be closed, and the students wouldn't be able to get in because of the weather, meant the show wouldn't go on after all. Enterprising Chris Newport, the french horn player in the London Mozart Players, had in fact spent the night at the airport to make sure he was there to play - but sadly it would have been a solo performance after all for Chris - such a professional!
It is hoped that the performance can be rescheduled soon, so please check back for further details. In the meantime, a really big "thank-you" goes out to all the students who took part, along with their enterprising new Head of Music, Owen Bellman.
Meanwhile, you can next catch the London Mozart Players at the Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton in a Mozart Birthday concert on January 27 2011. Click for details HERE.
(Thanks go to Philip West for his wonderful painting above - we needed something to raise the spirits! Please check out his website for more superb aviation art HERE.)
