Since my last post it's been pretty hectic! As I wrote before I was working on a composing commission for the charity Music of Life, which has taken up most of my time the last few months. It's been a great project to work on! Also the other big undertaking in the Blumire family household has been reworking the garden involving the addition of a wildlife pond!
Firstly to the composition for Music of Life! To bring you up to speed I was commissioned back in January to write a piece for their concert on 20th June in Birmingham at the Town Hall. This will be a special concert to celebrate the many achievements of this fantastic charity! I've been fortunate enough to have been helped a lot by MOL down the years so it was brilliant to have the opportunity to give something back! I was first introduced to the work of the charity back when I was at school. Since then, I've gone on to be involved with so many great projects and worked with some truly inspiring people! Like the time I did a workshop with well known composer James Macmillan and in 2012 having my own composition performed at the Temple Church in London to name just a few. I've now been given so much confidence and belief that I can achieve in the music world! If you would like to find out more check out my previous post and take a look at the MOL website if you haven't already: http://musicoflife.org.uk/ Also for details of the concert click this link: https://www.thsh.co.uk/event/music-of-life-celebration-concert
The composition itself is a song using words of a poem by Edgar Albert Guest called "It Couldn't Be Done". Here's a link to the words: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44314/it-couldnt-be-done The words are not only upbeat, but also contain a great message that you can do anything if you put your mind to it! This fits perfectly with the aims of Music of Life to improve the lives of young disabled people and help them believe in themselves! Writing the piece presented quite a few challenges as I needed to make the music accessible to everyone involved. The piece has been written for male voice choir Canoldir and the MOL children's choir, which is a collective of special needs schools in the Birmingham area all with a wide range of disabilities. So it needed to be fairly simple to sing, but challenging enough too and I hope I've managed to get the right balance. Either way it's been a pleasure to work on!
The other exciting project that has been going on is the reworking of the garden with the creation of a wildlife pond. Being a great lover of the natural world it has long been an ambition of mine to have a proper wildlife pond and it has been amazing to watch it evolve! I see something new almost every day! We also now have a pebble garden and pergola, which the grape vines will eventually grow over! With the lovely weather recently it's been great to be able to enjoy it! My parents have worked tirelessly and the outcome looks great! My involvement has mainly been as quality control (or that's what I would say anyway!) I did help though with quite a few of the plant choices mainly with photography and wildlife in mind. That brings me nicely to where I'm at with the photography, as my next aim is to do some new garden photo-shoots ready for my next exhibition in September. In the meantime here's some images of the garden as it's progressed!
