Writing this - somewhat belatedly - just a few days before our June Playing Day!
Mirjam and Caroline conducted our playing day in the month of May. Music included:

• Heinz Joachim Zander: Variations on "The winter is past"
• Henry Stonings: Browning my dear
• Clement Woodcock: Hackney
• William Byrd: Fantasy Sextet

On yet another lovely spring day (why does the sun always shine when we're inside playing!) 17 of us gathered ready for a day of companionable playing. Trina was conducting for the morning and early part of the afternoon.
We started with some Trina's arrangements of pieces from Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - sadly not the famous and beautiful Lament (though Trina promised Bettina that one day she would arrange that too!). They were lovely arrangements, and we especially enjoyed the challenge of 'In our Deep Vaulted Cell', where we needed to keep the volume down for the echoes (this was remarkably effective, and if we went flat, that just added to the effect).
After a short coffee break, we played an arrangement of some Haydn Fugues originally written for string quartet. With a time signature of 'cut time', the beat is 2 minims in a bar, but Trina was kind to us and beat 4 crotchets, to start with anyway! She also explained that the slur marks indicate bowing for a stringed instrument and need to be played legato (unlike the Purcell we had just played, where similar marks indicate phrasing). It certainly sounded much better when we all played the slurs as intended. We played through the 'Fugue on Two Subjects' (Oriel OL152) and had a look at the 'Fugue on Four Subjects' but decided to leave that for another day.
Trina then handed out Raymond Harvey's 'Variations on "The Flat Pavan" by John Johnson' which had been played by the branch some time ago, but maybe not by anyone present today. We made a start on the first couple of variations and then it was time for lunch.
After lunch (which was another al fresco affair, though a bit chillier than last month), we continued with the Raymond Ahrvey Variations until Delyth arrived. They were fun - a good variety of speeds, time and key signatures to keep us on our toes.
Delyth then arrived to pick up the baton, and we all thanked Trina, who sadly couldn't stay on to play. Delyth had one piece for us, but it was a good one: J.S. Bach 'Jesu Meine Freude' BWV 227, arranged in 5 parts by Alex Ayre (CRCS 321 if anyone would like to give it a try). It consisted of 5 verses and 6 chorales, and took up the rest of the afternoon. In fact, we were so immersed in it that we neglected to take the usual afternoon tea break!
We finished around 4.30, and everyone agreed that it had been an excellent day. Thank you so much to Trina and Delyth for their conducting; Mary for bringing the tea and biscuits - and everyone else for their enthusiasm and company.

On a beautiful spring day – which happened to coincide with Early Music Day, March 21st – we welcomed Alyson Lewin for our Visiting Conductor playing day. 25 players from as far afield as Cardigan Bay and Bridgend gathered in Trecastle, with instruments including our new Subgreatbass, 2 contrabasses and several great basses.
Alyson started us off gently with her arrangement of a traditional Welsh melody, ‘The Wild White Rose’. Although the score includes dynamics, Alyson explained that we individually only need to use very subtle changes as the dynamics of the piece are built into the scoring. The arrangement originally included a section with the option of singing whilst playing, which some people tried, but the jury was out on whether we liked it better with or without.
Our next piece was by the Renaissance composer Osbert Parsley. ‘Parsley’s Clock’ (or ‘Ut re mi fa sol la upon the dial’) features a simple tenor line with the melody – an ascending scale of 6 long notes, followed by descending notes back to the tonic. Alyson pictured for us a clock face with the hour hand starting at 6, rising to 12 and descending back to 6.
Lunch time gave us the opportunity of enjoying the sun, or browsing the many boxes of music which Alyson had brought.
Refreshed, we tackled some unbarred music under Alyson’s expert guidance, with a couple of simple pieces followed by Byrd’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus’. We learnt the value of reading the words alongside playing the notes, to give insight into the phrasing and hence where to breath. It made a huge difference to the feel of the pieces when we all did this.
Finally we split into 2 ‘choirs’ for Gabrieli’s ’Canzon Septimi Toni’, the most challenging piece of the day with some tricky time changes that Alyson made look so simple!
A thoroughly enjoyable day. Huge thanks to Alyson, and to those members who provided homemade biscuits, cake and bara brith!

We got off to a slow start as everyone was catching up after our 2 month break, and welcoming 2 new players Judith and Rachel. Eventually Caroline called us to order and we started with Marg Hall's Caprice, which we'd tried at our last meeting in November. The descant part in particular proved tricky, with a lot of high notes. The piece is in 3 movements and great fun to play, though the jury (Caroline) is out about whether we can get it up to speed to play for an audience!
Those who wished took parts home to practice.
After a coffee break, Caroline continued with the Sinfonia 'La Bergamasca' by Ludovico Grossi da Viadana. This is a 2-choir dance piece, and we needed to keep the articulation light and bouncy ('chiffy'). After a bit of practice, the 2 choirs stood at opposite ends of the room with Caroline conducting from the middle - quite a challenge!
After a lunch break, Caroline continued with Palestrina's 'Tu es Petrus: Prima pars' which improved greatly when 2 players moved from higher to lower instruments and boosted the bass. I must admit, I really enjoyed being in the bass team.
We had a quick coffee and then Mirjam took over the conducting. She has been working on recorder arrangements of some of James MacMillan's pieces from The Strathclyde Motets (choral music from the 20th century), and wanted to try them out. We started with 'Benedicimus Deum Caeli' which sounded beautiful (nice work Mirjam). We then made a start on 'Lux Aeterna', but the more complicated rhythms (descants playing minim triplets in 4/4 time) proved a step too far for this time of day. It was suggested we start with this another time.
Anyway it was 4.25, so time to be packing up - and the next group to use the hall needed to set up for their Eisteddfod - so we said our goodbyes.
Thanks to Caroline and Mirjam for conducting the day - and welcome to our new players. we hope to see you again.

11 of us started the day gently with the usual cuppa and chat. Then Caroline took charge and split us into 2 for our first piece - 'Nu Komm der Heyden Heyland', by Samuel Scheidt. This is a 2-choir piece in 4/2 time so challenged some of us right from the beginning, playing (and counting) one to a part.

(Mirjam translated this as: ​

This was followed by a coffee break and the Branch AGM (for which minutes will circulated to members in due course).
The AGM finished around 12.10 leaving just enough time to tackle our next piece before lunch, an arrangement by Mirjam of Peter Maxwell-Davies' 'Farewell to Stromness'. Some tricky rhythms in the bass part, for which Mirjam rightly blamed the original composer. It was a lovely piece, and nicely arranged :)
After lunch, Caroline handed out a double-sided sheet of music, with the Kyrie Eleison from Bach's B minor mass on one side, and an unbarred piece by Palestrina on the other. Bettina liked the look of the Palestrina but was outvoted (though we did have a chaotic attempt at the Palestrina later on). The Bach was beautiful however, and we managed a fairly good rendition after a bit of practice.
After a short coffee break, we ended with the 'Caprice' for Recorder Orchestra by Marg Hall - a lively first movement, and beautiful slow second.

Thanks to Caroline for conducting the whole day. We need that conducting workshop to recruit some new volunteers!

We started the new SRP year year with a relatively quiet meeting, around a dozen players. In this 500th anniversary year of the birth of Palestrina, Delyth started us off with a couple of pieces by that composer, ‘Tu es Petrus’ arranged for 6 parts by Alex Ayre, and ‘Sicut cervus’. Trina followed with a set of pieces by Walter Bergmann, ‘Accent on Rhythm’ in which the rhythms gradually became more complex as we progressed through the set. We did reach the final one, with a lot of tips from Trina!
After lunch Delyth took us back to the Renaissance with a piece by William Byrd, ‘Fantazia a 4’. We ended with piece by a composer who died 400 years ago this year, Orlando Gibbons: another arrangement by Alex Ayre of ‘What is our life?’

A surprisingly large number of us (18 by my reckoning) met for the last playing day before the autumn. Unfortunately Caroline was ill, so Mirjam arrived with arms full of music which she hadn't had a chance to look at, and the prospect of conducting the entire day! Fortunately though, Delyth also came along, and offered to conduct the late morning session.
Mirjam kicked off with a short piece, 'Abendlied' (Evening Song), by Josef Rheinberger. This was written in 1855 when the composer was 15, though not published as a revised edition until almost 20 years later. As usual for a piece written for voice, Mirjam asked us to take particular note of the breath marks.
We continued with a lovely set of pieces 'German Suite' by Eileen Silcocks, in which each part was played by a high and low instrument (i.e. Descant and Tenor, Alto and Bass, Tenor and Great bass, Bass and Contra bass). We were still getting to grips with this by coffee time, so put it aside to come back to later. 
After a short break, Delyth led us swiftly through 'Dances from "Der Lustgarten"' by Hans Leo Hassler, after which we were all ready for lunch.
After lunch, we continued the Eileen Silcocks suite which everyone really enjoyed.
A quick break for tea, then we finished the day with 'Variatonen uber "Der Winter ist vergangen"' by Heinz Joachim Zander.
We enjoyed our day of German music-making :). Thank you so much to Mirjam for stepping in at such short notice, and to Delyth for taking one of the sessions too. We all wish Caroline a speedy recovery!

Little did we know the mental challenges in store for us as we slowly gathered and chatted over cups of tea and coffee.
Caroline started us off fairly gently with one of Steve Marshall's Jazzy Blues pieces. It was quite a workout for the lower instruments though, especially trying to maintain the speed Caroline wanted, and certainly got us warmed up. Delyth was playing contrabass, on which part Steve comments '(Optional), but it adds a great deal' - and it certainly did!
Caroline then handed out a piece by Machaut 'Ma fin et mon commencement', which Sarah Jeffery had included in her 'Palindromes and Musical Games' session at the SRP festival. In 3 parts, it seemed quite straightforward on first play-through. However she then had us play different parts backwards, quite difficult unless you're in the habit of practicing playing backwards (which Caroline tells us she frequently does, as a technique for practicing difficult passages). With a lot of concentration, we managed a reasonable performance by the end.
For anyone interested in trying this again, you can download it from IMSLP here.
After a tea break, Mirjam picked up the baton with a piece also discovered at the SRP festival in a session led by Chris Orton, called 'Polegnala e Todora'. This is a Bulgarian folk song with a time signature of 11/16 which she had arranged for SATB. Mirjam first demonstrated how she would conduct it and then led us through a set of exercises gradually building up to the full piece. If you're interested, there are several YouTube recordings of the song and more information including the lyrics - just search for the title.
Unfortunately I had to leave at lunchtime, so I don't know what Trina and Delyth had in store for the remaining players in the afternoon. I'm sure it was enjoyable though, and if anyone would like to fill me in, I will update this! [email protected].

Around 15 of us gathered on yet another beautiful sunny day to play together. We were joined by Lesley Chapman from the Cheltenham & Gloucester branch, who was to conduct us in the afternoon.
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First though, Caroline kicked off the day with 2 beautiful Renaissance pieces:

After a short break, Mirjam continued with another 2 movements from the Corelli Concerto Grosso we started last month.
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When we stopped for lunch, Lesley re-organised our seating, so that the basses sat in the middle next to the descants, with altos at one end and tenors the other. She explained that this was her preferred format, so that we could all hear the basses - and altos and tenors face each other so can also hear each other. Everyone can hear the descants of course!
After an enjoyable al fresco lunch, she led us expertly through the following pieces: 

Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy the whole day. Thanks as usual to all our conductors, and a special thanks to Lesley for coming over to Wales; we hope you will come again!

Just under 20 people elected to stay indoors and play recorders on this beautiful spring day (although a few left after the morning session).

Caroline started us off with a run through the pieces for the Tudor & Stuart Dance Workshop in May. There was much discussion about what would happen about repeating sections, and how fast we should play to accommodate the dancers. Delyth and Julie gave us a quick demonstration of some dance steps to get an idea of speed. Regarding repeats though, it was concluded that we'd just have to wait and see how things work out on the day. So, note for the day: be prepared to be flexible, watch Caroline and DON'T SLOW DOWN AT THE END!

After a tea break, Mirjam conducted us in a Concerto Grosso by Corelli (Op 6 No 3) arranged by Moira Usher. Deceptively simple, Mirjam explained how this lovely piece relies on good articulation and precise timing, and managed to get us playing reasonably together by lunchtime!

In the afternoon, Trina kicked us off with 'The Lord Zouche's Maske' by Giles Farnaby, arranged by Paul Clark. This piece has some quite fast passages in all parts, although mostly scalic. After an inital play through, where most of us blanched at the sight of all the semi-quavers and gave up, she took individual parts through their fast passages, demostrating there was nothing to be scared of, and by the end we were mostly coping!

Trina followed this with an arrangement of 'Red Rose Rag' by Percy Wenrich  which was fun.
Delyth continued with another ragtime piece from the same collection, and then handed out a 2-choir piece to finish the day: 'Hor che la nuova e vaga primavera' by Roland de Lassus. Unfortunately we had to be out of the hall promptly as another group needed to set up for the next event, so only had time to play this piece through quickly. It deserves another try when we have more time.

As always, thank you to all the conductors for the day: Caroline, Mirjam, Trina and Delyth - and a special thank you to Delyth for demonstrating  some dance steps for us!