"Our Big Gig" 12th July 2014

On Saturday from 10.30am at St Thomas' Church, Haymarket, Newcastle, NE1 7PF,

Cellodees are hosting "Our Big Gig" part of a nationwide celebration of community music making in collaboration with Superact.

At 10.30 we will be having our usual Saturday playalong, particularly encouraging cellists to join us who have not been before, or can't make a regular committment, or even don't have a cello, as we will have a couple of spares.

At 1.00pm Ian Macdonald will give us a rousing organ piece, while we set up for our scratch performance of iconic 60s piece "In C" by Terry Riley. This is 50+ bars of different lengths which the performers play to a pulse, but starting in their own time, and playing each bar 0-8 times. the piece rolls along sounding almost Indonesian. Very 1960s, for those of us who can remember them...challenging the establishment....breaking out within a structure. The piece is for all melody instruments - music available from flamingcello@hotmail.co.uk.

After this the Semitones will perform. This is an orchestra established in 2008 by Cellodees regular, Ewa Posner. The group meet every weekend to rehearse or perform - mostly in Care and Residential Homes, playing a mixyure of popular classics and songs from musicals and such.

Finally Live Rhythms will perform a short set. This is a group of musicians who play for 5 Rhythms Dance. This is a somewhat therapeutic dance form designed by American dancer Gabrielle Roth in the early 80s, involving progressing through 5 emotional states, ending with Stillness.