Olly Green Memorial CD

I have just listened with great poignancy to the archive recording of much loved and missed Philharmonia horn player Olly Green (1976-2005), whom was a friend of mine at the Royal College of Music. He and I worked on an album called September Songs which included jazzy arangements I did of tunes byWeill, Gershwin and Rodgers for piano and horn which we recorded at the RCM in 1999. Olly went onto to play for the Hong Kong Philharmonic, before joining the Philharmonia in 2002, and his unexpected death in 2005 was a tragic shock to his colleagues, friends and his family. The CD also contains pieces from the wonderful memorial concert the Philharmonia stagedin 2006, including a particulalry fine Concerto for Horn and Orchestra written by Olly's father Stewart Green, that Olly himself had played in2002. It is great to have Olly's playing recorded on this archive CD, and a real privilege for me to be a part of it. It stands as a fitting tribute to Olly who was a such a good natured, unselfish, funny and thoroughly decent person as well as being an incredible horn player. I shall miss him.

Music Sculptors' Site

The Music Sculptors, a fab music media group that I have done some orchestration for, have included me as part of their creative team, and there is a now a brief biog of mine on their site: www.themusicsculptors.com if you click on 'About Us'. It is v. exciting to have a profile alongside such fantastic musicians as Mark Sayer-Wade, Julian Kershaw, David Butterworth and Jon Paxman.

The new Music Sculptors site is extremely impressive, as is their range of media work, and I really enjoyed looking at their showreel.

More orchestration work and stuff

I have been a wee bit hectic recently with Uni of Southampton end of term marking, and various domestic issues relating to sorting out my computer. New speakers. Really glamorous, madly thrilling stuff.

I have done some exciting work though - some more orchestrations for Abi Roberts cabaret show, which included me writing my first jingle which was a huge amount of fun. Tony Reeves (an utter diamond geezer) helped a huge amount with the recordings and even sang on the jingle. What a star. Abi (also really nice) is a really talented singer (think a blonde Bette Midler with a better voice) and her fantastic show will be at the Edinbugh Festival this year.

This weekend I will have a chance to relax and see a few friends, and I will also try and practise the piano which I will be playing for my sis' wedding. Brotherly pride this, but she will be the most beautiful bride ever and I want to do it well.