Serenading Newton Stewart and District Music Club’s Valentine’s Day

 

Hello all! Jon here, horn of the Magnards. Concert number 3 completed, and what a treat it was to be in Wigtown for the Newton Stewart and District Music Club.

 

 

The county buildings provided a warm and romantic Valentine’s Day treat for us – including a lovely floral display to join us on stage:

 

 

Earlier in the day, we enjoyed a wonderfully picturesque drive across Galloway Forest Park. To get us in the mood for playing Paul Patterson’s ‘Westerly Winds’, we embraced the bracing bluster outside the comfortable confines of our car, Nessie… but only long enough to take a daft photo! It was chilly.

 

 

A short soundcheck and deliciously warming bowl (or two) of soup later, and the concert whizzed past. I now sign off to you from the depths of Nessie’s rear, as we power back through Galloway Forest Park – turbo charged forwards to the sound of Whitney Houston blaring out the speakers to accompany us across the warmly-lit rolling hills that surround. West Kilbride, see you soon!

Good morning from sunny Kirkcaldy!

What a lovely day we had yesterday – Nessie took us safely from the Somerton House Hotel in Lockerbie to the Old Kirk in Kirkcaldy, where our second concert of the week was to take place.

 

 

The venue was not what we imagined from its name and we knew straight away that we were going to have another immensely enjoyable concert, in one of the best acoustics we have ever experienced! We particularly felt MacMillan’s Untold suited the space with its long deliberate silences and the rich sound world. Again it was a joy to perform to a warm friendly audience and it meant a lot to chat to many of them in the interval and after the concert.

 

We cannot thank everyone from Kirkcaldy Concert Society enough, especially Mairi, Hilary, David, Alison and David. We were absolutely spoilt rotten! Feeling refreshed (and well fed), we are ready for the next leg of our Nessie adventure – watch out Newton Stewart!

Team Magnard xxx