London Sinfonietta's concert was more like being invited into their drawing room while they discussed their approach to various pieces and got into the mind of the composer.
With sudden illness, rapidly overcome, it has to be said, overtaking their featured soprano, Asamisimasa, a Nowegian group, had to make rapid programme changes to something that was already looking like chipping away certain frontiers.
Clever name, a fiddle and percussion, and who would think a violin would blend so well with a stage full of percussion. But it did. And, despite one punter storming out saying it was too loud (it was billed as ensemblebash!) it demonstrated forcibly the incredible colours of the violin and showed that, even with four percussionists, you can achieve texture and gentle emotion.
Most of her piano playing being achieved by her fingers on the strings inside the instrument, a programme by Mary Dullea presents as much a challenge for the artist as it does for the audience. It does prove, of course, that almost as much can be created with your head inside the piano as with your seat firmly where it conventionally would be.
The acoustic of St Bartholomew's Church is particularly well suited to small instrumental groups and twin cellists Pei-Jee and Pei-Sian Ng made the most of it.
At an age when some men take to fast cars, wild extravagance and run off with their secretaries, Pip Utton closed his jewellery business 12 years ago to follow a dream to be a professional actor.
SCULPTOR Deborah van der Beek who lives and works in Lacock, has received
many plaudits for her unforgettable Giacometti-like images of women warriors
outlaw Ned Kelly, and those horses.
If the word mandolin conjures up an image of a small pear-shaped 18th century stringed instrument, being played querulously beneath an Italian balcony you are only partly right.
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