Winter Concert, January 2008

The Endcliffe Orchestra performed a Winter Concert on Saturday 19th January 2008 at 7.30pm at Holy Trinity Church, Grove Road, Millhouses, Sheffield. 

The evening's programme included:

• Quiet City - Copland

• English Folk Song Suite - Vaughan Williams

• Finale from Water Music Suite - Handel/Harty

• Jamaican Rumba - Arthur Benjamin

• March Past of the Kitchen Utensils - Vaughan Williams

• English Folk Song Suite - John Earwaker

Dedication

The concert was dedicated to John Earwaker, a former member and chairman of the orchestra committee, who passed away in 2007.

John was an ordained priest in the Church of England whose background was mostly in church music. At school John learned to play the piano and organ, and since the age of about ten until his death in 2007 was always in at least one choir. Most of John's working life was spent at Sheffield Hallam University where he was for a number of years a lecturer in Education and, later on, a lecturer in Social Studies and University Chaplain.

From time to time John wrote and arranged music for choirs. In early 2007 he was surprised to discover that one of his hymn tunes appears in an Australian hymnbook. At the age of 40 John started to play the double-bass which enabled him to play in a jazz band as well as local amateur orchestras, including the Endcliffe Orchestra.

Following retirement John wrote a full-length musical show ‘Cousin John’ about the life and death of John the Baptist, which was performed as part of Sheffield's Broomhill Festival in 1999 and repeated again in 2003. Over the years he wrote or arranged a good deal of music, some of which can be accessed from his homepage on the Sibelius Music website.  For the last 6 years of his life John was learning to play the cello.

John arranged a Folk Song Suite for the Endcliffe Orchestra which was performed during the concert.