We bid farewell to Mara and Angelos and their mother Katerina, from Balliol Primary School brass group as they leave to return with dad George to Greece. They have been absolute stars during their time with us, performing family solos twice at School performances.
Angelos was also our youngest member, being in year 2 when they joined in Sept 2016. His musical knowledge and his ability to convey it was quite impressive – for example when I asked the group if anyone knew what the “dot” after a minim meant?
His answer was “when a note is followed by a dot it has half the length added to it. So in this case the note is a minim which is 2 beats, but the dot means we add half of 2 beats which is 1 beat, making it 3 beats altogether”. A much better answer than I could have managed!
In recent weeks, Mara was a great help assisting with teaching the new starters by demonstrating notes on the cornet. She is developing into a very good player.
Katerina, Mara and Angelos performed with us at the Wansbeck Music Festival in March, and the recent North Tyneside’s Got Talent at Whitley Bay Playhouse, and we knew we could rely on them to play well and help the others.
On their last session they performed once more for us, including a rendition of Kumbaya.
We wish them every success and happiness for the future, and hope they will keep up their
music in Greece!