Community Play Day 2022
The second hugely successful musical get-together funded by the Co-op (and free to all the participants) was held on Sunday October 16th 2022. Many of the musicians from our first Play Day in 2019 attended and were joined by many other enthusiastic adults, all hoping to enjoy a day of making music but with some reservations about what to expect!
The magic and fun of creating exciting music together in a relaxed environment was soon evident and plain to see on the faces of all the participants, applicants and DCO alike.
As in 2019 we built the day to be progressive and manageable, taking the strings and winds separately in the morning and bringing them together in the afternoon to form a full orchestra. This year our programme included arrangements from The Music for the Royal Fireworks by Handel and the Haffner Symphony by Mozart. These two pieces went on to be performed fully by the DCO on November 13th 2022.
The first Community Play Day and how it started.
On Sunday 6th October 2019 Dunblane Chamber Orchestra held the first Musical Play-Day for adults. The idea for this day came from the DCO audience members who told us over the years about being lapsed musicians or just starting to play an instrument in retirement, but not having the experience to join a group yet. So, we thought we could help, and with funding from Stirling Council and The Co op, we set about organising and advertising our Play Day.
Our group of 54 musicians ranged from grades 1 – 5 and were initially divided into strings and winds for two sessions. For the final session of the day the two groups came together to form an orchestra. They were amazing!
On
hand to act as “buddies” for our players were members of the DCO. There was a wide range of music played, and
it was chosen to enable the players to feel comfortable with
different styles and gain confidence as the day went on. In the final session the strings played a
section of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht Musik and the winds a Shostakovich Waltz. Both groups joined forces in a little bit of
Beethoven’s Ist Symphony which the DCO then performed at their November 2019
concert.
