The reading material in most barber's shops around here tends to be The Sun or The Daily Record so I was pleasantly surprised when I went to get rid of my Festen grandfather beard to find The Herald, The i and the new pro independence paper, The National, to browse while I waited.

That excitement aside it has been a musical week.  First up was Judith Bingham's choral work The Christmas Truce.  Famously German and Allied troops briefly laid aside their weapons in favour of football and fraternisation at Christmas 1914 and this work deals with that.  The singers made all sorts of whooshing and whistling noises to represent the mayhem of bombardments and during the truce section the male singers split into "Germans" and "Tommies" and sang respectively Oh Tannenbaum and Still the Night, did a bit of male bonding hugging and then went back to war.  I'm told by someone I know in the choir that it's a really good sing and I have to say I thought it was a really good listen.

Following that was the SCO and Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto.   I first heard it in the Festival Hall in London in 1967 and it's been one of my desert island discs ever since.  Later in the week the RSNO performed Shostakovitch's Second Piano Concerto.  That's another favourite but of a totally different character, energetic and jaunty while the Beethoven is poetic and lyrical.

Earlier in the week I dashed from a DORA quarterly meeting to the final Dunedin Wind Band rehearsal before our participation in the Scottish Concert Band Festival.  That happened today in Livingston where over the weekend about 30 bands from the central belt ranging from primary 7 kids through youth bands to our category of community bands are doing their thing under the watchful ears of an adjudicating team of two who award certificates of greater or lesser excellence.

We took part for the first time last year although I wasn't able to be there and were awarded a silver certificate.  This year with my participation we won gold.  Just a coincidence no doubt.  It's not as impressive as it sounds because gold plus and platinum are obtainable so it's a bronze in Olympic terms.  However it does qualify us to play in the National Finals in Perth Concert Hall in March. I can't be there unfortunately because I'll be away ski-ing but I expect they'll struggle through.

Next up is our Christmas concert 

 Despite Festen being over and done with I didn't get away from theatre altogether. I auditioned for the Grads next production, Titus Andronicus.