About 47 members and guests turned-up on this cold evening to experience a special evening! The Club Rooms were nice and warm and the music was positively hot with Murray Hancox as our guest artist! Murray played the Club's Clavinova and brought along a Yamaha Tyros 3 to play as well. As a bonus, Murray was accompanied by Darren Smith, the Manager for the Musicworks franchise Parent Company. Darren played some tunes on the Clavinova duetting with with Murray - great stuff!
Murray Hancox playing a Yamaha Tyros 3 arranger keyboard
Murray Hancox playing the Club's Clavinova.
Photo courtesy of Colleen Kerr.
The 'goss' has it that Darren will be taking over as Manager of Mainline Musicworks, Takapuna in July and who better to demonstrate the intrinsic qualities of the broad selection of keyboards, Clavinovas and acoustic pianos than the musical magician himself. Murray also mentioned that the Atwaters Keyboard Club would be operational again probably later this month at Hobson Street on Saturday morning. So two things to look forward to!
Darren Smith jamming with Murray
Thanks go to Joan Perkins for baking a lovely fruit cake for the raffle which was won by John Beales - lucky fellow! Also, a big thank you to Evelyn Evans for donating a jig-saw puzzle and a lovely set of ladies cosmetic purses for use with future raffles. Members donations are always appreciated in this regard to help bolster Club funds.
In chronological order, the evening started with Des Rouse doing the honours for the arrival music on his Yamaha PSR 3000 arranger keyboard. Very nice as always thank you Des.
Des Rouse playing the arrival music with his usual aplomb
Then, Barbara McNab entertained us on the Clavinova and entertain she did with three stunning pieces including the very difficult timing piece, Take Five.
Barbara McNab treated us with:
"Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue;
"Take Five"; and
"Music Box Dancer"
Ken Mahy then played his Pa80 Korg arranger keyboard and played it very smoothly too. Rumour has it that he has started tutoring lessons with the maestro, John Bercich! Well done Ken it was great to hear you play the keyboard for the first time in public.
Ken Mahy played for us"
"Sing";
Your Cheatin' Heart"; and
"Vienna, My City Of Dreams"
Dorothy Waddel then played the Clavinova with three lovely pieces and so nicely orchestrated as well with some gorgeous choir voices layered with the piano voices.
Dorothy Waddel played for us:
"I Dreamed A Dream";
"Wishing You Were Some How Here Again"; and
"The Phantom Of The Opera"
To finish the first half, Peter Littlejohn played the Clavinova with Takashi Iida accompanying on the Technics GA3 organ. Some great music here despite limited time for them to get together to practise. Well done guys!
Peter Littlejohn (Left) and Takashi Iida (Taka) played:
"Blue Moon";
"Feel So Good"; and
"I Won't Last A Day Without You"
The second half was fully taken-up with a mini-concert put on by Murray Hancox of Atwaters Musicworks. Murray played both the Clavinova and the Yamaha Tyros 3 and accompanied himself with great vocals. The concert was terrific as you would expect from Murray, who some years back was the entertainer of the year in Queensland, Australia! It was great to get some ad lib jamming with Darren Smith playing the Clavinova towards the end of the concert, including the floor requested, Georgia On My Mind.
Now, two shots of the attentive audience.
