Coffee Day 19th July 2010

A really lively Coffee Day with Rob and Barbara Powell. With 25 guests, Rob and Barbara did a great job to accommodate us all so wonderfully. With a choice of Tyros 3 keyboard, top of the range Clavinova and Yamaha Electone organ to play we sure were spoiled with which instrument to choose to play. It was great to a have new member, Neil Adams, play the Clavinova - his debut for the Club. Well done Neil, we enjoyed your music. Thank you Rob and Barbara for being such hospitable hosts to the Club and making this such a special day.

            

Darren Smith and Andy Keys Concert 18th July 2010

Wow, what a great Concert and what a great mid-winter turnout on a cold Sunday evening. The music was hot inside though with Darren Smith and Andy Keys of MusicWorks playing some magnificent easy listening and light jazz classics on our brand new, latest model and state-of-the-art Yamaha Clavinova CVP-509. Each note on this piano has been digitally sampled 5 times to give the most realistic feel and sound of a true acoustic piano but with the added advantage of full orchestrations at the touch of a button. To make sure everybody got a good view of the keyboard and fingers, Darren brought along a large data projector screen. The Concert was also captured on video for a DVD in due course that will be made available to members courtesy of Darren and Andy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

A big thank you to the Committee for rallying round and organizing this Concert with less than two weeks notice! A big thank you also to Sue Rossiter of the Takapuna Bowling Club for attending the bar to add to the relaxed evenings entertainment.

First prize in the raffle was won by Ngaire Macrea - a set of six high quality bottles of wine. Second prize went to Barbara McNab - a set of four nicely decorated coffee mugs.

A big thank you to all that attended the evening and entered into the spirit of helping the Club raise the final dollars to pay for our brand spanking new pride and joy Clavinova the top-of-the-range CVP-509.

Celebration Concert with Darren Smith & Andy Keys 18th July 2010

The Club has just purchased one of these magnificent instruments and so what you will hear is the Club’s own machine!

Here are some links to UTube for you to sample the kind of sounds and orchestrations you can expect at the Concert from this magnificent instrument:

(Hint: you will need to be using a broadband Internet connection to get these streaming videos to play smoothly and remember to have your speakers turned-on!).

 

 

Club Night 6th July 2010

Definitely a top drawer evening with hardly a spare chair left in the house! Members and visitors were treated to an amazing evening of musical entertainment and variety by some of our very talented members – this being a DIY evening. Arrival music was done by Club President, Gordon Sutherland on his Korg Pa1X. This was followed by a cameo by a guest, Denise Gunson on our Clavinova and very well played too! Colleen Kerr, Club Secretary followed on the Clavinova with three traditional easy listening pieces. Barbara McNab followed on the Clavinova making good use of the built-in rhythms. Peter Littlejohn followed playing his Korg Pa1X and adding vocals too!  Second-half saw Peter Jackson entertain us with his super smooth crooning vocals playing along with midi files from his Korg Pa1X. Peter’s jokes were pretty good too! Sure were a lot of Korgs this evening! Finally, we were treated to a mini concert by our very own, Takashi Iida (Taka) who brought along his brand new Yamaha Electone. What wonderful arrangements and perfect execution of a variety of pieces as diverse as Elgar to The Beatles. Here is Taka’s programme:

Pomp and Circumstance March Op. 39 No.1 in D – Sir Edward Elgar

The Sound of Music – Rodgers and Hammerstein          

Tonight I Celebrate My Love – Gerry Goffin and Michael Masser

La reine de Saba – Charles Gounod

Let it be  - Lennon and McCartney

Super Star – Sibel Tuzun

African Symphony - Van McCoy

Jurassic Park - John Williams

Gorgeous Taka, thank you so much for bring all your gear and giving us a veritable feast of magnificent music. 

                                Stop Press!
Exciting news was given to the meeting. The Club is delighted and proud to announce that it has just purchased a brand new top-of-the-line latest model Clavinova CVP-509. This is the ‘Rolls Royce’ of digital ensemble pianos. It has the leading-edge sounds, rhythms and digital effects processors (DSP’s) as found on the Yamaha Tyros 3 flag-ship keyboard. Not only this but each note is sampled 5 times to give as close a sound to an acoustic piano as technology permits presently (that is why they are called the 500 series). But wait there is more! The speakers and amplification system have been enhanced even more than on the previous 400 series range. Also, the machine now comes with a crystal clear large screen so that those of our members that struggle with small print can read the screen easily. Yamaha have done this with the 500 series by using TFT screen technology which gives a sharper image and can be seen from more oblique angles. Here is a shot of our new Clavinova. 


         

We have worked hard as a Committee over the last two and a half years to be able to accumulate the funds to purchase this instrument but we could not have done it without the support of our members and so we hope you will enjoy in years to come this magnificent instrument. We will try to have some Coffee Days at the Club later this year so that more of our members can become familiar with the instrument. Further, as a celebration of this new Clavinova we are organizing a Sunday evening Concert on 18th July at 7.30 pm at our Club premises. We are fortunate enough to have secured Darren Smith and Andy Keys (National Demonstrator for MusicWorks) to be our guest artists. Be prepared to be amazed at the sound improvement and capabilities of this amazing instrument. Refer to the Flyer posted on this Web Page for further details. We hope you will be able to come and support the Club at this Celebratory Concert and help bolster our flagging funds! Visitors are most welcome.
And now for the photos taken of our artists on the night and we thank them very much for their splendid musical contributions as we thank our Committee for organizing the Club Night so effectively.

Hint: Hover your mouse over the photos to see text captions          
                                 

          

The raffle prize of a lovely water jug was won by Marlene Forrest.

Playing to the Stroke Club 1st July 2010

Part of NSOKC's activities includes taking our music out to the Community and one of our members, Joan Perkins, runs the North Shore Stroke Club as part of the National Stroke Foundation. Joan has been involved with the Stroke Club for some 28 of the Club's 30 year history and has been the Group Leader for the past 8 years. Joan has received many Civic Awards for her voluntary work and is a most worthy recipient as are all her loyal Committee helpers. It was our pleasure to provide music for their meeting which is weekly every Thursday morning starting about 10 am at St Joseph's Church Hall, Takapuna. Peter Brophy, the NSOKC's Events Manager, was accompanied by Peter Jackson from the Club on this occasion. Boy, did they get the audience jogging-along to the rousing old-time favourites.

Hint: Hover your mouse over the photos to see text captions