Coffee Day at Northbridge Village 16th April 2024

 The Club was invited to play at Nothbridge Village, Northcote for our Coffee Day this month. We had an enthusiastic audience of residents and visitors (parents of the piano students that played for us). Whilst it was disappointing that we had few of our playing members attend, nevertheless this was more than compensated by the great variety of music played. Particularly wonderful was the attendance and performance for us of 14 piano students and one violin student and supported by their music teacher Wu Liu.

It was great to catch up with Stephen Beech who is a well known organ enthusiast and player. In fact Stephen now lives at Northbridge Village and proudly showed the writer his organ setup in his garage. Stephen built his Classical 4 manual organ himself using sample sounds from various pipe organs around Auckland. Incorporated in the organ is a 5 manual theatre organ with sounds sampled from the Paramount organ of New York (now relocated to Texas). Stephen spent 5 years building his 5 manual organ which is primarily electronic but with some physical classical flute pipes. The organ is the largest in New Zealand and the brief demonstration to the writer on the day was mind boggling with the sound quality and power of the instrument.

All in all, a most amazing and enjoyable day was had be one and all!

A big thank you to Kay Boyes, the Club's Events Manager, for arranging this Coffe Day.

The Photos:

Kay Boyes on the Yamaha CVP-609

Music Teache Wu Liu playing a duet with a student

Music Teache Wu Liu playing a duet with a student

Music Teacher Wu Liu with his 15 students that played for us

Patrick McMillan on the Yamaha CVP-609

Stephen Beech on the 5 manual Classical/Theatre organ
that he built over 5 years

Stephen Beech on the Yamaha CVP-609

Warren Levick on the Yamaha CVP-609

Gordon Sutherland on his
Korg Pa5X arranger keyboard