Club Night 2nd June 2009

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.

Prescott Club 27th May 2009

On behalf of North Shore Amateur Organ and Keyboard Club and the Creative Keyboard Club, Peter Brophy was MC for this Age Concern concert. Joining Peter this month, we had members of the NSAOKC Dorothy Waddel and Skip Eade participate. Skip on his favoured Korg Pa1X keyboard (same model as Peter Brophy's keyboard) whilst Dorothy 'tickled the ivories' of the hall piano superbly as always. Joining the group this time around was Elizabeth Monk who gave us the vocals to some of the numbers played with Peter, Dorothy and Skip. Elizabeth did a great job considering there had been no rehearsals whatsoever! Elizabeth is keen to further a career singing and is also taking keyboard tuition at the moment with master keyboard player John Bercich. The Prescott Club attendees certainly enjoyed the great melodies (much feet tapping and head swaying with the beat) with music from the 20's through to the 80's. Well done team for getting out there amongst the people as part of both Clubs' efforts to 'Bring Music to the Community".

 

 

Elizabeth Monk adding great vocals to Peter Brophy's playing whilst Skip watches on and ready to take over the playing next.

 

 

 

 

 

Dorothy Waddel playing whilst husband, Trevor watches on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skip Eade played some great crowd-pleasers with great selections of accompaniment styles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MC for the concert, Peter Brophy, playing some great songs from the 20's and 30's which was such a wonderful period for some magnificent scores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some more shots of Elizabeth who really joined in the spirit of the occasion both with great vocals, some slick dance moves and dressed for the part - well done and thank you Elizabeth for your participation.