Saturday 22nd November was the day organists across the nation played Handel’s “Ombra Mai Fu” on church organs big and small.
A kindly gentleman took a photo of me at the organ bench. My husband also played the piece on the much more impressive organ at Romsey Abbey and my friend and her two daughters also played the piece at St Mary’s, Longstock.
We were supporting an event for “Play the organ year” and the arrangements were by Rosemary Field. She had produced three versions in varying degrees of difficulty. The idea was to show that organ playing can be accessible to everyone and get people motivated to take part.
Coincidentally, in the studio I was in the midst of painting a picture of a large, shady tree. The serendipity of this was that “Ombra Mai Fu” comes from Handel’s opera ‘Sense’ and is a sung by King Xerxes as a hymn of praise to his favourite, shady tree. So the music works as a back drop to the painting!
I’m hoping to be able to add an audio recording of my playing but failing that I’m sure you can find it played more elegantly on Youtube! (I’m now cringing at what I have recorded but it is at least authentic!)
Why not tune in and listen to the music while you look through the stages I went through in bringing the tree to life?
The stages of growing the tree
