Wowzarooni what a late blog! I know all of you zealots have been wondering what has happened to Old Wilmslow Will these last few months BUT FEAR NOT AND WHATEVER YOU DO NOT PANIC for I am safe and sound and I am here now to give you the low down of the last few months of my life. Normally I would do a blog per month, but I have decided to compound the enormity of the last three months of my life into this one single blog post so strap yourselves in as we dive straight into the heart of the beast (or stop reading what do I care?).
April was a very busy month for Old Will; a month filled with a variety of both main and side quests. The most notable thing over this month was Lab Week at the RNCM where I had several scenes and songs from my musical recorded on the Opera Theatre Stage at RNCM. It was a really amazing experience though possibly one of the most stressful things I had ever done. There were things that could have been improved about the experience, but on the whole it was an incredible time and I am very proud of what I and the twenty plus people involved did in this time. It was the first time the musical has ever been properly staged and it was a major learning curve which I think will really benefit me when I come to properly stage the show (more on that later). Outside of Lab Week, some of my musical was also workshopped by Opera North in Leeds which was awesome particularly as it came immediately after Lab Week which made me feel important. I also needed to apply for some funding for my musical so I created a promo video for the show which took many hours (I was up until 5am) but I got the application in on time so it was well worth doing.
Outside of the musical, I was getting increasingly busy doing my masters. I had been on holiday for the initial portion of April which was nice though the pressure really began to heat up after the Easter holiday. My main assessments were scattered across May and I had plenty of work to do, much of it had been neglected due to Lab Week. One particularly cool thing was that the RNCM orchestra had begun to practice my orchestral piece which was being performed at the start of May which was exciting! The initial practices were quite hard to hear, but they began pulling it together the more they worked on it.
In more personal news, I found out that I was to become an uncle over Easter which was lovely news. It was the first time I had seen my brother in a year (to the day) so it was a welcome surprise when he told me. My fiancee also had her birthday where we did an indie sleaze party at my flat for her (I’m still not sure what indie sleaze is). It was a fun night though possibly the last party we will ever have at the flat sadly. I was also involved in some interesting side quests including being the sound technician for a music networking event called Palooza in Northern Quarter in town. What was less hip was that my car also broke down and I had to pay £744 to get it fixed which was pretty rough but what you gonna do.
May was also a stupidly busy month though equally incredible at the same time. My orchestral piece was performed on the first day of the month and it turned out great! I had felt quite cynical about it based on the rehearsals, but they pulled it together in the end and I got a really good recording out of it. They could have of course benefited from more rehearsal time but that’s never not the case. I was mostly busy with my deadlines over May, I had to deliver a lecture for one of my modules on the 14th of May which I prepared for quite literally until the last minute but it went extremely well in the end and I was given a 85/100 overall which was by far the best mark I had ever gotten at RNCM so I felt very good for that. I also submitted my final portfolio assessment which I was working on again pretty much until the last minute. You’ll find out how I did for that in June :0
I did a few notable side quests in May which were primarily IOU’s I owed to various people, these included writing a string arrangement for the song Slowly by Madisson Ryan Ward, doing some transposing and engraving for some classical music for someone else, and most significantly helping to write a song with someone else for their recital. Outside of these IOU’s, I was also shortlisted for Creative Innovator Award at the RNCM for my musical which was great as I had not gotten that far the previous year when I applied for funding.
June was also a fairly crazy month though things had begun to slow down a bit. It was a month filled with quite a lot of side quests, including having the song I wrote with my friend performed near the start of the month. It took a very long time to pull it together, but we managed to do it in the end which was quite impressive. I also finished writing a bass clarinet and piano piece that was performed at the Warrington Concert Series by my friend which was really cool. It was a very hard piece to write, but it was quite nice writing something without considering how it would be marked. The same could be said about a string quartet piece which I finished rather last minute for the RNCM’s composers concert in July. It took a while to complete it and it was somewhat rushed, but it was nice to compose something for it’s own sake and the initial rehearsals for it were nice.
At the RNCM, I had my Viva Voce for my portfolio of music (my main assessment) which was quite brutal but I managed to get through it without crying which was good. I should have prepared a bit more as it was harder than I had anticipated, but I don’t think even if I did my mark would have been drastically different. My overall grade for my composition work was 67/100 which I found a little frustrating as it was so close to being a distinction, but it’s still a higher mark than I anticipated as I said before. I also submitted my last assessment for RNCM later in the month, which was a module I would pass so I am now officially a master in music which is pretty wizard.
Outside the course, I also had some stuff happen with my musical. We started a Crowdfunding page which ended up raising over 4k which was way beyond what I thought was possible. We however were not successful in getting funding from the Creative Innovator Award scheme which I was quite disappointed by as it was funding we were counting on, but we will find the money elsewhere.
I was also involved in several more side quests over June including helping someone from college with some orchestration work, as well as helping another person record a vocal demo. I also saw both Beethovens 9th and Mahler 1st one day after the other which was pretty great. I also went to Wales at start of the month with me missus and we also had a look round a couple of wedding venues which was illuminating. We also both went to the wedding of a couple of my fiancee’s family friends down in Nottingham. It was a bit of a trip down memory lane being that we had both studied there back in the day. We stayed in an airbnb which was in the same building as the Hooters which was pretty funny as outside our window you could see the beer garden for it. We’ve also been planning an engagement party for September these last few months and we will hopefully finally have a wedding venue sorted for September next year :)
Not my best written blog, but at least I’m up to date now. See you next month folks!
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