Our second Summer Social was held at St Giles Church, Camberwell, in the afternoon of Sunday the 7^th August. St Giles has a very attractive garden area behind the church which works very well, and even better, a well established nightclub area in the basement of the church meaning an easy supply of cold drinks, and, as it happened, a convenient refuge should the rain actually appear.

The weather forecast for several weeks before had been remarkably consistent, with sunshine predicted for most of the day but with the possibility of some rain later in the day. As it happened, it started raining at the beginning of the event so the early arrivals started in the bar area and very pleasant it was too. But the rain was only to last a short while before the sun burst out and we all 15 of us went out in the garden.

Ashley Valentine was on the SSLSO committee at the time the idea was raised of having a summer social, and originally suggested the church as a place to hold the Social because of the advantage of there being, in effect, a pub in the basement. He is the organist there and gave a short organ recital at the end to round it all off. He chose two pieces written by Samuel Wesley –  Andante in F and Choral Song and Fugue – who was the organist at St Giles’ in the middle 1800s and (as Ashley said) he may well have played them on that very same organ: maybe his ghost was dancing with us (not that any of us were actually dancing!)

It was a great time and hopefully we can look forward to it again next summer, and maybe we could do actual dancing!!!

Martin Callingham

Nov 4th, 2023, 2:30pm – An afternoon playing and discussing Christmas Repertoire, at the home of our member, Nicky Jones, in Forest Hill, SE23. Please bring a piece of Christmas music that you play, ideally one less well known. Please contact the secretary, Andrew Chadney ([email protected]), for directions.

We have arranged a ‘Social’ at the Crypt under St Giles’ Church, Camberwell, for Sunday 6th August 2.30pm – 5pm. This is a beautiful Gilbert Scott Gothic Revival church from the mid-eighteen hundreds.

After a quick change of plan, wished on us by the train strike, John Webber and Alan Langridge saved the day by driving five of us to Whitstable on Saturday 13^th May for a visit to three quite differing churches, kindly organised by Michael Cooke.

• 11:00am All Saints Church, 122 Oakleigh Road, Friern Barnet / North Whetstone, N20 9EZ, organ by Church and Co.
• 2.30p.m. St. Andrew’s Church, Chase Side, Southgate, N14 5PP; organ 1867 by Willis

Christ’s Chapel Dulwich

Saturday 1 April 2023

This brief account provides no answers to the question of how does one memorise music. It raises a few questions, leaving readers with ideas as to how to think about the process of how music is learned.

Our event on May 20th will be a recital and Q&A session with Gilbert Rowland, who the British Harpsichord Society describe thus: ‘Gilbert Rowland is one of Europe’s most senior and accomplished exponents of the harpsichord’. He has also recorded numerous CDs.

On March 24th, 8 members finally made the trip to Groningen organised by our member Pieter Shaw, the trip having been postponed from a year earlier due to the pandemic. The itinerary included visits to churches in Noordbroek, Bellingwolde, Groningen and Leens, to play the well preserved baroque organs of the region, including the 1696 Arp Schnitger organ of the Dorpskerk (Noordbroek) and the 1733 Hinsz organ at the Petruskerk, Leens. You can read more about the trip in the members’ thoughts below.