When I lived in Cambridge I sang with the ‘Cambridge Chamber Group’, conducted by Ian Moore. Ian has for some time been one half of the Classic Buskers, travelling the world with an accordion as accompanist to Michael Copley’s variety of wind instruments. (He still conducts a choir, Cambridge Voices, but in that capacity is known as Ian de Massini.)
The Classic Buskers came to Bath as part of the Chantry Singers’ final Bach Festival. I didn’t make it to any of the choral concerts, though I had earlier investigated whether the choir needed expanding with sopranos as I thought it would be nice to sing with it one last time, but only other voices were needed.
There was some confusion over the pricing for this particular concert but when I noticed that a flyer offered half-price tickets for young people I got a reduction on the ticket for my son, one of quite a few children at the concert, which was in the Guildhall.
Many of the pieces by J. S. Bach and they ranged from fairly straightforward short transcriptions for flute and accordion to wackier arrangements which quoted freely from other composers (part of the fun is catching these allusions as they fly past). The instruments involved included flutes, recorders, pan-pipes, a rubber chicken and ocarinas of all sizes (up to dinner-plate).
I recognised a few tracks from a recording by the Buskers, Omnibusk, but it is more entertaining to see as well as hear them because there is quite a lot of stage business such as the clock which was produced during the ‘Minute’ Waltz. (I wasn’t very well placed to see all of this as the seating was in ‘wide’ formation and we were towards one side). Yes, the rate of notes per second could get very high!
We had an fun evening and I was glad that at last I’d caught up with the Buskers live after hearing about them second-hand from many quarters.