Winter Concert Recap

Unfortunately the Winter Recital had to be cancelled due to Covid and volunteer availability. It was enormously disappointing for all concerned. Still, the performance was recorded by the musicians and they offer it here for the interest of anyone who would have like to attend but was unable. If you’d like to listen and contribute to the artists’ work, you can do that here: www.paypal.com/paypalme/TaraCliffordPianist

First Half

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVEGkoIeI4E[/embedyt]

Second Half

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT8pfErDdt0[/embedyt]

If you like what you hear, a limited number of Tara’s CDs of Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite are available to purchase directly from her for £7.50 (inc. postage/packaging within the UK). Email taraclifford@gmail.com to order your copy.

 

Winter Piano and Cello Recital

We’re excited to announce our first event in the library – a piano and cello recital given by Clare Graham and Tara Clifford

Saturday 18th December 2021
Cricklewood Library, 6.30pm

‘Clair de lune’ from Suite Bergamasque – Debussy
‘Traumerei’ from Kinderszenen – R. Schumann (arr. Barrie Turner)
Children’s Corner Suite – Debussy
‘La Fille aux cheveux de lin’ from Preludes Book 1 – Debussy
Moments Musicaux No. 5 in D flat major – Rachmaninoff
Vocalise Op. 34 No. 14 – Rachmaninoff (Ed. R. Wallfisch)
—INTERVAL—
‘The Swan’ from Carnival of the Animals – Saint-Saens
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major – Bach
‘Prelude – Fantasia’ from Suite for Solo Cello – Cassado
The Snowman Suite – Howard Blake (arr. P. Legg and A. Gout)

For tickets, follow the link.

Carols by Candlelight

We missed it last year, and we expect you did too. So we’ll be back this year and singing lustily. We’ll sing outside, as group singing generates a lot of exhaled breath and potentially germs! Then inside for a mince pie and a glass of something cheering.

Expect the usual mulled wine and mince pies. The perfect start to your Christmas season.

Download the songsheet we’ll be using to print at home or view on your mobile device – saves sharing!

:Carols by Candlelight 2021.docx

Cricklereaders January 2022 – American Dirt by

The January meeting will take place on Sunday 9 January at the library, from 1030-1130. The book for this month is American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummings.

An incendiary novel of desperate love and pulse-quickening danger, American Dirt confronts the lawless frontier of the US-Mexico border in a narrative possessing whip-smart pacing and an ability to make the seemingly incredible both authentic and intimate.

Lydia Perez owns a bookshop in Acapulco, Mexico, and is married to a fearless journalist. Luca, their eight-year-old son, completes the picture. But it only takes a bullet to rip them apart.

In a city in the grip of a drug cartel, friends become enemies overnight, and Lydia has no choice but to flee with Luca at her side. North for the border… whatever it takes to stay alive. The journey is dangerous – not only for them, but for those they encounter along the way. Who can be trusted? And what sacrifices is Lydia prepared to make.

Cricklereaders Read Klara and the Sun

Our first ever in person meeting today, in the activity room at the library. A couple of work-based absences, but most of us made it there in person, with a rather modern dial-in on Zoom by one member. It worked, after a fashion.

Remarkably, a majority of us had read the book this time, and most of us enjoyed it, some with reservations. We talked about the major themes in the book, as we saw them – loneliness, the ethics of “lifting”, artificial intelligence and its role in society, what it means to be human, and the ambiguity of much of Ishiguro’s writing.

As a diehard Ishiguro fan, I loved the book and found it very engaging. Others found it difficult to identify or empathise with the Klara as an AI, although we generally felt her to be more sympathetic a character than most of the humans!  There was much to discuss, and I think I’m safe in saying that we would recommend the book to others.

For next time, we will be reading Paradise, by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Born in Zanzibar in 1948 , Abdulrazak Gurnah now lives in the UK and teaches at the University of Kent. Paradise was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker and Whitbread Prizes. Mr Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for literature this year, “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. We’ll meet at the library, all being well, on Sunday 21 November, 1030-1130. Please do read along and let us know what you think.