Can you tell us about The Galliard Trio? 'We've been playing together for 44 years, having first met playing in an orchestra in the late 70s and early 80s. We put on our first concert in a church and began arranging music for our unique combination of flute, oboe and piano. Alec also plays the bassoon, often switching mid-set from the piano, and Martin plays the cor anglais as well as the oboe, so they'll say we're a trio with five instruments! Our name has a double-meaning, Galliard is the name of a French dance and also a nod to 18th century composer John Galliard. We never imagined it could go on like this over four decades, we must have played hundreds and hundreds of concerts, from National Trust houses to small village churches, Cathedrals, art centres and schools.'
How would you describe your usual repertoire? 'There's very little music written for our combination of instruments so we draw on pieces that are better known and adapt them, like Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite or Bizet's L'Arlésienne suite or Arias from Mozart operas like The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. There are some pieces written for our combination, like Trio by Madeleine Dring which we'll be playing during our Lunchtime Concert. It's a really loveable piece; lively, accessible and very moving. Although it was written in the 20th century it's actually not in a modern idiom, it's a very accessible melodic idiom.'
Can you share more of the music you'll play in your Lunchtime Concert? The opening piece is going to be Cinq Pièces en Trio by Jacques Ibert, it's very lively and audiences warm to it. We'll be playing Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar, a piece originally written for a singer and orchestra, which Alec has arranged for our combination. It's a very impressive, large-scale piece which is quite profound and religious, the songs are all based on poems about the sea. It's very moving and serious, Elgar at his best. We'll finish with a very lively piece, one of the Slavonic Dances by Antonín Dvořák. We plan to take the audience on a journey, from an introductory piece that's lively and easy to listen to, before finishing with music to make people dance, feel positive and uplifted.'
Galliard Trio will play the Lunchtime Concert on Friday May 9th, tea and coffee will be served from 11.30am, and the concert begins at 12 noon. Galliardtrio.wordpress.com