Herøydagan 2022

Last week (26 - 28th June) was festival time in Herøy. On the Friday night I played as part of Operapub. The programme consisted of a variety of pieces from Pirates of Penzance (always a favourite) up to Bizet (Toreador’s Song - fabulous fun to play), a bit of Mozart/ Verdi etc and some lighter pieces as well. We were performing in one of the school halls and it was set up with tables and chairs and I was playing rather a nifty keyboard. It had a really rather good piano sound and I did have to resist the temptation of adding extra pads like strings or choir to bolster the sound. There were 5 singers in the ensemble and it was a mixture of solo items with some duets/trios finishing with all the cast singing an arrangement of “Time to say goodbye” as our finale.

Still haunts me as I type this but I had a catastrophic first number. As some of you may know, I’ve got a rather nifty music app on my iPad for my music. In ye olden days (ie 12 months ago) I could turn the pages automatically with a Bluetooth pedal which was fabulous - right side page forward, left side page back. Excellent stuff when playing the piano but not so good for organ. I discovered on YouTube that there was also a way of turning pages where you could either just nod your head the appropriate way or even just wink at the screen. This was game changing stuff. Pieces like Widor’s Toccata to name just one suddenly became possible without someone to turn pages. There are downsides of course - if I muttered darkly after playing a wrong note (sadly not that rare occurrence) or foolishly popping a sweet into my mouth just as I start playing - I could find myself looking at the wrong page pretty quickly. Alas I fear there was a page turning issue very early on in the first number (Three Little Maids) - I think I must have not realised the page had already turned and turned it again and found myself waaaaay out of sync with the singers. All credit to the singers, despite the accompanist being on a different page but, I also fear, in a completely different key, they managed to keep going as if nothing untoward was happing until I managed to find the right place again. An inauspicious start from the accompanist - things did improve from my point of view after that - but the singers did a wonderful job throughout and earned a well deserved encore. They v kindly did 3 little maids again which gave me a chance to make amends very quickly. It was lovely to have a wee support group in the audience and I got a wee chant of “Gray - um, Gray - um” as I left the stage :-) I may have mentioned this in a previous blog but it is amazing the amount and quality of music making that goes on out Here in Dønna and Herøy (and the wider Helgeland).

Earlier that day I had treated myself what seemed to be the last available ticket for Absolute ABBA tribute act that we on in the main school hall. As I was waiting to rehearse with Operapub I heard them rehearse a few numbers and it all sounded great. I was very pleased with my “choice” of seat - in the middle of the back row - almost exactly where I would have chosen if I’d had the whole auditorium to choose from . Particularly for something like an ABBA tribute concert where it was not unlikely that there would be people up dancing etc. Shudder. Imagine my horror when I discovered that I’d read the seating plan upside down and I was in fact slap bang middle in the front row.

I asked if I could move seats but they just shrugged. I took this as a positive sign and took a random seat near the back. It transpired that there were many more seats than advertised so I was able to remain there for the night.

It was a very enjoyable evening - lots of the classics and generally very well played with only one or two drawbacks that I could notice. The first was that the keyboards (obviously the bit I would be most interested in) were very low down in the mix. Imagine songs like Waterloo and Dancing Queen without the jangly piano parts…. I was very impressed with the general quality of the sound - quite impressive considering there were only 4 instrumentalists and the 2 singers. However I did notice that during Mamma Mia was playing the keyboard player was trying to lead the clapping yet the keyboard parts still carried on….. Nonetheless a great time was had - lots of the hits plus one or 2 lesser known items.

The Saturday of the festival I went to help out at the church where the production of “Vaart daglige brød” and “Livslenka”. If I picked it up correctly, this was based on a tragedy in 1901 when 34 people lost their lives to flooding. A play was written to commemorate the disaster and it was later set to music. It was a very professional performance with soloists, band, choir and some very atmospheric lighting effects. It has always been very popular and sold out at all its performances - this one was no different with an immediate standing ovation at the end.

Sunday was another special day in the church where people were able to return to celebrate being confirmed for 50 years. This was the first time they had been able to old the ceremony in after covid so as well as confirmands (?) from 1972, there were a number from ‘71 and ‘70. To add a bit of class, the 2 main soloists from the previous nights concert were invited along to sing a number each and I also played something. The inevitable then happened. Soloist 1 performed - round of applause; soloist 2 performed - round of applause; Graeme performed - you could almost sense the tumbleweed rolling past. Hey ho, the joys of being the organist - it isn’t the first time it has happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last :-)

After the service, I pottered across to the Herøy museum for a wee nosey around. I went to the main building, the “Borgstua” which had a wonderfully eclectic collection of things. I was particularly enamoured with what looked like a ship’s searchlight. Karoline took me through a rather nifty exhibit which had 3D scans of treasures found around Helgoland which were then matched up with a more contemporary item to give it some modern day context.

There was also a WW II exhibit (again about the local effects of the war) but I made the mistake of walking around it backwards so started with VE Day and ended with Norway being invaded.

Also tried another couple of local delicacies including cured Reindeer…..