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cinque ports ensemble |
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Living in Deal, Kent for the last decade has meant involvement with the local festival.
Deal Festival has been an annual event since 1982 and has always aimed to give a certain emphasis to contemporary music and jazz. My involvement began when in 2001, through my self-taught internet and computer skills, I was asked to update the website, www.dealfestival.co.uk. Website building and management has been an interest and sideline of mine for more than a decade. Examples of other websites, apart from this "personal" one that you're currently visiting and the Deal Festival, that I have constructed include: Viennese Music Library (archives of the Johann Strauss Society of Great Britain) and Musicians Gallery (profiles of musicians and related services world wide), the latter being a large site of more than 750 pages dedicated to helping fellow musicians. It has proved especially useful for those without personal websites or any other internet presence. |
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However it wasn't until 2007 that I suggested that I might form an ensemble based around the festival. Paul Max Edlin, composer and artistic director of the festival, was enthusiastic about my idea for a festival-based chamber group and from the list of possible names I had constructed he chose 'Cinque Ports Ensemble'. Deal is one of the original five ports, eventually increased to fourteen, selected for the defense of the country, during the reign of Henry VIII, all named Cinque Ports. |
Below are some of the musicians who have been involved in the ensemble to date.
Clockwise, starting with me at top left;
then John Perkins, violin, Bob Truman, cello and Stephen Shakeshaft, viola.
Check the Deal Festival website for future CPE concerts.