{"id":917,"date":"2020-02-07T13:15:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T13:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=917"},"modified":"2020-02-07T13:22:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T13:22:01","slug":"917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/02\/07\/917\/","title":{"rendered":"CONCERTS AT THE CAMEL HOUSE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SLEEPING BEAUTY UNDER A MUCKHEAP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kirsty Wark <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How closely Lanzarote might resemble the desert island for which BBC Radio 4 castaway Sir Ernest Hall once selected his musical and literary preferences with Kirsty Walk is hard to say. Certainly, he brought music with him to this island when he bought and renovated his home here in Macher. With a labyrinth of rooms that all previously served a different purpose, he has created a hideaway that is perfect for players and creative souls to ponder life and the purpose of art. During the programme, first broadcast on April 26th<\/sup> 1998, however, Sir Ernest barely hinted at the renovations he would subsequently render on a new Lanzarote home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\nchoice of music nevertheless revealed an eclectic, restless but receptive mind,\nwith Sergey Rachmaninov\u00b4s piano concerto number one in F Sharp minor being\nchosen to open his selection on a recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra\nconducted by Eugene Ormandy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nclosed his selection with one of the lesser known tracks recorded by Steely Dan.\nTheir commercial \u00b4pop\u00b4 music hits such Haitian Divorce and the wonderfully\naddictive Reeling In The Years were always of an elevated level for the pop\ncharts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nown favourite of their tracks was Rickee Don\u00b4t Lose That Number, which I\nincluded in my book, Name Check, looking at songs that reference other songs\nand singers. This track was initially thought to have been written as a\nresponse to songwriter, Rickie Lee Jones, who had a hit with the wonderfully\nquirky Chuck E\u00b4s In Love, which also made it into Name Check. This was about a\nmusician called Chuck E Weiss who happened to be a friend of Tom Waits, then\nRickie\u00b4s boyfriend. She was with Tom one evening when Chuck phoned Waits,\nraving about a girl he had met while Waits turned to Rickie and mouthed \u00b4Chuck\nE\u00b4s in love !\u00b4 Song written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nRickie Don\u00b4t Lose That Number was actually written for another female musician\ncalled Rikki Ducornet, a new York artist and writer to whom Steely Dan member\nDonald Fagen once gave his phone number at a party. Further adaptations on this\ntheme can be found all over the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile,\non-line sites categorise Steely Dan music as jazz rock, soft rock, yacht rock\nand pop rock and there is no doubt that their abilities sometimes confused even\nthe critics who raved over them and the public seemed to determine which of their\nworks and styles they found most accessible and acceptable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nthe main part, though, his desert island discs reflected Sir Ernest\u00b4s love of\nclassical music. He chose Schubert\u00b4s Piano Trio, for example, played gloriously\nby Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals. He also included Ferruccio\nBusoni\u00b4s Piano Concerto Opus 39, performed by The Royal Philarmonic Orchestra\nwith John Ogden at the piano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nwork not so well known to me, and perhaps to other listeners, was the 1st\nmovement of the Lulul Suite composed by Alban Berg and played by The London\nSymphony Orchestra. There was a piece, too, from The Satin Album, Jazzizit,\nrecorded by The Vienna Philarmonic Orchestra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir\nErnest Hall\u00b4s penultimate choice was Scherzo in C Sharp Minor Opus 39,\nperformed by a certain Sir Ernest Hall, revealing himself as not only a lover\nof classical music but also a fine performer of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwas also one other surprise inclusion in his selection, with the choice of I\u00b4m\nA Fool To Want You by Bobby Wellins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nwas one of the relatively few songs written by one of the world\u00b4s great\nsingers, Frank Sinatra. He and Jack Wolf and Joel Herron co-wrote the lyrics\nand Sinatra released the song as a single on Colombia Records and for more than\nsixty years the song has been considered a pop and jazz classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir\nErnest Hall chose a pretty heavy tome as his preferred reading on his\nuninhabited island though The Complete Works of William Blake, with its\nbeautiful lyricism and poetry offset by its nightmarish visions would likely\nhave kept him awake at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still,\nhe would have been able to soothe such terrors by playing peacefully at the\npiano he asked for as his luxury item. There is a song by Tom Pacheco about a broken\npiano in an empty desert somewhere that I must look up again. It seems apt,\nsomehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Yorkshire Post once headlined an article about Sir Ernest Hall as The Scared Boy Who Dreamed,\u2026. And the Man Who Triumphed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npiece was published in 2008 and the headline succinctly told the  story of a boy who overcame the unpromising circumstances\nhe was born into, and who in adult life became a successful and wealthy businessman,\n subsequently received a knighthood and\nin his later years was able to fulfil some of his childhood dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His parents felt secure with what some would have thought of as the\nconstraints of a northern working class background, and perhaps feared that any\nambitions Ernest may have had as a child to better himself might have led to\npain and self-recrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I<\/strong> However, the boy would proceed as a man to make his first fortune from the Yorkshire textile industry, and to enhance his wealth then from property development. On selling his businesses, twenty five years ago, he founded Dean Clough, now a highly regarded arts and businesses complex. This model of a regeneration project grew from the derelict former Crossley Carpets Mill in Halifax in Northern England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know many friends who have benefitted from its affordable space and\nmeeting place for like-minded creative artists, and all would have proudly\nthemselves presented him with the knighthood those achievements earned him. That\nsame year of 1993 saw The Sunday Times Rich List estimate his family wealth at\nfifty million pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst he acknowledges that he eventually became a success, it was, he\nsays because he was so driven by his self-perceived failure to chase his\nlife-long dream of becoming a full time professional concert pianist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are life-shaping moments in all our childhoods, though, and it was\nno different in the nineteen thirties Bolton area in the North West Of England\nwhere Ernest was born. His parents worked in local mills before subsequently\nrunning a pie shop but Hall\u00b4s memories of his childhood years are that he was\n\u00b4a child full of fear.\u00b4 He recalls that he was afraid of other children, of\nschool and all forms of authority, \u00b4but most of all, of death.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He occasionally found moments of refuge and respite however, and has an\nabiding picture in his memory of walking out towards the moors around the town\nand stopping at an old stone house, open to the public. He was enchanted by its\nwhite walls, tall pillars and timber roof supports that criss-crossed the\nceiling high above. To this day he can remember thinking of the house as\n\u00b4Paradise. A house for the angels.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nreplicated that image, perhaps, when purchasing and renovating what is still\nhis holiday home on Lanzarote, which is spacious enough to feature a small\nconcert hall to which he invites brilliant musicians from around the world. In\nwhat is effectively an artist\u00b4s retreat they deliver a concert which Sir Ernest\nadvertises around the island, attracting indigenous islanders, new residents\nfrom other countries and even holiday visitors who have been lucky enough to\nstumble on such an advert during their stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nhas presented several concerts now at what was once was a seventeenth century\nvineyard, including piano recitals by respected players like Arsha Kaviana and\nLilian Akapova. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Camel House<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The venue is now called The Camel House and the its eponymous occasional concerts are firmly established on the Lanzarote Arts scene. It offers expansive and colourful grounds for the audience to explore when at a concert with all sorts of courtyards and hidey holes in which to enjoy a quiet glass of wine and watch the sun set over the sea a mile or so down the hill. The back drop is of grand mountains and (mostly dormant) volcanoes and blue skies and black lava fields. It is, indeed, paradise. We might all find our own words to express the thought, but when we see this wonderful property, we all think, as Sir Ernest did of the country hall near Bolton he loved as a child, that \u00b4this is a house for the angels.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nthe web site  at www.TheCamelHouse.com<\/a>  Sir Ernest calls this property in Macher his\nfavourite house but freely acknowledges that it was in ruin when he bought it,\nand what we now see with its high wooden ceilings, cool courtyards, thick walls\nand shady terraces were designed by his project manager, Heidi Hupe, the owner\nof Casa Tegoya, another house on the island that had much impressed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconcert hall itself he acquired when purchasing a neighbouring property, which\nalthough buried in debris he could see had high ceilings that would be perfect\nfor performing musicians. The rest of the building turned out to be old but\nbeautiful and Sir Ernest says it was like discovering \u00a8Sleeping Beauty Under A\nMuckheap.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nhe ended up with a theatre and two houses on the one site. This offered public\nspaces, like a bar and a lounge, and one for visiting artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nhis yearning to have been a concert musician, Sir Ernest has enjoyed two\nmassively successful careers and has subsequently facilitated several young\nmusicians in chasing their own dreams, and has shared his own love of music\nwith a massive audience, many of whom will be hearing his wonderful guest\nmusicians for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nseems to have the soul of a poet and has certainly followed the road less\ntravelled and certainly even my less than extensive research for this article\nshows him to have a great ability to coin a phrase. There is something poetic\nabout his description of \u00b4a house for the angels\u00b4 and I wonder how many of the\nartists who have so benefitted from what was built from the rubble of that Halifax\ncarpet factory have felt that they, too, had discovered \u00b4Sleeping Beauty Under\nA Muckheap.\u00b4  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Veronika Shoot<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As recently as September 2019 Veronika Shoot, who had first performed there in 2015, gave a superb performance that she called Baroque To Rock in the glorious, high ceilinged, sun-lit and wonderfully acoustic music room that comfortably seats almost a hundred people. We enjoyed a beautiful recital at The Camel House by this Russian-born pianist and carried a review and an interview with her on these pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insert photo 6<\/strong> Sir\nErnest Hall\u00b4s next presentation will be on 15th February 2020 when renowned\nclassical pianist Murray McLachlan introduces his audience to the entire McLachlan musical Family. They promise\nan exciting program that includes a recital of an American classic, the\nRhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Murray McClachlan and his musical family<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We shall, of course, post a review of their concert here on Sidetracks And Detours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SLEEPING BEAUTY UNDER A MUCKHEAP How closely Lanzarote might resemble the desert island for which BBC Radio 4 castaway Sir Ernest Hall once selected his musical and literary preferences with Kirsty Walk is hard to say. Certainly, he brought music with him to this island when he bought and renovated his home here in Macher. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}