York Archives » Angelina Egerton

2019 Goals – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

8 January 2019 2 Comments

Hello and a belated Happy New Year. How was your first week of 2019?

The House.

As I’m writing this, a plumber is replacing our boiler, which of course packed in just days after Tim and I moved in to the new house.

So it’s been a cold few days for us.

Nevertheless, it’s taught me to be very grateful for our usual way of life – have you ever thought about just how amazing it is to have hot water on tap? How wonderful it is that our houses heat themselves automatically? How blissful it is to have a hot shower and dry yourself with a warm, dry towel?

I’m feeling very grateful for these little things today.

This is a time I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time. Tim and I are in the house, and things are finally starting to settle down into a rhythm. The only things missing right now are a washing machine (lost by the removals company *sob*) and internet (being installed on Friday *yay!*).

Life.

My plan going forward is to put these blogs up on Mondays, but as you can tell, this week’s is a little late due to not having sufficient internet/spending all my time doing laundry at my parents’/trying to stay warm in the freezing-cold house.

Last year I feel like I made a lot of progress with procrastinating less, achieving most of what I set out to do and generally staying a bit more organised. In 2019 I want to continue all of that, but I want the increased productivity to result in more income, please. It sounds shallow, but my goal is to make more than I spend. I don’t want or need loads, just enough to pay the bills and have a bit left over for a rainy day/doing up the house/getting married.

I’ve signed up for some extra work online – teaching English to Chinese children – which is actually really fun and will hopefully tide me over while I find work as a harpist and harp teacher in York. I’m very grateful to a friend of mine for recommending this to me – you know who you are – thank you babe.

My piano will be brought over from Congleton in the next week or so, at which point I can start giving piano lessons in York too – hurray! I am also starting to give harp lessons online (when I have internet) so that is a super-exciting new venture.

Health.

Another 2019 goal of mine is to prioritise my physical and mental health, I’ve gone back to the beginning with my running and starting to work my way through the Couch 2 5k app, I’ll be practising yoga and meditation regularly and trying to eat as well as I can – nothing too strict but my long-term goal is to have a good, healthy quality of life for as many years as I can. Of course, once our garage gym is all set up, Tim and I can do our strength training in there as well.

This may be the subject of another blog post (let me know if you’d like to hear more on this), but the life of a freelancer can be a little chaotic (just a little), with late nights, early mornings, disrupted meal times etc., so keeping our bodies on a schedule when it comes to eating and sleeping really helps our bodies and our health. So, as I’m reading The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda at the moment, I’m trying to stick to a regular eating/sleeping/waking up schedule to see if that results in an increased amount of energy. Fingers crossed.

So, that’s probably enough from me for now. I really hope you are well (and warm) wherever you are. Check back next week for another post.

Chat soon,

A x

Career, Places

Countdown to Christmas – 3 weeks to go

4 December 2018 No Comments

Well this feels retro, I’m writing this in the break between a rehearsal and an evening concert. I’m sitting in the cafe of Leeds College of Music, having rehearsed with the Wind Orchestra before their concert tonight. We are playing an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (amongst other pieces that don’t require a harp). Here’s a photo of the pitched percussion section – harp, piano, celeste.

This weekend has been exceedingly busy, it began on Friday and finishes on Tuesday evening. Today (Monday 3rd) me and the harp are in Leeds, we were in Sheffield last Saturday and then there’s a CLOUDS meet-up tomorrow. Do you like how I’m including Monday and Tuesday in the weekend? Wednesday I will chill. All day. Burning the candle at both ends can only be sustained for so long.

Things actually calm down a bit from then on, which is unusual for December but not surprising as most of my teaching has now drawn to a close ready for the big move to York. Speaking of which, I’m still clinging on to the hope that we’ll be in our new house by Christmas, we just need to sign contracts and complete. Keep everything crossed. Our journey to a home of our own has been 18 months in the making and I cannot tell you how excited I am to get a bit more settled. Congleton is so lovely but the amount of driving Tim and I are both doing is crazy.

December is a great time to think about the year ahead and start planning and getting organised. What are your goals for 2019 – musical or otherwise? One of my goals will be to keep on schedule with my social media. That means weekly blog posts – pop your email in the box if you’d like to join my little crew (what shall we call ourselves?) and receive these posts into your inbox. It also means weekly videos on my YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to here.

The current plan with the videos is to alternate between a performance video and more of a vlog/life update video. I really enjoy making these and I hope you enjoy seeing a little snippet of what’s going on over here, any feedback is always appreciated.

In the meantime, from the new year I will be scouting out work over in Yorkshire so please do use my contact form to get in touch if you need a harpist in York for music lessons, or for background music for your wedding or social event. You can also email me – angelinawarburton@gmail.com.

As always, thanks so much for reading, here are my social media links if you want to follow me or say hi.

See you next week!

Moving to York

23 October 2018 No Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you here on the blog, and as you can see from the title of this post, I have some big news…

Tim and I have been house-hunting since we got engaged in May 2017. However, it was only recently that I started to feel the call to move closer to home. York will always be special to me, it’s where I grew up and went to school until the age of 16. The thought of moving back to York makes me so happy and excited for the future. Tim is going to move his busy Personal Training and Sports Massage business over to York too, so our home is going to be a hub of activity!

So, we started looking in York and found somewhere we like in the Foxwood area, made an offer and it was accepted – hurray! Our solicitors are currently crunching through all the searches and finer details but the crux of the matter is, hopefully we’ll be in our new home by Christmas. Everyone keep your fingers and toes crossed.

This means it’s time to put my Yorkshire feelers out. If you live in York and are interested in having harp lessons, piano lessons, or music theory lessons, please do get in touch. I plan to start teaching in York as soon as possible after the new year, and I would love to help you reach your musical goals.

In the meantime, I do offer lessons via skype, so if you live in York and want to start right away, maybe we can start online and then move to offline lessons when 2019 comes around.

I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to going back to my Yorkshire roots.

As always, here are the ways in which you can contact me should you so desire:

https://twitter.com/harpistangelina

https://www.facebook.com/angelinawarburtonharpist/

https://www.instagram.com/angelinawarburton/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQzzApriMcGEdE1ZxjkWMdg

I also have a Patreon page if you are interested in supporting me in that way:

https://www.patreon.com/harpistangelina

Thanks so much for reading, let’s chat soon,

A x

Music

Weekly Vlog – HARPS and YOGA

19 September 2018 No Comments

Here’s a little vlog of this week. Still settling into Congleton and getting used to life in the countryside. This week was filled with music and yoga – my two favourite things.

I hope you enjoy.

Career, Music, Places

What I’ve been up to…

23 June 2017 No Comments

Over the past couple of weeks, my harp quartet CLOUDS have been on tour all over Great Britain.

Of course I had to document the time some way or other, and here are a couple of videos showing a little bit of what we got up to while we were away:

But even though our tour is over, the concerts continue over the next month or so in Manchester. Here’s where you can see us:

Tuesday, June 27th at 7.30pm as past of Didsbury Arts Festival. More details here.

Tuesday, July 11th at 7.30pm in St. Ann’s Church, Manchester City Centre.

Thursday, August 3rd at 3.30pm in Manchester Central Library as part of Manchester Jazz Festival.

Sunday, August 6th at 3pm in the Whitworth Art Gallery. More details here.

Please do come along and say hello if you attend one of our concerts.

I also wanted to just say a massive ‘thank-you’ to everyone who supported us along the way on our recent tour. Our parents looked after us a lot and kept us well-fed (largely with garlic bread – my request) and the staff and teams at the various venues for welcoming us with open arms and encouraging the locals to get involved and support us.

And (I’ll try not to get emotional here) thanks to my fellow CLOUDS for being amazing and inspiring musicians and fierce friends. I love you all so much x x x

Career, Music

December 2014 catch-up…

21 January 2015 No Comments

This post is a continuation from last week’s post in which I raked over the glowing embers of November 2014, I originally wanted to put November and December into one huge post but alas, there was just too much to put in! So here’s a run-down of December 2014.

The first gig of the month was a solo recital! Yay! This is what it’s all about: performing lovely repertoire for a large, appreciative audience. Many thanks to Philip Scowcroft at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery for inviting me back to perform – I always have a lovely time. Thanks also for inviting me and Marten to do a joint recital next year – time to find some harp and piano repertoire, suggestions in the comments please!!

On December 5th I had a background gig at Manchester Art Gallery. Those of you who know Manchester will be aware that there is very little parking around there. Pretty much none in fact. So I thought it would be a clever idea to get an estate car taxi to take me there – what could possibly go wrong?

I called the taxi company at least twice during the day to check the booking, 5pm estate car taxi to the city centre. Emphasis on the estate car part. Five o’clock rolls around, no taxi. At quarter past my phone rings to let me know the taxi’s outside, so I trundle out with the harp and all my bags.

It’s not an estate car.

Cue one diva-strop.

Car goes away, angry phone call to Radio Cars, an estate finally arrives. I’m now behind schedule. Trying to hold it together.

I arrange with the driver that he’ll come and pick me up after I’ve finished playing so I don’t have to go through that again. I’ve been asked to play downstairs in the foyer. But all that happens is people come in, hang up their coats, and head off upstairs to the party.

I’m providing music for the hanging up of coats. This has to be a new low.

Fast forward to the end of my set. No taxi.

Cue another massive diva-strop (I’m getting good at these) and phone call to Radio Cars “Yes, it’s the lady with the harp” to request an estate asap.

Taxi turns up, it’s not an estate.

By now I’m rather upset, I finished playing an hour ago and have gone nowhere. Another strop, another phone call and the driver who stood me up sheepishly apologises for not showing up when he said he would, and takes me home, where a party is currently underway, that I am hosting, that I am also very very late for.

Time to start drinking.

Luckily, by comparison the next few days went very smoothly. An hour of background music in Middlewich for a community Christmas buffet-type-thing (I had a lot of the cakes, they were excellent). Then on the Sunday I had the first Ceremony of Carols of the year down in Wilmslow – conducted by Lloyd Buck.

The Ceremony of Carols is a very special piece – written by Benjamin Britten. I’m sure it is special to many harpists, it’s just for treble voices and harp – although it has been arranged for a full choir.

The following weekend also had engagements on both days, so I decided to get my first ever spray tan in preparation (even my winter foundation for very pasty skin is now looking quite orange on me – I need some sun asap) I went for the lightest tan you can have (they call it ‘Glow’) and yea, it was fun for a few days, until it started coming off. In patches. Starting with my hands. Bad times.

Anyway…

On Saturday 13th December I was playing for a wedding banquet, in a marquee. A marquee in December? Sounds crazy but was in fact surprisingly cosy. Who knew?

The following day I headed over to attend York’s Annual Community Carol Concert. My dad has been conducting this event for decades. It usually attracts a crowd in the region of 1,500 and raises money for several good causes in and around York. They get a school band, a couple of school choirs, a church choir and a ‘novelty item’ (in 2013 it was my Harp Quartet CLOUDS) and we spend an afternoon together singing carols and being entertained by the wonderful Revd Andrew Foster. Father Christmas usually makes an appearance to hand out sweets. I honestly can’t say enough good things about this wonderful event. Long live YACCC!

We are now half-way through the month, almost there. Believe it or not December 2014 was comparatively quiet for me… I’ve had much busier Christmas seasons – I’ve also had quieter ones where I’ve had to live on frozen vegetables with rice due to lack of money. 2014 was a very happy medium, except for the fact that I’m pretty sure I had a chest infection (or just the worst cough of my life) and sounded like I was dying for the whole month.

On Friday 19th December it was time to head over to York again for the Masonic Carol Service that I always play for – this time I brought my own page-turner with me. Doesn’t he scrub up well?

This is another lovely event that takes place every year. We have a small service of lessons and carols, then claim a glass of sherry or three and head downstairs for a Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings. Just what we need. The evening then always finishes with my parents reading from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s predictable, it’s the same every year, but we love it and for me this evening is what starts Christmas off.

Saturday, 20th December was my final gig of 2014, and it was a Ceremony of Carols (what else?) in Rochdale.

I also contributed to this concert by playing a solo, Marcel Samuel Rousseau’s Variations Pastorales sur un vieux noel. One of my favourite solo pieces, but sadly it’s christmassy so I can’t really perform it any other time of year. It was so lovely to work with Michael Betteridge for this gig – his energy is fantastic – I do hope I can work with him again soon *hint hint*.

So there you have it. I didn’t mean for this post to turn into a 1000+ words epic but there you go. The rest of December was spent either with my parents in York, or with my sister down in the Midlands, lots of food was eaten, lots of wine was tasted. All in all a lovely Christmas, and for that I am very thankful.

I hope you all also had wonderful Christmasses and New Years. How are those resolutions going? Next week I’ll be gauging the success (or otherwise) of mine. Eeek.

Career

Harps of a feather, pluck together.

24 February 2014 1 Comment

Well it’s been a while since I’ve been able to post. I’ve been busy gallivanting around Great Britain on (mostly) harp related bits and bobs. There is a lot to report since my last update.

This post is becoming mammoth so I’m going to have to split it up into smaller sections…

Firstly, I got my photos back from my solo shoot with Julie Harris. I will be getting more from this shoot soon but I wanted to share the first two with you:

What other news is there… oh yes! My last blog post ‘How to make your grass greener’ has been featured on The Media Directory – don’t believe me? Check it out at http://www.themediadirectory.com/news?shownews=399

In terms of playing, a lot has been going on as well. A few Saturdays ago I had the pleasure of visiting my home city of York to play Sibelius’ First Symphony with York Guildhall Orchestra under Simon Wright. For once, there were two harps in the orchestra! Principle Harp was played by Georgina Wells – I’ve known Georgie since she tutored at a youth orchestra I used to attend so it is a real treat to play in orchestra with her. We had a great time:

The experience of playing in an orchestra is so different when you are not alone in your section. I am so used to being the only harpist that playing second harp actually brought a few challenges that I don’t usually experience. As well as watching the conductor, the music and, if I’m lucky, my hands – I also need to watch Georgina for important entries to make sure we play exactly together. I do not have enough eyes for this task!

Having said that, beefing up the harp section is so much fun – on my own, pretty much everything has to be at least mezzo forte to come across to an audience. With two harps, you can bring the music to life so much more. Even in piano passages, you can be confident that the harps will be heard. It’s great!

But away from the concert platform, having someone else in the section brings a social aspect to the day too. We chat about how we want to play certain sections, which chords to spread and which to leave straight, we help each other unpack and move harps. It becomes a team game. Harpists are often only in one or two pieces in a concert, so this means a large proportion of the day is spent alone. Now, I’m not about to start complaining about that, I happen to like my own company, thank you very much. But it makes a wonderful change to be part of a section – maybe go for a meal together in the break and share stories of bizarre gigs we’ve done, things we’d like to do etc.

So all in all, this was a lovely day, I’m playing in York again in early April and I’m looking forward to it already – or I will be, once I’ve learnt the notes.

Valentine’s Day. What’s the big deal? Restaurants are packed and more expensive than usual, everyone seems to feel this pressure to do something. I’m secretly glad I usually have a gig on this day. My boyfriend and I went for dinner the previous Tuesday to celebrate an anniversary. He proved the theory that the most exciting gifts come in little packages…

But anyway, I’m going off-topic. For Valentine’s Day I was booked to provide background music at The Florentine restaurant in Sheffield. I did not enjoy the drive there. I opted for Woodhead Pass as it’s a little less snakey than Snake Pass. However, once I got to Sheffield, my satnav took me up Hagg Hill. A word of advice – avoid this hill! I attempted it in second gear and immediately stalled. In the dark. A car behind me also turned onto the hill and followed me as I crawled up to the top, where I had to turn right.

The restaurant seemed really lovely. I was given a divine meal of beef with parsley risotto and goats cheese bonbons, and the staff were very friendly and helpful with the harp. I played for a couple of hours then drove back to Manchester. It is so interesting watching couples having dinner on Valentine’s Day. I saw at least one couple arguing. One woman was despairing because her man was so drunk. One couple brought two young loud toddlers to the restaurant (why??) and many couples were turned away because they hadn’t booked a table (rookie mistake on Valentine’s Day).

Personally I prefer to stay away from the expensive meals out on February 14th and cook something really nice with someone special, maybe get a nice bottle of wine, and just spend some time together… Cash definitely does not need to be splashed in order to incite romance.

But that’s just my opinion.

Well that’s it for this post but more will be coming soon! I’m not even close to being up to date with gig reports… As always, watch this space.

Music

CLOUDS Christmas Concerts

16 December 2013 4 Comments

The last seven days have been devoted to my harp quartet CLOUDS. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we rehearsed in my living room (having four harps in one room is far from normal). We were rehearsing for four concerts that made up our mini Christmas Tour.

The music we play is written by fellow CLOUD Esther Swift. It’s got a lot of folk influence. Think folk mixed with Steve Reich mixed with a tiny sprinkling of dub. None of the music is written down, this means Esther teaches it to us by demonstrating and explaining. It also means we have to remember it from one tour to the next, the amazing thing is we manage it.

It all started when we were at music college together, the four of us (myself, Elfair Dyer, Rebecca Mills and Esther Swift) were put in orchestra together to play Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz. We had so much fun rehearsing together that when Esther mentioned that she’d written a piece for four harps we jumped at the chance to play more music together and it’s grown from there. I don’t think any of us (apart from Esther) had much experience with playing folk, learning by ear or improvising so for all of us it is a real learning experience and, personally, it has opened my eyes to new ways of learning music.

Bearing all of this in mind, it was fitting that the first concert of our tour was in the RNCM. The Studio Theatre to be exact:

The current members of the harp department came along to support, which was lovely! There was an interesting moment when an astrophysicist came up to us at the end to correct our definition of an Interstellar Cloud. But how amazing that he saw that one of our pieces was called Interstellar Cloud and that made him come along to hear us!

This gig went pretty smoothly, ignoring the fact that a certain CLOUD managed to leave her shoes at my flat and had to run back and get them five minutes before we were due to be onstage. Not looking at anyone in particular (Esther).

The following day Elfair, Esther and myself headed to Long Marston in North Yorkshire for our second gig. We spent the day making sure we could play our programme with just three of us and playing through extra duets that expanded the programme from the previous evening.

Long Marston is a really special church for me, my parents were married there, my dad still plays the organ there and I was also Christened there. Having said that, it is one of the coldest and most spidery churches I’ve ever been in. We were ready for mulled wine and mince pies in the interval!

On Saturday we were playing for a sell-out concert in All Saints Church in Brandsby. Rebecca joined us for the rehearsal beforehand but it soon became clear that she was too unwell to perform (if you’re reading this Bec, get well soon and I’m sending you lots of cuddles!) so we made a last minute decision to play our Long Marston trio programme again as we’d already prepared it. Coming from a city like Manchester, Brandsby feels so rural, no street lights meant we were wheeling our harps in complete darkness – interesting. Plus we had to get four harps home in three cars.

Saturday was a little bit stressful.

On Sunday, we were booked to play for York’s Annual Community Carol Concert. I’ve been going to this event practically every year of my life. My dad, John Warburton, is the Musical Director of the event. The three of us arrived really early to set up, tune, sort out microphones etc. We found our dressing room, had some lunch and got ready for the concert. Everyone had remembered their shoes, we were unstoppable.

The afternoon itself was lots of fun, community carols sung by an audience of over 1,400, two school choirs, the beautiful Rebecca Newman, a brass band and of course CLOUDS all contributed to a lovely afternoon of Christmassy joy.

And then it was time to say goodbye, Elfair, Esther and Rebecca, you are all legends and I love you. Can’t wait til the next tour!

For more information about CLOUDS visit www.cloudsharpquartet.com where there is a link to buy our CDs!

Career, Music

Remembrance, York Minster and birthdays!

14 November 2013 No Comments

Last Saturday I was playing the Faure Requiem in York Minster with York Musical Society. I seem to be flitting over the Yorkshire/Lancashire border very regularly at the moment, but it’s lovely to get so many chances to visit York. I arrived just in time to nab the last parking space in the tiny Minster car park, and wheeled my harp into the building. York Minster is absolutely stunning, maybe I’m biased because I’ve grown up in this city, but I think it’s just gorgeous. It has a window the size of a tennis court!

Before the concert we had a few seconds of silence for Remembrance Day. The silence was so different from the ‘silence’ you usually get at a concert – there was no shuffling, no coughing, just heavy, thick, silence. In that huge space this was absolutely amazing. Before the concert I had gone for some food with my dad, and afterwards I gave him a lift back to his car. Now, I know the roads of York… I do, honestly! So I have no idea what possessed me to turn the wrong way down a one way street. It was only the beep of a taxi driver that alerted me to the situation. So I’m sorry ladies, but I did nothing for our reputation as competent drivers that night!

This was also the week of my birthday! I couldn’t help but think of that scene in Some like it Hot where Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) laments the fact that she’s turning twenty-five – ‘that’s a quarter of a century, makes a girl think’. I celebrated with a gorgeous meal out followed by some quiet drinks in town. The following day I went for a walk in Heaton Park, North Manchester. I’d never been before but it is lovely! All the people walking dogs made me really really want one of my own, one day! We got the perfect autumn day as well – sunny, and feeling crisp but not too cold. I couldn’t resist taking some snaps:

Next week is due to be another busy one, with gigs in Leeds and Nottingham. I have also added a new page to this website, ‘Upcoming Concerts’ – with details of where I’ll be playing over the next few months. Please also check out the updated site for my Harp Quartet CLOUDS as details are coming very soon of our exciting December concerts!

Career, Music

Doncaster and Fairfax House

7 November 2013 3 Comments

So after the last couple of posts were becoming dangerously philosophical, I thought today’s post should be more harp-related. I am writing from the waiting room where my car is undergoing its MOT. It was this time last year that my beloved ford died and I had to spend every penny I then had to get a new car. I’m hoping history doesn’t repeat itself today. I’m secretly cautiously optimistic.

My harp is very happy at the moment. Nicely busy without being too frantic (yet). A week last Wednesday I had a lunchtime recital in Doncaster’s Museum and Art Gallery, which went very well with a cosy audience of about forty (that’s forty people – I think their average age was somewhat older). They actually booked me for another recital in December 2014 so I must make a note of what I played to make sure I don’t play the same programme again. I thoroughly recommend the art gallery, I wish I’d had more time to look around but straight after the recital I was whisked away for coffee and crumpets at Woods Tea Rooms with the concert organiser – Philip Scowcroft.

Instead of returning to Manchester I decided to go and see my parents in York as I had a gig there a couple of days later. On Friday night I was booked to play 45 minutes of background music for a drinks reception in York’s Fairfax House. A beautiful Georgian house right in the city centre near Clifford’s Tower. As it happens, the guests were a quarter of an hour late so I only played for about half an hour. In any case, it was very well received. My playing was followed by a tour of the house, which I would also recommend if you are ever in the area.

Lastly, on the Sunday of last week I did something I hardly ever do. I played for free. Actually you can hardly call it a gig because I volunteered to play. The church choir that I sing with was performing Faure’s Requiem. I am completely in love with this piece so I asked if they wanted me to play the harp for it. If I was going to be there anyway I may as well bring my harp. Also it’s good practice for this Saturday’s gig, which is the same music, except this time in York Minster – exciting!

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