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Durham Young Musicians Spring Term News 2020

With thanks
DYM thanks Mr John Treherne for his donation of £120 on be- half of the North of England Tournament Trust. The dona- tion supported the funding of the Summer Festival.

New committee members
The DYM desperately needs new committee members to support its activities, in particu- lar, a secretary, and a member- ships secretary. Please contact Vanessa Kind (Chair) to if you would like to join.

The Summer Festival
The Summer Festival in July was as popular as ever with 30 young performers taking part.
The festival was a welcome return to Durham for organist, conductor and choral director Ralph Woodward who was adjudicator for the event at Durham High School for Girls.
Ralph, who is now based in Cambridge where he is director of the Fairhaven Sing- ers, was brought up in Durham and was a former pupil of Durham School and an organ scholar at Durham Cathedral.
Young musicians from beginner level to post-Grade 8 took part and Ralph gave individual reports on all of the performances.
DYM chair Vanessa Kind said: ‘We were delighted to have Ralph as our adjudica- tor this year. He was really positive and encouraging to everyone taking part. It was a wonderful afternoon and a real celebration of music making.’ The Junior Cup was won by Joy He and the runner-up was Dinghi Ma.
The Intermediate Cup was won by Edmund Smith and the runner-up was Ruixian Li.
The Senior Cup was won for the second year run- ning by James Barker and the runner-up was Moses Hung. 
The Jack Smith Trophy for the most promising young musician who had not won one of the other trophies went to Jenny Hu.

James Etherington Music Award
DYM pianist Beau Beveridge won first prize (£400) at this recent music event, hosted by the Ro- tary Club Chester-le-St.

The Christmas Concert
The Christmas concert was a great success and very well attended. We were pleased to wel- come Finchale Primary School again and the choir premiered a delightful Christmas song writ- ten specially for them by Gail Bartley, a friend and former committee member of DYM, who coached the choir for the performance.

Annual Visit to Hallgarth
Young musician Anthony Panke played on a vio- lin he had made himself when DYM members en- tertained residents at Hallgarth Care Home in September.
Anthony, who is a pupil at Durham School, played Bach and Telemann on the instrument he made in his workshop at home in Durham City.
Anthony was one of a talented line-up of performers for a lively concert of folk songs and classics.
The Hallgarth concerts, organised by Mandy Hampshire, have become a regular feature of the DYM year and are always enjoyed by the young musicians and their very welcoming audience.
Residents sang along to traditional favourites like What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor and Coming Round the Mountain while Over the Rainbow and I Got Rhythm brought back many memories.
DYM Chair Vanessa Kind, who accompanied her trombonist daughter Lydia at the concert, said: ‘We are always happy to come to Hallgarth.

DYM 50th Anniversary
Guest speaker Anthony Williams cuts a cake to celebrate DYM's 50th anniversary after his presentation on the Secret Life of the Piano at North Road Methodist Church in October. In the background - helping as always - is the church's caretaker Malcolm Scott.

ABRSM Examination Results, Winter 2020
Congratulations to DYM members on achieving these results in the Summer music exam series:
Charlotte Kettle Grade 1 Piano Pass
Olivia Kettle Grade 1 Piano Distinction
Alan Lowery Grade 1 Piano Merit
Aaron Gibson Grade 3 Piano Pass
Camille Beattie Grade 4 Piano Merit
Guy Wong Grade 6 Piano Merit
Alice Bartley Grade 8 Piano Merit
Toni Wong Grade 8 Piano Pass


Profiling DYM Committee Member: Ian Rudd
Ian was brought up in Warcop, a small village in Cumbria. Its main claims to fame are the annual Rushbearing Festival, which takes place on 29 June each year, and the Army Training Range, where thousands of soldiers have done military exercises on the surrounding fells since the 1940s.
The family house was formerly the village tailor's shop and living accommo- dation. It was previously occupied by the village draper, Charles Short, whose son, Ted Short, trained as a teacher at the College of the Venerable Bede, Durham University. Subsequently, Ted became an MP for Newcastle upon Tyne and rose to the dizzy heights of Postmaster General in the Har- old Wilson Government. He was responsible for banning Radio Caroline, one of the Pirate Radio ships of that era.
There was a piano in the Rudd family home but the room was rather cold, as that was in the days before central heating, and so piano practice was rather spasmodic. The local piano teacher was rather uninspiring, and maybe the pupil did not have sufficient enthusiasm either, so eventually the piano playing fizzled out. However, it did lay the foundation for an appreciation of music in later life.
After O and A levels in the local secondary school in Kirkby Stephen, Ian travelled to Sheffield to attend the university there to study physics. The three year course was interesting and challeng- ing. Living in an industrial city was a great change from rural Cumbria, but the nearby Peak Dis- trict National Park was compensation, and many weekend activities took place in the countryside of Derbyshire.
After leaving University, Ian then spent three years in Liverpool studying for further professional qualifications before moving to the North East for work. Employment took him first to Darling- ton, then Newcastle, and finally to Washington where he spent a number of years, based at the Nissan car assembly plant but visiting many of the Nissan sites world-wide.
Ian's involvement with Durham Young Musicians started when his daughter Kathleen started pi- ano lessons with Barry Maleham and, about the same time, violin lessons initially with the school music service and then with Jean Provine. The regular matinees and special concerts were a great opportunity for her to get experience of performance on both violin and piano, and she got a lot out of her membership of DYM.
Soon after Kathleen joined DYM, some long standing committee members stood down, and there was concern that the organisation would not be able to continue. Ian agreed to take over the role as Secretary of the society, and the new committee put a lot of effort into rejuvenating DYM by encouraging new teachers to send along pupils to the events.
Most of the matinee events took place at the University Music School. However, there were many more formal concerts in the 1990s and 2000s, some of the more notable taking place in the DLI Museum in Aykley Heads, before the piano was sold and we had to find a new venue for events. After that, concerts largely took place at St Cuthbert's Church, North Road, and at North Road Methodist Church.
After around 20 years as Secretary, this role was handed over to a successor, and Ian is currently Treasurer and Membership Secretary of the Society.
It is good to report that DYM continues to thrive. It offers great opportunities for young musi- cians to have experience of, and enjoyment in, performing in public. Ian has been pleased to help the Society in achieving these aims over several decades. The success of the Society and its con- tinued prosperity does rely on parents and teachers joining and supporting the Committee, so new members of the Committee are always welcome! 

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