Suzuki in Scotland
Gala Charity Concert in Perth
Another Trip to McDonalds!
by Jenny Macmillan

Ability Development, Autumn 1997

This seems to be the standard reward for Suzuki students after concerts. (I’m hoping to get some sponsorship from McDonalds for writing this!) It was amazing. It was 10.30 at night and still broad daylight (as it is in Scotland in June). We were two families with seven children between us aged from six to thirteen. Those of us in the first car casually pulled in at the famous drive-in take-away to find a school bus full of the choir who had just sung at our concert. Our hostess used her mobile phone to speak to her husband in the second car to say we were stopping off at McDonalds. As the two were talking over their mobiles, he pulled up alongside us in the McDonalds car park. We collected our chips and raced home, where the older children rushed out into the garden to eat them in the tent in which they intended to sleep the night.

The whole weekend was exciting, exhilarating, magical, unusual, welcoming and most worthwhile. Features included:

• the five hour train journey from Peterborough to Perth (no complaints from my three children, surprisingly);
• the warm welcome of the Laing family in their glorious home;
• the Saturday lunch party for all performers and their families (some from Scotland, some from England) - a chance to meet familiar and less familiar Suzuki families - I love the way one meets up with the same people in different places - Birmingham, Bryanston, Cambridge, London, Perth, St Albans - at Suzuki workshops, concerts and conferences;
• the afternoon rehearsal at the Perth Theatre - and when I say “afternoon” I mean “afternoon” - the whole of it - rather a lot of waiting around for the youngsters;
• the concert itself with such a display of conscientious hard work in such a variety of musical styles, from folk tunes to a new choral work directed by the composer himself at the piano, through Telemann, Gluck, Mozart, Saint-Saens, Elgar and Debussy amongst other less well-known composers and including one with an unpronounceable name (and, yes, it was quite a long concert);
• the mature and sensitive performance of the second movement of the Bruch violin concerto by nine-year-old Nicola Benedetti, pupil of Brenda Smith - which brought tears to my eyes after only the first two notes;
• sitting in the Laing’s kitchen at midnight drinking wine followed by coffee followed by wine followed by coffee as we discussed the concert and music and Suzuki ....;
• the walk down to the river Tay on Sunday morning followed by our six-and-a-half hour train journey home (again, no complaints from the children) and stopping off at McDonalds again (must deserve some sponsorship for this!) on the drive back to Cambridge. Home at 7.30 pm - get everything in the washing machine ready for our second son to be at school at 7.30 the next morning to go on a week’s adventure course in Shropshire.

It took me a week to recover from the excitement of the weekend, but it was so valuable - we have very good memories of such a positive experience.

A reward for everyone’s hard work at their musical instruments is to be invited to play at a concert. The reward for playing in a concert is a trip to ....!

The concert was extremely well organised by Sound Foundations, and set a record by not only covering its costs, but also making a donation of over £1,000 to the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children. Sound Foundations is a charitable trust, established to raise the profile of Suzuki in Scotland and to co-ordinate the major events there. It is run by Suzuki parents Timothy Laing, Donald Graham and Squibbs Noble, with Anne Turner as musical director. The trust aims to attract more teachers onto the training course, as there are currently only a dozen trained Suzuki teachers in Scotland. It is also able to offer bursaries to cover trainees’ travelling expenses to the south when necessary. Since its establishment last year, the trust has managed to attract five new piano teachers, with the prospect of more to come. Sound Foundations is now preparing for the Scottish National Suzuki Concert in the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh on Saturday 22 November 1997.