Phoebe Horswell enjoyed the mood music at a local, charity concert.
A concert in Blackheath has raised £2000 for the reminiscence charity, Age Exchange.
St Margaret’s Church was filled with concertgoers who came to hear a programme of music stretching back 130 years to the foundation of Blackheath Halls and Conservatoire. The event was compered by Neil Rhind MBE, who told colourful stories about the musical items in the programme.
This was the eighth, annual charity concert organised by Simon and Jenny Standage. The money they raised will be used to fund the Blackheath Heritage Trail, comprising 15 panels covering a distance of one and a half miles through the centre of Blackheath Village. The panels will tell the story of the composers and musicians who have performed in Blackheath since the nineteenth century.
Performers at the charity concert included Simon and Jenny, who met at Cambridge University in the 1960s, alongside much younger musicians such as pianist Sebastian Cook (18) and violinist James Yu (11).
Sebastian drew warm applause for his Bartok and Chopin. But 11-year-old James stole the show with the duet he performed with Simon, aged 72.
For the evening’s final performance, Jenny Standage ran up the stairs to the organ gallery. ‘Now I have to change my shoes,’ she announced. The audience laughed. Stained glass windows cast a warm, red and yellow light on their expectant faces as they waited for her to play a piece by Samuel Sebastian Wesley.
Such was this part of South East London on an uncommonly warm night in February.