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Euphonium/Tuba Quartet

    When my dear wife passed away in 2002, I was unsure of my future, except that I was certain I wanted to stay living by myself in St Dennis, rather than move to live near my daughter in Lincolnshire.   I had established the music publishing and built up a web site at this address, and I had no wish to move elsewhere .
    It was my task to close down the garden supplies business my wife and I had run in Newquay for some years, and it was during one of those days I picked up a local newspaper to see an advert of a charity concert in St.Austell featuring the south west tuba quartet as one of the artist groups.
I had never heard a tuba quartet before, so I went to this concert to find out what sort of sound they produced.
    Imagine my surprise when only three players sat down to play as a quartet !      It appeared that one member had dropped out, and the remaining three were against letting the side down so they rejigged the parts to make a trio!
    I talked to the three musicians at the bar, and jokingly said to them, “What a pity I don’t have an instrument anymore, or I might have helped you out”.        Two or three days later, Andrew Turner came knocking at my door with a euphonium and invited me to join the group.    I had doubts about my lip muscles, but after a week of gentle exercises, I found I could play reasonably well, so joined the quartet.
    This led me to arrange music for the group,mainly of an entertaining style, so that we could play at concerts at venues in the south west.
    Anyone interested in music for 2 Bb euphoniums and two Eb Tubas (treble clef) should e-mail me for details, as they are not on the current Sarnia Music web site, but should be on the New Year 2008 web site

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