For the second year running, COVID restrictions have meant our Celebration of Chromatic Harmonica (Weekend) was a free to attend Zoom event, with the difference this year that it was also live streamed on YouTube, benefitting viewers in parts of the world with lower bandwidth. This has had the benefit of enabling us to present some of the best international harmonica players in the world, and, as you will read, we had twelve of the very best. The audience donated generously, and we were pleased to be able to remunerate the artists significantly more than their minimum guarantee. Each day kicked off with an introductory video from Roger, remarks from our chair, and a recorded video message from the great Sigmund Groven, who had other commitments so he could not appear in person. We tried to present a balanced programme, and, in the view of all of those I have spoken to, we achieved it and it was an outstanding event. The event organisation went seamlessly - at least from the viewer’s perspective, we had one or two small crises, which were overcome. This was due in no small part to the cohesion of our event team, which numbered ten. Special thanks to the technical team of Ben Reese - Zoom and YouTube host; Roger Trobridge - video creator (still editing Zoom videos to go on the website); and Trevor Yeo - up-front and in-event artist technical advisor. Richard Taylor arranged the raffle. Neil Warren did our innovative Jam sessions. And the MCs - Patrick Byrne, Pete Hewitt, Sam Spranger and Hilvert Scheper ensured variety for the audience so that they did not see the same MC the whole time. I told you a little about the artists in the previous Harmonica World issue so will not elaborate except to say that we aimed for a varied programme and our artists ranged from the young, brilliant, two time world champion Cy Leo from Hong Kong to Dror Adler from
VIRTUAL CHROMATIC WEEKEND REVIEW David Hambly, Membership Secretary
August - September 2021 • Harmonica.co.uk
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