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Andover Young Musician of the Year chosen

15/2/2016

ANDOVER YOUNG MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR AWARDS – St Mary’s Church, Andover, 11 February 2016

Now in its fourth year, Test Valley Arts Foundation (TVAF) has once again sponsored two of the awards at the recent Andover Young Musician of the Year event held at St Mary’s Church in Andover in support of St Mary’s Church Appeal. This is a very popular and well attended event, involving 3 categories of music: classical, popular and choir.

Kit Malthouse, MP for North West Hampshire, hosted the event and it was judged by local musicians: Julian Dawes, Andrew Pomphrey and Sharron Vannell, who provided excellent feedback to the participants.

Michael Widén, Development Officer, presented the Hubert Dawkes trophy to Georgia Day, who not only won the Popular Music category, but was also judged to be the overall winner of the event. This also included a cash prize donated by TVAF.

Sue Messa, future TVAF Development Officer, presented the award for best Choir to the Girls’ Close Harmony Group.

And Now We Tell Our Tale - Performed At The Lights

11/2/2016

February 11 saw a near capacity audience at The Lights to see And Now We Tell Our Tale, a production based on the testimony and memories of the people of Andover about the redevelopment of the town in the 1960s.

On stage at The Lights. Cast from left to right: Verity Hewlett, Nicholas Bull, Charlotte Ellis, Fraser Wilson, Sharon O'Leary

This play was originally performed one year ago as a piece of youth theatre, using 54 children and young adults using the actual words of people affected by these changes. Thanks to funding from HCC, TVBC, Be Wiser, Aster Housing, The Lights and Test Valley Arts Foundation, professional actors were used and in addition to the performance at The Lights, the production has toured many of the local schools during the week.

This new version was rewritten by Roy Chatfield, for five professional actors, and included additional stories from the original interviews; it was directed by John Baxter and whilst he has over 200 productions to date, this was his first experience of using professional actors. As John says ‘It is an event in itself that we're bringing professional actors into local schools. That it's a piece of theatre about Andover and created wholly in Andover makes it unique.’

The production was fantastically well received by a very enthusiastic audience and the evening ended with John Baxter inviting comments from the audience some of whom had originally contributed their memories to the piece and able to elaborate further on their individual involvement.

Cast of 'And Now We Tell our Tale'

4/2/2016

Verity Hewlett
Verity trained at Manchester Met Uni. BA Hons Theatre Arts, and now works as a drama, writer- devisor, a storyteller, dance facilitator and drama practitioner. Extensive theatre credits include Platform 4, The Nuffield, The Watermill, Basingstoke Haymarket, Riding Lights, Forest Forge, and Contact Theatre. Manchester Evening News Award Nominee. Film credits include Avengers Age of Ultron

Charlotte Ellis
Charlotte trained at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Circomedia - Bristol. She has extensive theatre and radio credits, including Bristol Old Vic, Tobacco Factory, Cheltenham Everyman, the Dublin and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and London and regional tours. In 2016 Charlotte begins filming "I am The Prize", a feature length romantic comedy in which she'll be playing the lead role "Laura"

Fraser Wilson
Fraser has performed in his own companies: Beyond The Stave and Musical Storytime while directing children in over ninety play s, Prior to that he performed in repertory including Dundee, Great Eastern Stage and Solent People’s Theatre. Recently he has performed in Volpone at the Brockley Jack, London, on the Salisbury Fringe and in a film about the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Nicholas Bull
Nicholas attended The Court Theatre Training Co. in London from 2008-11 gaining a BA (Hons) degree in Acting. Since then I have been involved in various theatre productions with my local amateur dramatics group, student films and even extra work in a feature film.

Sharon O’Leary
After thirty 30 years of teaching throughout the world, Sharon, pursued a BND Extended Diploma Course in Performing Arts as a mature student, qualifying in 2013. Last year she toured with 'Indefinite Article' theatre company. For the past 11 years she has directed Unity Christian Theatre, Andover, presenting The Passion Play as Street theatre, concerts, pantomimes and musicals.

Andover Young Musician of the Year chosen

And Now We Tell Our Tale - Performed At The Lights

Cast of 'And Now We Tell our Tale'

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