And tour done! Thank you Tunnell Trust!!

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Hello everyone!

Alena from Atéa here!

So, last night we had the last concert of the tour. The concert was so much fun and was also a great acoustics to play in – the sound just rang beautifully and we could just enjoy it. Thank you to the lovely audience of Isle of Arran for such a warm welcome!

Philip and Chris stayed at the Lucy’s and Ashley, Anna and I stayed at Jan’s.
Such beautiful view that Jan has from her house can really guarantee to set the day in a good mood! – you wake up from the sun shining through the window and see the sea with mountains!

After relaxed and healthy champion breakfast of porridge, coffee and fresh fruits, we quickly packed, said goodbye to Jan and set off to go to pick up Chris and Philip.

On the way to their host’s house, we could see fantastic view of Isle of Arran in the sun.

Then we’ve picked up boys, said goodbye to Lucy and drove to ferry.

We really have been so lucky with the weather during this leg of the tour!- it’s been sunny and bright the whole time! The ferry journey was so lovely!- so great to be able to go to the deck and enjoy beautiful scenery of Scotland! And there was a bird that was seeing us off from Isle of Arran!

And after that we’ve had coffee&teas and did some administrative emails.

When our ferry arrived into Ayr, we drove to Glasgow, gave back the car to the hire company and went on for lunch to the Handmade burgers to celebrate the end of tour. Yum yum

Then we went and did some little shopping to get some Scottish gifts and on to a train. Train journey as they are was rather long, but fun and lots of snacks – Atéa style. We (well, all other four, as I’m on lent) had invented a genius thing – making a hole in the Scottish snowballs and topping it up with whisky – they seemed to really enjoy that snack 
And now back in London (well, Anna stopped in Birmingham). I bet we all will be sleeping well tonight!

We are hugely grateful to the Tunnell Trust for this tour – it has been fantastic to play 8 concerts, meet local musicians and audience, discover different villages and cities of Scotland. During the tour, we have been to some places of real nature beauty – saw beautiful mountains, snow, fields, forests, lakes and seas. And it’s just been really great to do so many concerts in such a short term. It’s been a real marathon , but we did it. Thank you for such a great opportunit, Tunnell Trust and we hope to see you soon!

Tour done! Thank you Tunnell Trust!!

Hello everyone!

Alena from Atéa here!

So, last night we had the last concert of the tour. The concert was so much fun and was also a great acoustics to play in – the sound just rang beautifully and we could just enjoy it. Thank you to the lovely audience of Isle of Arran for such a warm welcome!

Philip and Chris stayed at the Lucy’s and Ashley, Anna and I stayed at Jan’s.
Such beautiful view that Jan has from her house can really guarantee to set the day in a good mood! – you wake up from the sun shining through the window and see the sea with mountains!

After relaxed and healthy champion breakfast of porridge, coffee and fresh fruits, we quickly packed, said goodbye to Jan and set off to go to pick up Chris and Philip.

On the way to their host’s house, we could see fantastic view of Isle of Arran in the sun.

Then we’ve picked up boys, said goodbye to Lucy and drove to ferry.

We really have been so lucky with the weather during this leg of the tour!- it’s been sunny and bright the whole time! The ferry journey was so lovely!- so great to be able to go to the deck and enjoy beautiful scenery of Scotland! And there was a bird that was seeing us off from Isle of Arran!

And after that we’ve had coffee&teas and did some administrative emails.

When our ferry arrived into Ayr, we drove to Glasgow, gave back the car to the hire company and went on for lunch to the Handmade burgers to celebrate the end of tour. Yum yum

Then we went and did some little shopping to get some Scottish gifts and on to a train. Train journey as they are was rather long, but fun and lots of snacks – Atéa style. We (well, all other four, as I’m on lent) had invented a genius thing – making a hole in the Scottish snowballs and topping it up with whisky – they seemed to really enjoy that snack 
And now back in London (well, Anna stopped in Birmingham). I bet we all will be sleeping well tonight!

We are hugely grateful to the Tunnell Trust for this tour – it has been fantastic to play 8 concerts, meet local musicians and audience, discover different villages and cities of Scotland. During the tour, we have been to some places of real nature beauty – saw beautiful mountains, snow, fields, forests, lakes and seas. And it’s just been really great to do so many concerts in such a short term. It’s been a real marathon , but we did it. Thank you for such a great opportunit, Tunnell Trust and we hope to see you soon!

Final concert day of the tour!

After months of preparation, weeks of planning and days and days of traveling, we began the final concert day of the tour! To celebrate, we did a spot of sightseeing around Falkirk.
First up was the absolutely stunning engineering of the Falkirk Wheel, majestically effortless in its lifting of canal boats as well as hundreds of gallons of water only using the power of 8 kettles!

Then, we popped over to the Kelpies, giant horses heads visible for miles around, where we had a spot of lunch.

Andy Scott's magnificent Kelpies at Grangemouth

After finishing up being tourists in Falkirk, we departed for the ferry to the beautiful Isle of Arran.
When we got to the ferry port, Ashley stayed with the car and the rest of us nipped off to the shop to pick up some more food. Whilst we were at the store a good 5 minutes walk away, Ashley called us in a panic, "the ferry's here, quick come back!!!" So the four of us ditched our snacks (apart from some polos we bought, important to hang onto the essentials!) and sprinted back to the car. When we got there we found a very gleeful looking bassoonist who'd made it all up...

On the ferry over we got our first glimpses of Arran, what an absolute beauty of a place! Majestic mountains rising behind gorgeous beaches that meet with the beautiful sea.
Sadly our time on Arran was very brief, as with most places one visits on tour, a taster for a return trip some point in the future, be it for work or for a wee holiday!

After rehearsing (and paying an obligatory visit to the local chocolate shop!) we had some lovely sandwiches before we went on to give the final concert of the tour which went really well and was stupendous fun.

Day 3 - Atéa Blogathon!

Day 3 - Atéa Blogathon!

Ashley here with a quick update.

Last night we played the second concert of this leg of the tour in Dollar and were put up in Bridge of Allan by the wonderful Ayman Jarjour a committee member and Classical guitarist. We awoke this morning to yet another beautiful day and an incredible view out over Sterling!  We were able to see both the Wallace Monument and Sterling castle nestled on top of their respective hill tops from our bedroom window.

While Chris went out for a morning run, Alena stayed and practiced for her upcoming American tour and Anna and Philip busied themselves with various other morning activities I went for a walk with Ayman and his dog Nikki through the woods behind the house and down town below. After saying our goodbyes we departed for the local whisky shop, where we perused their rather magnificent selection of whiskies.  I even picked up a rather tasty peated number as a memento of our trip.

We then set off on the short car journey to Falkirk for our next concert this evening, passing the magnificent Kelpies on the way.  We arrived some 30minutes later and were met by our hosts for this evening the delightful Bob and Christine.

We are looking forward to another concert tonight in Falkirk Town Hall!

Epic drive across the highlands...25th Feb

Morning all, Anna here reporting to you from Atéa-HQ :-)

After a lovely concert in Woodend Barn, we woke up to another hearty cooked breakfast and looked at our journey routes to the next destination, Dollar.  The two options were to take the motorway or go into the mountains and have a scenic route; a no-brainer!  It was the first time for all of us to be in these parts of Scotland so wanted to explore a little when time allowed.



We stopped in Braemar to visit our friend Andy, who kindly took time out of his lunchbreak to show us around (and have a snowball fight!)


Incidentally we came across a shop called 'Antiques and Curios' - the exact title of one of the pieces in our first tour programme!  We were definitely meant to stop here!



We have been really fortunate with the weather so far, and loving walks in the sunshine and the crisp winter air...



We then continued our drive down, passing incredible scenery and snowy mountains, listening to rock music with these sorts of views...



Truly epic!

Arriving into Dollar we were mentally refreshed and ready for another concert.  A special treat for us was to hear some of the 'pre-concert' performance by two young violinists from the Dollar Academy - best of luck for your future!!

Over and out xxx

Scotland Part 2 - 24th Feb

Hello Everyone,

So here ends our first concert of our second tour of Scotland with the Tunnell Trust.  We have been so lucky to have some incredible weather here with the sun waking us up this morning streaming through our windows. We awoke to some delicious buffet of cooked breakfast...

note that most of our blogs, especially mine, are about the food we eat whilst on tour.... :) It is such an important part of being on tour and having creature comforts such as a morning coffee (or tea for Chris) to kick start our day.

After our bellies were full, and Chris had been for his run, we all went for a little walk in the woods together to take in some of the beautiful scenery and fresh air here. It was only brief as we had to get to the Hall to rehearse, however it was really magical just spending a few moments in the middle of nature away from all roads and habitats. Some might say a moment of calm before the storm...

and of course the obligatory pre-concert Atéa picture :)

So after a lovely rehearsal we were treated to the most delicious food... yes food again.... but this one was so special we were all either making yummy noises or just silent... and as you can probably tell from our blogs, we are not a quiet bunch of people... :|

We also realised that an old friend of ours lived locally and actually his mother was one of the concert organisers! So after he came to watch the concert, and as we are in scotland, it would have been rude not to have some whisky.... that is our party line and we will stick to it all tour.... :) We are now keeping a tab on all the varieties of whisky we try with a tick or cross from us, see Chris' blog post tour to see our score sheet ;)

Love Atéa
Philip

ps. on another food note, we were all starving after the concert.... well actually only Chris and myself were just a little peckish and tried to find somewhere open at 10.30pm... and when a Chinese takeaway was mentioned.... suddenly everyone was hungry! We got there and realised it was cash only and nobody had cash except me.... so they all looked at me and just said 'Phhhiiiilllliiiippppp' :) ohh the things we do for our friends :)

FOOD FOR EVERYONE! :)

And we are back in Scotland!

Hello everyone!
Alena here!
Here we go – on our second half of the Tunnell Trust tour of Scotland! All very exciting!!
We had a very long (7.5 hours) but a lovely train journey from London to Aberdeen. The weather has been absolutely perfect today for a nice train journey – gorgeous scenic landscapes and mountains with icy tops and beautiful lakes and seas! Here are some pictures I’ve taken on the train to share with you the beauty of the amazing Scottish scenery:



After about 45 min drive from Aberdeen, we have arrived into a town called Banchory, where we are staying in a lovely BB in the heart of the town.
We went out for dinner to Burnet Arms Hotel and had the most delicious dinner and great drinks (they even had non-alcoholic cider!yay!) and not to forgot to mention absolutely fantastic service there!

We already can’t wait to have another day here and play a concert tomorrow night!

Now off to the dreamland. Nighty night! Xx

Tour Part 1 summary!

So we've all finally arrived back to our respective homes after the thoroughly exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable first leg of our Tunnell Trust Scotland tour! There's been all sorts of highs from terrific concerts to appreciative audiences to meeting lovely hosts and seeing some breathtaking scenery along with a few lows when the tiredness and exhaustion has really hit us (as well as when Anna temporarily lost some train tickets!!). All in all though, it's been a really superb trip and we're so unbelievably grateful to the Tunnell Trust for making it all happen.
Now temporarily back to normal life before leg 2 in a couple of weeks, we can't wait!

Pollock House

Hello lovely peeps!

So today we had a wonderful concert at pollock house. We started the day very nicely and arrived here very early so we could have lunch in the local town. However we ended up in a local shopping centre and stuffed our faces with my wagamamas…. 😊 we thought after such a long drive to treat ourselves to a long leisurely lunch.

All stomachs full we set off. Pollock house is so beautiful and in stunning grounds. Greeted warmly by Daisy our contact person and the lady who we ended up being hosted by! Unbeknown to us she had bought us some snacks and sandwiches, so more eating commenced…. After a brief rehearsal we went down to our dressing room for a lie down and in walks the girls host for the evening 😊 it has become and almost nightly routine of having a 30minute lie on the floor. Although in this picture, Anna seems to be having far too much fun…..

After a warm reception to our performance we were taken to have a delicious dinner…more food…. 😊 this was a very nice thing for us to do as usually one gets to meet the audience fleetingly post concert, however this was a whole meal with some wine. 🍷 after all it is the end of our Scottish adventure….

We then set off to our hosts house (Ashley having had only a splash of wine as he was driving). The boys in one car, the girls in another. We had the most wonderful evening chatting with Daisy and her husband John whilst having more wine and whiskey(again, end of tour…so celebrations were in order). Chatting away none of us realised it had hit 2am…! I hadn’t write this and we all had to leave at 9.20am….bedtime for the sleepy Atéa boys!!

Buonanotte world

Philip X

Scotland part ...5? Ayr~

Hello again peeps, Hashimoto here from a lovely warm bed in Ayr! It’s been yet another wonderful day which I’ll briefly sum up here…

The morning in Moffat started with birdsong for me as goldfinches gathered around the window and we breakfasted together.

After this we set off for Ayr but not before refuelling the car and our snack rations. Huge thanks to Moffat Toffee Shop for our glorious sugar hit!

We had a surprisingly smooth journey and had a quick stop-off at the seaside. It seemed like a brilliant idea in the warm car.

After a few minutes however we remembered it was February, and snuck back into our warm ‘Wigmore temperature’ car (which we have on good authority to be 21 degrees) and continued our internal fuelling at a lovely Italian restaurant.

After a brief peruse around the Robert Burns centre (and eating a Clootie!) we rehearsed at the lovely Octagonal Hall at Alloway Parish Church.

It was around this time that the ‘crash’ happened. On a tour like this our energy levels slowly dwindle no matter how much we try to rest, eat and look after ourselves. So after a light supper three of us lay down on the floor in our dressing room and turned the lights out. As a child I remember playing ‘sleeping lions’ at school and just falling asleep – and this was quite similar… FYI this is a PERFECT way to recharge your energies of you get a ‘crash’ like us! After half an hour of chilling in a darkened room we were ready to go!

Tonight’s concert was so much fun – the audience were all so warm and appreciative, and our colleague from the a Royal Academy of Music even popped in! Thank you Scott for your support! And thank you to Margaret and the Ayr Music Society for looking after us so well!

Now bed time for me…xxx

Atéa plus one selfie!!