Reading Comprehension: Entertainment

'We are pretty awful,' admitted one of the bassoonists. There is a very wide range of playing abilities, she added, noting that she herself had only passed Grade 3, the examination normally taken by 11-year-old British schoolchildren.

The Really Terrible Orchestra, however, was an immediate hit. The concert sold out well in advance, as it has done every year since, attracting an audience of more than 500 people, some not actually related to the players.

Now what has become the world's most famous amateur orchestra is about to perform in London. The Cadogan Hall is the site of this imminent musical disaster, and all 800 tickets vanished in a trice.

Eight years ago my wife and I decided that we would do something about never having played in the school orchestra. We are both very challenged musicians: at the time she played the flute - hesitantly - and I played the bassoon - extremely incompetently.

The response was overwhelming, particularly from clarinetists. I suspect that a very high proportion of the population is exposed to the clarinet at some stage and that British attics are crammed full of forgotten clarinet cases. Many of these were dusted off for the first meeting of the Really Terrible Orchestra, as were various other instruments. We appointed a professional conductor, Richard Neville Towle, a well-known Edinburgh musician and founder of the ensemble Ludus Baroque, and we began to rehearse.

The result was cacophony.

An orchestra needs to perform, and we decided to hold a concert. Wisely, we took the view that the audience should be given a glass of wine, or even more than a glass, before the concert. This assisted their enjoyment and understanding of our idiosyncratic performance. Virtually every piece we played was greeted with shouts of applause and a standing ovation.

'We are pretty awful,' admitted one of the bassoonists. There is a very wide range of playing abilities, she added, noting that she herself had only passed Grade 3, the examination normally taken by 11-year-old

British schoolchildren.

Now what has become the world's most famous amateur orchestra is about to perform in London. The Cadogan Hall is the site of this imminent musical disaster, and all 800 tickets vanished in a trice.

Now what has become the world's most famous amateur orchestra is about to perform in London. The Cadogan Hall is the site of this imminent musical disaster, and all 800 tickets vanished in a trice.

An orchestra needs to perform, and we decided to hold a concert. Wisely, we took the view that the audience should be given a glass of wine, or even more than a glass, before the concert. This assisted their enjoyment and understanding of our idiosyncratic performance. Virtually every piece we played was greeted with shouts of applause and a standing ovation.

'We are pretty awful,' admitted one of the bassoonists. There is a very wide range of playing abilities, she added, noting that she herself had only passed Grade 3, the examination normally taken by 11-year-old British schoolchildren.

Eight years ago my wife and I decided that we would do something about never having played in the school orchestra. We are both very challenged musicians: at the time she played the flute - hesitantly - and I played the bassoon - extremely incompetently.

'We are pretty awful,' admitted one of the bassoonists. There is a very wide range of playing abilities, she added, noting that she herself had only passed Grade 3, the examination normally taken by 11-year-old British schoolchildren.

The Really Terrible Orchestra, however, was an immediate hit. The concert sold out well in advance, as it has done every year since, attracting an audience of more than 500 people, some not actually related to the players.

Now what has become the world's most famous amateur orchestra is about to perform in London. The Cadogan Hall is the site of this imminent musical disaster, and all 800 tickets vanished in a trice.

The orchestra's fame spread. Earlier this year the New York Times, for a mention in which many professional musicians would sell their souls, devoted a quarter of a page to an article about the Really Terrible Orchestra. A few days after the appearance of the article the orchestra's chairman, Peter Stevenson, received an approach from the same New York impresario who had first taken the Beatles to the US.

The response was overwhelming, particularly from clarinetists. I suspect that a very high proportion of the population is exposed to the clarinet at some stage and that British attics are crammed full of forgotten clarinet cases. Many of these were dusted off for the first meeting of the Really Terrible Orchestra, as were various other instruments. We appointed a professional conductor, Richard Neville Towle, a well-known Edinburgh musician and founder of the ensemble Ludus Baroque, and we began to rehearse. The result was cacophony.

The orchestra's fame spread. Earlier this year the New York Times, for a mention in which many professional musicians would sell their souls, devoted a quarter of a page to an article about the Really Terrible Orchestra. A few days after the appearance of the article the orchestra's chairman, Peter Stevenson, received an approach from the same New York impresario who had first taken the Beatles to the US.

An orchestra needs to perform, and we decided to hold a concert. Wisely, we took the view that the audience should be given a glass of wine, or even more than a glass, before the concert. This assisted their enjoyment and understanding of our idiosyncratic performance. Virtually every piece we played was greeted with shouts of applause and a standing ovation.

The Really Terrible Orchestra, however, was an immediate hit. The concert sold out well in advance, as it has done every year since, attracting an audience of more than 500 people, some not actually related to the players.

The response was overwhelming, particularly from clarinetists. I suspect that a very high proportion of the population is exposed to the clarinet at some stage and that British attics are crammed full of forgotten clarinet cases. Many of these were dusted off for the first meeting of the Really Terrible Orchestra, as were various other instruments. We appointed a professional conductor, Richard Neville Towle, a well-known Edinburgh musician and founder of the ensemble Ludus Baroque, and we began to rehearse. The result was cacophony.

Now what has become the world's most famous amateur orchestra is about to perform in London. The Cadogan Hall is the site of this imminent musical disaster, and all 800 tickets vanished in a trice.

The Really Terrible Orchestra, however, was an immediate hit. The concert sold out well in advance, as it has done every year since, attracting an audience of more than 500 people, some not actually related to the players.

'We are pretty awful,' admitted one of the bassoonists. There is a very wide range of playing abilities, she added, noting that she herself had only passed Grade 3, the examination normally taken by 11-year-old British schoolchildren.

Curiously, many of them confess afterwards that they envy us.

For them, that kind of freedom is the most difficult note of all to hit.

By the third bar, of course, reality reasserts itself.

They usually begin with polite smiles, but soon those smiles turn into open laughter.

Curiously, many of them confess afterwards that they envy us.

I worked as a singing teacher for ten years, and I've had some really good success stories. But I felt that I had gone as far as I could go in that career and I wanted a change.

I didn't just want to do a different job in music. I want to do something completely different.

Now what has become the world's most famous amateur orchestra is about to perform in London. The Cadogan Hall is the site of this imminent musical disaster, and all 800 tickets vanished in a trice.