Happy 55th Birthday to Gioachino Rossini!

It's February 29th! A rare day indeed!

I always enjoy Leap Years because in my mind they're associated with the Olympic Games - falling as they do every same 4 years as the summer games which this time around will of course take place in London.

But as a fan of classical music, there is an extra reason for my being a fan of this quirky date.

On February 29th 1792, Gioachino Rossini was born and he is one of my favourite composers. Today then would've been his 55th birthday but as he was a Leap Day baby - it means that he is in fact 220 years old!

Though he passed away in 1868 in his 76th year aged just 19 (I know but I can't resist!) his musical masterpieces remain.

As a celebration of this special birthday then, here is one of my favourite compositions from the 'Italian Mozart' - the Overture to La Gazza Ladra or as it's more lovingly called, 'The Thieving Magpie'.

My Classic FM 'Hall of Fame' Dilemma - What would your Top 3 choices be?

Anyone who dips in and out of this blog from time to time will I'm sure have picked up on my love of classical music. It's a childhood thing that has stayed with me and indeed grown, throughout my 29 years.

But it's only in the last few years that I have become an avid listener of Classic FM (it is now my bed-side radio station of choice). In particular, it is only over the past 2 years that I have become ingratiated into the Classic FM Hall of Fame Top 300 Countdown.

Classic FM have been counting down the great British public's favourite classical compositions through its Hall of Fame since 1996. But only over the past two Easter weekends have I taken particular notice of recent trends.

2012 Hall of Fame
Well this year, I'm actually going to make my mark by voting for the first time in this annual classical feast.

To be precise, I have 3 votes available to me in all which you'd think would give me plenty of scope in deciding my personal Top 3 classical compositions of all-time. But it's not that straightforward! The more that I have listened to Classic FM over the years, the wider my knowledge and appreciation of a wide range of classical pieces has developed.

Narrowing that wealth of music down to just 3 submissions has therefore become a near impossible task!

I am still mulling over those choices which must be submitted online before Wednesday 29th February. So I have barely a week to make that decision!

Here are just a sample of the kinds of classical pieces that I adore (with their 2011 Top 300 Hall of Fame position in brackets)...

Copland - Rodeo (No. 274)


Gershwin - Walking the Dog (No. 268)


Wagner - Lohengrin (No. 248)


Rossini - The Thieving Magpie (No. 212)


Walton - Crown Imperial (No. 208)


Schubert - Ave Maria (No. 186)


Rossini - The Barber of Seville (No. 180)


Strauss (Snr) - Radetzky March (No. 162)


Williams - Star Wars (No. 151)


Rossini - William Tell Overture (No. 116)


Faure - Pavane (No. 115)


Beethoven - Fur Elise (No. 114)


Verdi - La Traviata (No. 109)


Ravel - Bolero (No. 101)


Bizet - Carmen (No. 87)


Verdi - Narbucco (No. 69)


Puccini - Madam Butterfly (No. 68)


Wagner - Tannhauser (No. 67)


Tchaikovsky - Nutcracker Suite (No. 63)


Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (No. 59)

 
Strauss (Jnr)- Blue Danube (No. 57)

 
Mozart - Marriage of Figaro (No. 51)

 
Mozart - Concerto No.21 (No. 48)

 
Beethoven - 5th Symphony (No. 39)

 
Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana (No. 32)

 
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata (No. 28)

 
Sibelius - Finlandia (No. 25)


Dvorak - Symphony No.9 (New World) (No. 24)


Beethoven - 7th Symphony (No. 23)


Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (No. 22)


Saint-Säens - Symphony No.3 (No. 21)


Grieg - Piano Concerto (No. 20)


Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture (No. 17)


Pachelbel - Canon (No. 13)


Holst - The Planets (No. 12)


Vivaldi - Four Seasons (No. 11)


Beethoven - 9th Symphony (No. 10)


Mozart - Clarinet Concerto (No. 5)


That is a mere selection of almost 40 of my favourite classical compositions from a wide range of composers.

But how do I whittle them down to just 3 choices?! Well, I'll have to and I will report back within a week or so with the results.

In the meantime, what about you dear reader? What would your 'Top 3' classical choices be? Anything from the list above or something completely different? Please do comment with your personal choices, I'd be interested to find out.

Queen to Rock Knebworth - 25 years on!

I'm excited I'll be honest with you!

A good friend of mine Robin Whitmore called me this evening to tell me that Queen are to headline the Saturday at the 3-day Sonisphere in early July - at KNEBWORTH!

Queen's final live gig with Freddie Mercury was at Knebworth in front of some 120,000 fans on August 9th 1986 - Robin was there! I wasn't even 4 at the time so the chance to see Freddie live passed me by but an opportunity to see Brian May and Roger Taylor live at that holy grail of a Queen venue is one that I will not let go!

I've seen them both at a gig in the CIA a few years back with Robin and we've both also attended a Queen International Fan Club convention! But then we are both members of the International Queen Fan Club so it's very much allowed!

We can purchase up to 6 tickets and with Queen fan club members getting first refusal before the tickets go on general sale on Thursday, Robin and I are keen to snap them up in the next 24 hours! If any other fans are keen to attend, contact me immediately!

Ceredigion County Council Vs Hywel Dda LHB (Part II) - "There will be beds in Cardigan Hospital"

In my last blog post, I commented on my questioning the Hywel Dda Local Health Board's lack of communication with the wider public when we met them as a Council on Thursday.

My second point was on the Cardigan Hospital development and I wanted to dedicate a seperate post to this issue, such is its importance to the residents of Cardigan, southern Ceredigion and north Pembrokeshire.

The Hywel Dda Chief Executive Mr Trevor Purt had already made supportive noises towards the Cardigan Hospital development by the time that I was called to speak but I pressed him on the same point again. Whilst progress is finally being made now that the sale of the site itself has been completed, the question of the future provision of services within the new build is very much being debated - in particular, the question of community beds.

I told Mr Purt that I was going to quote what he had said earlier in the meeting in the future and he re-iterated the sentiment to me there and then in the Council Chamber.

To quote the Chief Executive of the Hywel Dda Local Health Board:

"There will be beds in Cardigan Hospital".

I'll remember that and I've now quoted it for posterity to ensure that this becomes a reality. He will not be allowed to go back on his word.

Ceredigion County Council Vs Hywel Dda LHB (Part I) - 'A Public Relations Disaster'

Yesterday morning, a special meeting of Ceredigion County Council was held to meet with the Chief Executive and senior officers of Hywel Dda's Local Health Board. The meeting had been called after Cllr Elizabeth Evans from Aberaeron and I proposed and seconded a motion back in November, requesting this very meeting as I blogged about at the time here.

The request to meet with Chief Executive Mr Trevor Purt and his officers came with the backdrop of a fierce public reaction to the proposed changes that the Hywel Dda LHB are seeking to implement at Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth. It also gave Councillors the opportunity to quiz this most illusive of individuals on health projects in Aberaeron, Tregaron and Cardigan (please read my next blog post, Part II for updates on Cardigan Hospital).

The long wait to speak...
The meeting was due to begin at 9.30am and had been designated to run until 11.30am when an Economic Development Scrutiny Committee meeting was due to start.

The Hywel Dda LHB began with an hour long presentation and it wasn't much before 10.45am before Councillors could begin asking their questions. An hour an been set aside for a Q&A but it soon transpired that that clearly wouldn't be enough. In 8 years on the Council, I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything quite like it. I thought that I'd put my hand up to grab the Chair's attention early enough but sure enough, many of my colleagues had clearly beaten me to the early punch.

Having scribbed a number of notes down during the presentation, I found myself waiting...and waiting...and waiting to be called to speak. Normally, there isn't that much of a wait to be called but yesterday, more Councillors requested to speak in a single debate than possibly any other that I can recall since my election to the Council in 2004 - a clear demonstration of the strength of feeling on the matter held by those of all sides of the political divide on this issue.

I began to increasingly wonder whether the Chair Cllr Catherine Hughes had in fact seen me gesture to her earlier in the meeting when finally, after over 2 hours of questions from the floor and answers from Mr Purt and his colleagues, I was called.

"A PR Disaster"
Much of what I was going to say and been touched upon by those who had spoken previously but I had waited long and patiently for my moment, and I was not going to let those scribbled down and almost illegible notes go to waste.

Usually, I sit down when giving speeches in the Chamber. On rare occasion to I stand when I have my say. There are Councillors meanwhile who are to the contrary. It's clear that Beulah's Cllr Lyndon Lloyd is a lay preacher in his spare time as the overwhelming majority of his speeches (or sould I say orations?! But I must admit to secretly enjoying them as he often peppers them with historical facts and anecdotes which as a historian, I'm bound to lap up!) during these past 8 years are made from standing. But he is a relatively rare exception - very few Councillors have been known to do so. Only the leader, Llandysul's Cllr Keith Evans and Llanfarian's Cllr Alun Lloyd Williams to my recollection ever make a concerted habit of doing it.

Well yesterday was different. My colleagues Cllr Elizabeth Evans from Aberaeron and Aberystwyth Central Councillor Ceredig Davies both stood for their interventions and I was in the mood to follow suite. It was as such that I re-iterated to Mr Purt and the Hywel Dda executives in front of me that they could not expect a 'dialgoue' (their word) with the public if they weren't in the room. They refused to turn up at a public meeting in Tregaron before Christmas which I attended after community beds in Tregaron Hospital were cut without public consultation. They then refused to attend last week's public meeting in Aberystwyth which was successfully organised by the Town Council and in which over 500 local residents attended.

I stated that the Hywel Dda LHB were creating a vicious cycle in which they were feeding the increasing lack of faith of local residents in the Health Board by refusing to attend public meetings to give their answers to the many concerns raised. It was as I called it from their point of you, a "PR disaster".

After I spoke, Cllr Gareth Lloyd from the Llandisiliogogo ward backed up my comments and continued in the same vein. Though I'd had to wait, there was a longer wait for others as the meeting continued for another hour until 2pm.

By my count, 34 of the 42 Councillors were present at the meeting. During the 3 hour Q&A session (a 4+ hour meeting in total), some 22 of those 34 Councillors spoke in the debate. That's over half of the entire Council requesting to and speaking on a single topic. It was well planned that this was a one-topic meeting but still, I can't recall in 8 years a debate in which so many Councillors requested to speak.

Did Trevor Purt and his team of ten really listen to the concerns raised yesterday? Only time will tell. Did I feel a quiet satisfaction in getting that anger and frustration off my chest? You bet!

Stay tuned...
In my next blog post, I'll comment specifically on my comments on and Mr Purt's response to the Cardigan Hospital development...