News item

Drumming on the New
Lottery Bid Success for Chester Philharmonic

The Chester Philharmonic Orchestra has been successful in receiving a grant from the Lottery Fund ‘Awards for All’ for replacement of their old kettle drums with state of the art pedal Timpani.

The reaction of Ed Warren the Orchestra’s President is, “The Orchestra will not be limited any more by the narrow scope of those “cannibal pots ”, very good news and a big step forward.”

Included in the grant is money for a Tam Tam and Glockenspiel.

This is a significant move for the Orchestra with its increasing membership and performing standards. Instead of hiring or borrowing suitable timpani and percussion just for concerts, the instruments will be available for all rehearsals.

The new Timpani are essential for later classical and twentieth century works where key changes can be frequent leaving little time for accurate retuning of the older style instruments.

“These new timpani will mean that the orchestra will now be able to adequately rehearse the classical repertoire from the earlier part of the twentieth century to the present day. I am certainly looking forward to and feel privileged to be playing these magnificent instruments in future concerts” Tony Mitchell the Orchestra’s Principal percussionist.

Timpani, sometimes known as kettle drums, are the principal percussion instruments in the orchestra. The orchestra owns currently owns two old manually tuned timpani which are suitable for earlier classical works but not for later works where key changes are more frequent. The pedal that is fitted to each of the new Timpani allows the timpanist to change the pitch of the instrument quickly and accurately by adjustment of the pedal to pre set positions that correspond to different pitches.

A Tam Tam is a large gong and is used to dramatic effect in some major orchestral works.

The glockenspiel is played with wooden hammers on metal keys producing a characteristic sound.