Home News This July sees last concert presented by Sally Aviss at Romney Marsh Music Centre
Posted on: 13 June, 2017

This July sees last concert presented by Sally Aviss at Romney Marsh Music Centre

On Monday, 3rd July, after 34 years, I shall be presenting my final concert at Romney Marsh Music Centre – something that promises to be a happy yet sad occasion. Happy because I hope the audience will enjoy the music presented by the string and woodwind players and sad because it really will be the end of an era. RMMC has always been a very personal creation, a friendly, family-orientated place which for so many years has been my focus for music-making in Romney Marsh.

RMMC’s inaugural concert took place on Monday, 5th December in 1983 with a small string group consisting of just 10 players. Over the years, we regularly have had over 30 players in each of the Junior and Senior Strings, a combined Choir of more than 40 as well as Brass, Guitar and Woodwind groups. As well as in its home venue of St. Nicholas CE Primary Academy in New Romney, RMMC has given concerts in local parish churches, village halls, Ardres in France (on 3 occasions), Open Air concerts that began with the Queens’ Golden Jubilee in 2002 and continued in successive years. Members of RMMC have taken part in combined playing days at Wealden Music Centre, KMSS residential courses at Benenden School, Foremarke Hall in Repton in Derbyshire and have joined the Kent County Youth Orchestra or the County Choirs, both junior and senior.

I should like to thank all the pupils, adults, teaching staff and volunteers from the Friends who over the years have made RMMC a very special place in which to come to on a Monday evening. As I approach retirement, I can look back with a sense of lasting achievement and look forward in the hope that the idea I had 34 years ago to create a music centre on the Marsh will continue to flourish.

Sally Aviss
June, 2017