Steve returned from a highly successful visit to  south west coast of Italy after spending 6 days based in the city of Amantea, near Lamezia. The wonderful young musicians of the town wind orchestra, Orchestra di Fiati Mediterranea Città di Amantea made Steve feel so welcome, culminating on thursday 2nd July with a great concert in the old part of the city.The previous evening he performed with the town wind orchestra from Roccabernarda on the eastern side of Calabria, also conducted by Maestro Angelo di Paola.While he was there Steve also taught for two mornings and worked with some of the outsanding brass playing talent the city has to offer. There are some real talents here including an 11year old trombonist seen in the centre at the front of this picture who is destined for great things!

With this link you can see lots of pictures from the concert !

http://www.borgochianura.it/PAGINE%20FOTO/STEVEN%20MEAD/OFM.htm

Steve has a great connection with this super young band and has played with them a couple of times before.

The repertoire for the concerts was

Carnival of Venice arr. Harry James

Adagio de Aranjuez arr. Angelo De Paola.
Londonderry Air arr. Goff Richards  

Napoli  Arr Bellstedt

encores: Vaga Luna (Bellini) Varied Mood (Woodfield) Czardas (Monti)

Steve wishes to say a big thank you to all the band , especially Filippo, Enrico and the great Olindo !

and , by the way, we did some beach fishing too. The band fishing club, oh yes, (they even have their own website,click here:  

http://ofmediterranea.altervista.org/HTML/gallery/OFMFT/ofmftestate2008/index.html

organised an evening's fishing..and this was my finest effort!