It has been an exciting time for Gateway FM: our application for a full time community licence has been in the hands of the independent regulator – Ofcom – for over a year, our roadshow has been active in ensuring we give support to a wide range of different organisations and that we have a presence at events throughout the area. We have continued to deliver training courses designed to help media students and also to give other, younger students, an awareness of community and their rôles and responsibilities within it.

It has been a year of great fun, hard work and a valuable learning experience for us all. We have added a local news element to our output on both website and FM: we are accredited to deliver radio journalism OCN courses and aim to build a strong core news team. If you are a trained journalist (radio, TV or press) with a little spare time to give us, please give me a call and help us develop the team skills.

Our volunteer members have been wonderful: for without their enthusiasm and involvement, there could be no such thing as Gateway FM, or indeed community radio. We have welcomed loads of new members, listeners and contributors and have had to say farewell and thanks to a few who have, of necessity, moved on.

Above all, Gateway FM is a rather different style of radio station. It does exist to do more than simply play music, although there is plenty of it. The station’s aim is to serve its local communities by representing them on air, by giving local people a voice on local issues and by reporting fairly, accurately and without bias.

Of course, it seeks to serve different tastes in music and to that end intends to involve more local schools, clubs, groups and performers through the encouragement of  live performance and the reaching out to a broader community. Please contact us if you would like to have your work aired to a wider audience locally.

Please do contact us if you would like to be part of your local radio, whether as a sports correspondent, journalist, researcher, planner, editor, receptionist, presenter, member of the roadshow team or simply as someone interested in supporting their local station and helping it improve.

Membership is just £1 per year – we don’t want to price membership at a level that could exclude many people – and gives access to various of our training activities in order that we can seek to enable the quality of our output (though involving people working for love rather than money) to hold its own alongside that of professional stations (i.e. those where staff are paid).

You might well wonder what this has to do with classical music. The answer is simply this: I would like to talk to enthusiasts who might like to share their passion with others. I would like to talk to instrumentalists and singers, to opera, madrigal, chant, military or sacred music lovers. Perhaps you are tuned more to Telemann or Vivaldi, to the great Romantic composers or orchestral music for film and theatre: please get in touch.

You may have a wonderful collection of some of the finest recordings by some of the greatest orchestras  conducted by the maestros of yesteryear or a wealth of memories and anecdotes from your musical background: simply get in touch with me.

My email address is yvonne.williams@gatewayfm.com. The station telephone number is 01268 521299.

This could lead to a guest appearance, an on-air chat or to your presenting part, or all of, ‘Sounds Familiar’.  As you know, music can reach people of any age or cultural tradition, so please don’t think: I’m too old, or too young, or too shy or that my accent is a bit ‘iffy’. If you have a love for music that you would like to share, then we can help you make it happen.

Trendy fashion is a sort of uniform presented to purchasers as a way of expressing their individuality and perhaps an element of protest against convention. It is ephemeral, frequently absurdly impractical and, in truth, a manipulated trend that brings certain colours, fabrics and styles to the fore in readiness for each bout of spending.

Yet certain styles remain stylish because they answer the design requirement for form, fit and function in a manner that is always elegant.

Perhaps therein lies the parallel with pop music. Its appeal seems too often generated by factors bearing little relationship to artisitic merit, but often to the manipulation of a market. The X Factor winner is undoubtedly talented, but would his cover version of a song have received any attention from buyers had he not been on television. Would the anti-Cowell number one have been purchased by many, had it not been for manipulation of the market to develop a protest vote.

Of course, there have been many examples of pop music that have not only reflected the times of their composition, but also pass from transient pop culture into a more durable awareness and regard. So it is with classical music: far more has been composed and forgotten than we care to imagine. That which has inherent greatness, whether of expression, suggestion or inspiration has survived. So too with music of other genres: folk, jazz, country, swing, blues.

And all these can provide inspiration for future pop: some trivial, some of value. Which is why I hope you can enjoy Sounds Familiar: a gentle wander through the music we have long loved.

Saturday 28 November  7.30 pm 
St Margaret’s Church, Lime Avenue, Leigh on Sea
Southend Bach Choir
Handel – Messiah
Info: Christine Browne 01702 549631

BasOp’s 2009 concert season covers the following 5 dates:
Friday 27th November @ St. Thomas’ Church, Thorpedene Avenue, Hullbridge.  Contact: Mrs Beryl Morriss on (01702) 230666
Saturday 28th November @ Stanford-le-Hope Methodist Church,
Contact: Mrs Margaret Boulton (01375) 674535
Thursday 3rd December @ St Aidan’s Church, The Fairway, Leigh.-on-Sea
Contact: Mrs Freda Hand on (01702) 521607 or Mr Derek Brooks (01702) 208747
Friday 4th December @ St. Nicholas Church, Laindon
Contact: Mr Graham Fry on (01268) 546252
Saturday 5th December @ Hadleigh Methodist Church,
Contact: Mr Roger Kingston on 07899 885158
All the above concerts start at 8:00 PM.

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Friday 11 December 7.30 pm 
Runnymede Hall, Kiln Road, Benfleet, SS7 1TF
THE MELVIN BEDDOW BIG BAND
Pre-Christmas Soirée. Big band swing sound with a festive flavour.
£10.00
Info: www.mbbb.co.uk 0845 224 2861 
 
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Saturday 12 December    7.30 pm 
Chelmsford Cathedral
Bach – Magnificat; Haydn – Harmoniemesse
 £15,£12,£10 children under 13yrs free
Info: 01245 400533 
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Friday 18th December

Basildon Choral Society with a concert of family carols and readings from St Martin of Tours, the beautiful church with the steel and glass bell-tower. It’s at 7.45 and features children from Kingswood School. Admission: £9.00 on the door. Children under 16 free.

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Saturday 19 December 7.30 pm 
Westcliff URC (corner Mount Avenue) Westcliff on Sea
Southend Bach Choir
Christmas Concert
Info: Christine Browne 01702 549631   Choral 
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Saturday 19 December at 7:00 p.m.
Music for Christmas,
Brentwood Centre, Doddinghurst Road, Brentwood, Essex, CM15 9NN

Hutton and Shenfield Choral Society +
Choir of Bentley St Paul’s Primary School and
Aurelian Symphony Orchestra
Tim Hooper Conductor
Tickets: £12.00; £11.00 (Senior Citizens); £5.00 (Students/Children) Family Package £30
http://www.hscs.org.uk/
bobscott@talktalk.net
B Davies 01277 810757; M Pender 01277 219916 or at the door
A feast of seasonal music for choir, audience and orchestra

If you have details of other concerts, recitals etc., please call 01268 521299 with the details, or email info@gatewayfm.com

It is just that the whole name ‘classical music’ can so easily convey an elitist image, a sort of Third Programme cultural worthiness, maybe even a sort of holier than thou-ness.

But it should not be so, for this is the music that has inspired a great deal of  jazz, rock, soul and funk. It’s the sort of music that has featured in countless films, hundreds of advertisements and is so much a part of our lives that we all too frequently recognise it, but have no idea from where.

It is the sort of music that brought us ‘Nessun dorma’, the themes to Hamlet and Hovis ads and that has given life to one of Britain’s most wonderfully eccentric traditions: the last night of the ‘proms.

And it is the sort of wonderfully varied music of  ‘Sounds Familiar’, sometimes gentle and reflective, sometimes proud, loud and martial. It can be solemn and joyful, relaxing and stirring: indeed, it reflects and depicts our every emotion, for it is through music that we can each understand the other; all share in that universal language that surpasses all others.

So do join me, Yvonne Williams, in my selection of music that I hope will bring you pleasure, that will bring back fond memories and just perhaps, might bring you some new treats to treasure.