cottage hotel

Hannah Sterry: Jazz Flautist

| Hannah Sterry

Performing

I’m an experienced jazz and classically trained flautist regularly performing with a variety of local and visiting musicians (see Live Music & Events). Most recently I’ve played with Hamer & Isaacs gypsy swing band and The Sterrys as well as being involved with a number of local events, including Malborough Amateur Dramatics Pantomime and Hope for Howard. I am also available to perform solo on the harp.

Recording

I have recorded a short selection of relaxed pieces, all available for free download.

Testimonials

“As a professional musician for nearly four decades, I have been very impressed by Hannah Sterry’s contribution to our gypsy swing band as a deputy flautist over the last few months. She has deputised at short notice for both our lead guitarist and swing violinist, not easy roles to fill, and I have been awed by her levels of competence and creativity. Her improvisational techniques display an intuitive flair and inspiration well beyond her years, and she exhibits the stage presence expected in a seasoned veteran. I would heartily endorse her as a flautist to any potential employers, whether in the fields of jazz, rock or classical music.” ~ Julian Isaacs of Hamer & Isaacs Gypsy Swing Band

“[Hannah] is a brilliant musician and I love working with her in the gypsy swing band. Her flute solos inspire me to up my game!” ~ Melanie Scullion B.A Hons.P.G Cert. P.G Dip.Perf. Professional violinist, violist and peripatectic music teacher.

Contact Me

Feel free to ask any questions or have a friendly chat online using the contact form, tweet @HannahSterry or comment on this blog!

If you like, you can also follow my musical adventure on facebook on the Hannah Sterry Music page.

Hope to hear from you soon! 🙂

Gallery

Here are a selection of images from performances around South Devon. The pencil sketch is thanks to Jazz Greenhill.

The Sterrys live at The Cottage Hotel
Hope for Howard Event on Kingsbridge Bandstand. Hannah Sterry on flute. Image copyright 2013 Mark L Jones.
Ansa Back: Telling Jokes Behind Amy’s Back – Photography © Mark L Jones
The Sterrys live in Hope Cove.
Flautist Hannah Sterry performing jazz flute for The Cottage Hotel’s Summer Music Nights in Hope Cove, Devon.
This amazing picture is by Jazz Greenhill. She’s awesome and has a really cool blog over here: http://jazzgillustration.blogspot.co.uk/
Hamer & Isaacs live at the Millbrook Inn, South Pool. Photo Credit: timhirstphotography.com

The Sterrys: Tuesday night is music night

Hannah and John Sterry from "The Sterrys" jazz trio.
Aside | | Hannah Sterry

The 25th of September marks the last Tuesday Night is Music Night of this year and I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone at The Cottage Hotel, on behalf of The Sterrys, because we’ve had an amazing time.

It’s been great fun playing at The Cottage Hotel every week this summer and we’ve met some wonderful people, tasted some absolutely amazing food and really enjoyed playing to such a nice group of people.

Here are a few photos to sum up the wonderful time we’ve had here:

Having fun with the folk harp (sometimes accompanied by Joe on flute).

Harpist Hannah Sterry at The Cottage Hotel, Hope Cove.

Fundraising for Hope Cove Lifeboat out on the terrace.

I’m not sure how much we raised, but have been told it was a success!

Hannah and John from "The Sterrys" playing at The Cottage Hotel.

We even had time for a quick photo opportunity as the sun was setting!

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In summary, we’ve had an absolutely amazing time with everyone who’s visited or worked at the hotel.

This is probably the best way to illustrate it:

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Thank you to everyone who’s come and supported us,

I really hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have!

Best wishes,

Hannah Sterry

The Sterrys

“How far do these music jokes go?”

| Hannah Sterry

Pause Paws - Music Cartoon by Hannah Sterry

Bass Clef is Feeling Low - Vector - Music Cartoon By Hannah Sterry

Answer: Too far!

Yes, I have some more music cartoons for you and they’ll be available in my shop shortly (when I get round to it). There are more over on Sterry Cartoons facebook page.

In the meantime, it’s been an exciting few weeks and I haven’t blogged much, so here’s what’s been happening recently:

The Sterrys live music for Tuesday Night is Music Night at The Cottage Hotel have been a great success and we’ve been asked to continue through September! Earlier in August we (Hannah and John Sterry) also played there to raise money for Hope Cove Lifeboat and someone was kind enough to to take this photo:

The Sterrys (flute and piano jazz duo) playing for Hope Cove Lifeboat Fundraiser at The Cottage Hotel.

It was a wonderful place to play, partly because the weather was so amazing and I managed to get a picture of the view from the terrace. It’s really lovely on sunny evenings on the Tuesday nights, because as we’re playing we can watch the sun setting over the sea – it’s beautiful.

Exciting news:

I’m finally learning to drive after years of putting it off because of university and moving!

The Boyfriend Song now has a much better delivery and set of chords and I need to practice it to perfection!

My SketchBook is filling up really quickly and I’ve been talking to a local animator about possibly animating some of my cartoons!

Anyway… that’ll do for today, but I’ll keep you updated as this all progresses (when I find time to blog, that is).

Feel free to ask me any questions or just have a nice chat in the comments! 🙂

THIS WEEK: Upcoming Gigs & Fluid Pianos

Fading Notes II - Flute Keys Version
| Hannah Sterry

Here’s what’s happening this week:

Tuesday Night is Music Night at the Cottage Hotel. I’ll be playing flute as part of The Sterrys and watching the sun setting over the water at Hope Cove. Feel free to relax with a cocktail and enjoy the music! Starts at 6:45pm.

Wednesday… brings the second of Ben Carr’s Music Sessions at The Hideaway. Anyone can come along, bring an instrument and join in (I’ll be there with my flute). The whole evening’s great fun and you’ll meet some really nice people. Starts at 8pm.

Thursday… features An audience with Auntie Pus at B-Bar, Plymouth. I’m really hoping to go to this, but haven’t quite worked out the logistics yet. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be a brilliant evening. Starts at 8:30pm.

Sunday… Gallows Ghost play The Hideaway and have asked me if I’d like to stand in for a few tunes as a guest musician. They’re lovely people and their music is great fun to play, so the answer is always yes!

Today’s discovery is… a new instrument called The Fluid Piano. The strings all have sliders that enable each note to be changed in pitch (by up to a whole tone) as the piano is being played. This also means that the piano can be tuned to the true harmonic series, making it much more compatible with traditional indian  music, which doesn’t use the standard western tuning (twelve note equal temperament) and can often involve fluctuations in pitch.

Anyway, I hope you’re all having a good week and if you happen to be at any of these gigs, feel free to say hi (I’ll be the one with the flute and the long brown hair)!

Jazz Greenhill drew me! She’s a genius armed with pencils.

The Sterrys: Tuesday Nights at The Cottage Hotel

| Hannah Sterry

Tuesday Night is Music Night at The Cottage Hotel has been a great succes, and was particularly lovely today, as we [The Sterrys] arrived to the sun shining and played until we saw it setting over the sea. Here are the photos from the evening:

John and Joe setting up in the sun.

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Taking turns to improvise.

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John suddenly turns in to a giant while Joe and Hannah aren’t looking.

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The evening ended with this…

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…and we couldn’t be happier.

This Week’s Music Highlights

Ben Carr's First Music Hall & Blues Night at The Hideaway Speakeasy
| Hannah Sterry

It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable, musical week with lots of things happening, but here are the highlights:

Tuesday: John Sterry (pianist for The Sterrys) entertained guests and visitors to The Cottage Hotel with a relaxed evening of jazz piano.

John Sterry (from The Sterrys) playing piano / keyboard at The Cottage Hotel.

Wednesday: Ben Carr hosted his first Blues Session in The Hideaway Speakeasy, which turned out to be an amazing success! The atmosphere was wonderful and it was good to see musicians who’d never met just getting up and joining in (at one point Ian Feetenby jumped in and provided us with some brilliantly spontaneous percussion on acoustic guitar). The next session is on Wednesday 8th August – Feel free to come along and enjoy the music or, better still, bring an instrument and join in! We’re all friendly, I promise!

Ben Carr's First Music Hall & Blues Night at The Hideaway Speakeasy

Friday: Hamer & Isaacs played The B-Bar in Plymouth and were kind enough to ask me to step in as a guest musician on their second set. What followed was a foot-tapping extravaganza of swinging gypsy jazz with one of the liveliest audiences I’ve ever played to! I think everyone left that gig with a huge smile.

Musical Updates

| Hannah Sterry

This is what my diary has looked like for the past few weeks:

7th May – Recorded some improvisations with Stephen Abrehart, just to see how the harp and baritone guitar worked together. The sounds mixed brilliantly and I hope we’ll be able to record a few more things together in the future.

10th May – Saw Ben Carr play at The Refectory Bar, sampled some delicious cocktails (the Apple Crumble cocktail was really good) and joined in with some jazz flute for the last few songs.

16th May – Jam night at the Royal Oak. This night featured Tez Locke, Phil Kennerel, Rob Wheeler, Joe Sterry (and me), Tom Carr and was hosted by Ben Carr. Past guests have included: Rob and Laura Williams, Gallows Ghost, Blue Orchid and Hamer & Isaacs Gypsy Swing Band.

19th May – The Sterrys (John, Joe and I) played music for a surprise birthday party in Malborough Baptist Church.

That afternoon we also went to the Cottage Hotel to discuss their plans for music throughout the summer, which led to this:

I am delighted to say that from June 5th, The Sterrys will be playing at The Cottage Hotel every Tuesday throughout the summer. The line up will change week-to-week; one week might be solo piano, the next a jazz trio with flute and harp the week after that…

Anyway, we expect it’ll be a lot of fun and hope to see you there!

Happy New Year!

| Hannah Sterry

It’s been a fun but hectic few days.

New year was brilliant. Catching up with old friends, dressing as a victorian just for fun, playing games with ridiculous additional rules…

I’ve just got back from playing jazz flute at The Cottage Hotel. Tonight it went really well, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and (despite my lack of sleep over the past 24 hours) I was full of energy and it was really good fun. I usually play flute as part of “The Sterry Family” and we seem to play at The Cottage reasonably often. Here are a few tracks we’ve recorded together:

Just out of interest – Have any of you done anything wild or different to celebrate New Year? Any strange/bizarre New Year’s resolutions?

My resolution is to do at least 1 hour of exercise every day, whether that’s going for a walk or playing games on the Wii against my little sister. I’m also aiming to increase my repertoire of harp music, learn to drive and take my Grade 8 flute exam this year – we’ll see what happens.

Hope you’ve all had a brilliant Christmas and New Year! And let this year be a good one!

Live Music at The Cottage Hotel

| Hannah Sterry

On the 1st January I’ll be in Hope Cove at The Cottage Hotel playing jazz flute with John (keyboard) and Joe (sax) as part of “The Sterry Family”.

If you’ve not been to The Cottage before, it’s a hotel with a stunning sea view, really good food and the people running it are lovely (they’re even nice to musicians!!!). I chose to go there for my birthday meal because the atmosphere and food is so good (the puddings are delicious too).

Picture from http://www.hopecove.com

Another day, another instrument…

Yesterday I played harp at The Cottage and it went down really well! I got to speak to some wonderful people afterwards about  and brought my dad and sister along to listen.

People tend to ask quite a few questions about the harp, because it’s a fairly modern design. This particular model is a Smartwood Harp and is much lighter than some of the more traditional designs, which makes it much more convenient for travelling with. Most importantly, I enjoy playing it and it sounds good (the low notes in particular have a wonderful warm rich sound). I’m tempted to add levers soon, as I am finding the standard modes a bit restrictive, but overall I’m very happy with it.