My little brother and sister have produced some brilliant work while at school and I’ve just discovered that, due to a ridiculous school policy brought in by the current executive headteacher, their work has been destroyed.
The school has refused to allow books to come home and has refused to allow parents to photocopy or photograph the work. Parents have even offered to pay for the school books, or sign a waiver against any legal action that may arise from evidence contained in the books, but despite these offers the school is still refusing to allow the books home.
In my opinion, this sends the message that school paranoia is more important than the wishes of children and parents.
This Saturday 26th April, I’m delighted to be performing with Ansa Back at Malborough Music Monster Mash to raise money for the Dave Sharp Young Musicians Fund. The fund does some brilliant work locally to ensure that teens from all backgrounds have a chance to enjoy learning and playing music and now that the project is a few years old it’s great to see some of the bands that have emerged and developed from it.
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.
I am now “Plymouth’s top jazz flautist” according to twitter. I know this because I am probably the only jazz flautist in the whole of South Devon (with the exception of my dad, who often prefers to play saxophone).
This post is a bit of everything – music I’ve recorded, pictures from the past year’s worth of gigs and news of gigs to come and some lovely testimonials from people I’ve played for – I hope you’ll enjoy it and feel free to ask me anything you like in the comments!
Logo by Hannah Sterry.
Over the past year I’ve been lucky enough to play lots of gigs with a great little gypsy swing band called Hamer & Isaacs. I met them, by chance, at a blues night at a pub where a mutual friend had invited us both along. I thought they were pretty cool and took a particular liking to one of them (that’s a different story) and since then I’ve stood in whenever one of the others can’t make it!
After playing with the band a fair bit, a few of them spotted my Sterry Cartoons creations on facebook and asked whether I’d like to design them an ‘art deco’ logo. I thought it’d be good fun to have a go (having not attempted logo design before) and this is what I came up with (see right).
All of this led to some really wonderful testimonials from people I’ve met through the band:
“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 peripatetic music teacher.
I’ve haven’t been playing jazz and designing logos the entire time though. Whenever I’ve had a few hours free, I’ve been working on a few of my own musical side projects! Most recently I’ve been doing a bit of recording with my little sister (she’s ridiculously cool, but you can’t take her anywhere). 😛
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have heard it before, but here’s a little bit of chilled out flute music I recorded as an earlier side project (it’s not jazz, but it’s cool and floaty)!
P.S. If you like any of my music, you can download it for FREE on bandcamp. Just click the link above. If you really like it and want me to make more music, you can donate however much or little as you like with the “name-your-price” button and you’ll get a gigantic smile and thanks from me!
Anyway, I’ve just been told that dinner’s on the table, so I’d better go, but I hope you’re enjoying the story so far and I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the last year and adates of my upcoming gigs! Hope to meet some of you at some point and as always, if you want to ask me anything, or have any great music recommendations, I’d love to hear from you in the comments! 😀
Flautist Hannah Sterry performing jazz flute for The Cottage Hotel’s Summer Music Nights in Hope Cove, Devon.
The Sterrys
Ansa Back playing at Morleigh Village Hall
Hamer & Isaacs live at the Millbrook Inn, South Pool. Photo Credit: timhirstphotography.com
BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY (27th May) Ansa Back will be playing at Bigbury Golf Club from 4pm.
JUNE-SEPTEMBER The Sterrys will be playing every Tuesday evening at The Cottage Hotel, Hope Cove for their Summer Music Nights. Feel free to come and join us, enjoy a cocktail on the terrace and take in one of the most Mediterranean views that the South Hams can offer!
A selection of the images available on my Redbubble profile. They’re all available as cards and most are also available as prints and posters too.
Photography is my way of showing my appreciation and love of the beautiful South Devon countryside and the local wildlife. A particular interest in macro photography means I can often be found in awkward crouching positions near flowers, just trying to get the perfect shot of a colourful bee or butterfly.
So far my work has been featured a number of times in the South Hams Gazette and gained multiple awards on Pixoto.com.
You can follow my camera-wielding exploits on RedBubble and Facebook!
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).
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!
We even had time for a quick photo opportunity as the sun was setting!
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:
Thank you to everyone who’s come and supported us,
I really hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have!
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:
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! 🙂
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.
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.
Hannah Sterry 