Dear MMDers,  I finally made the effort to visit the Great Dorset Steam
Fair this year.  What an amazing event!  I recommend it to anyone who
has never been.

There were tens of thousands of regular people there, enjoying all that
the place has to offer: the fair, the market, the vintage fair, the
steam engines, the organs, etc.  Of course, being interested in
mechanical music you can guess where I spent most of the 10 hours
I was there.  The highlights for me were hearing the large organs
(no disrespect meant to the smaller instrument).

Within five minutes walk you could hear both the Centenary and Victory
Verbeecks, the thunderous Jonas Gavioli (playing "Winter Wonderland" on
an 82 degrees Fahrenheit afternoon for a laugh), the famous White Bros
Gavioli, and not one but two 98-key Marenghis.  Having my camera (and
thinking of fellow MMDers) I've put three pages of pictures at my web
site so you can too can find a good reason to visit there next year
perhaps.  To view the photos just click on the link in the middle of
the main page at http://www.themodist.com/ 

Before finishing I should also like to highlight the work of two very
fine UK organ rebuilders I encountered there, Kevin Meayers and Paul
Davies (also fellow PPG members).  I was listening to the Anderton &
Rowland Marenghi organ late at night and sat with an enthralled crowd.

It is impossible to convey in words just how fine this instrument
sounds.  I bumped into Kevin and Paul who were proud to state that the
instrument was their latest job.  The owners should be rightly proud
of this achievement, too, as the sound is how one imagines the ideal
fairground organ should sound.  Comments overheard amongst the crowd
seemed along these lines too.

I got to listen at close quarters to the organ and we played several
rather demanding pieces in the book collection, such as Charles Godfrey
Jnr's "Il Trovatore" selection, The Force of Destiny Overture, Die
Fledermaus Overture and a rollicking selection of old English Music-Hall
melodies.  The last two were actually arranged by Kevin who is an
extremely fine arranger, possessing, to my ears, a full mastery of the
black art on the occasions I have heard his work.

Enjoy the pictures!
Sincerely,
Adam Ramet
http://www.themodist.com/