The Gallery
Welcome to the Charles Timberlake Gallery and Library pages.
This is the archived 2007 Christmas Newsletter.
It gives me enormous pleasure to write this Message number three; and it is sent to you with my grateful thanks for your continued support, my love and best wishes.
I am aware of how difficult a time Christmas can be for so many. Amongst the celebrations, merry-making, present-giving, eating and drinking, there can be extreme loneliness and sorrow – especially if a loved one is no longer with us. If any of you reading this find yourselves in this position may you find comfort and strength.
My family will be experiencing just this too. Having spent five weeks (including Christmas and the New Year) in hospital my father passed away on 10th January this year. Breaking his hip in a fall early in December there were complications associated with his Parkinson's Disease and he never recovered. We were thankful that he died peacefully in the end and that he did not suffer to any great degree. His funeral service here in St Peter's Church (his 'Big Day', as he always called it!) was a truly wonderful occasion and a real celebration of his life. It was filled with music, including the choir singing a setting of Psalm 121 that he wrote for my sister's wedding in 1979, and his version of The Lord's Prayer (also written some 35 years ago) which I played on the piano.
In last year's Message I mentioned that I had the vision that the new album was going to be on a donkey theme. Needless to say that work on this recording was put on hold in the light of my father, but John and I have been working on the tracks over the past eight months or so – and, all being well, this is set for release in time for Easter next year. Entitled Only In Your Eyes it has a beautiful cover artwork of a donkey on a hillside by the very talented artist Paul Matthews. It is going to be very special, and will include my father's setting of The Lord's Prayer as well as pieces I wrote around the time he was in hospital and his subsequent death. Please keep an eye on the web-site, www.charlestimberlake.co.uk, for developments and for details on how to place an order.
In February I was privileged to have been invited to play at the annual Christian Booksellers' Convention conference in Telford. I played during Monday evening's awards dinner; and then had a short interview on stage with the conference organiser before playing a composition from the new album. It was lovely to meet Graham Kendrick, too, who was performing immediately afterwards. On the Tuesday I played a lunchtime set in the foyer.
It has been a busy year with a number of concert evenings around the country as well as the usual craft show weekends. What a joy it is to share something of my life and music with such wonderful people in such glorious settings. I thank you for the warmth and generosity I have received. Please forgive me if I single out one particularly memorable evening on account of the beautiful setting: St Wendreda's Church, March, Cambridgeshire (my schoolboyish sense of humour being such that I found it highly amusing being in March in August!!) with its magnificent double-hammered 'Angel' roof that was spectacularly illuminated as the sun went down and darkness set in.
I also performed as part of the New Christian Music weekend in Leighton Buzzard earlier in the year, receiving a Radio Mike award from George Hamilton IV.
Tracks from four albums have now been played on Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday and the air-play always generates enquiries and orders. It is so humbling to see the way the music is touching so many hearts.
In September it was a real privilege to have been invited to play in Exeter Cathedral as part of their 'Cathedral at Work and Play Day'. Various things were going on inside the beautiful building (including a Labyrinth, embroidery, meditations – and, of course, the choir singing), and I was just playing the grand piano, gently and informally – though I am told the atmospheric music filled the Cathedral.Talking of atmosphere, I would like to share with you a recent visit to Hatchlands Park, a beautiful house built in the 1750s with the earliest recorded decorations by Robert Adams and now in the care of the National Trust. The house contains The Cobbe Collection, the world's largest group of keyboard instruments with composer associations – some forty-two in total. They include a Square Pianoforte that Elgar had in his cottage near Malvern, on the soundboard of which he inscribed the names of some of the works he composed on it; a Grand Pianoforte used by Chopin for his public performances; and a rare Table Pianoforte used by Bizet to compose his major works, including Carmen. It was truly awesome, and I would encourage any of you who have not visited Hatchlands to do so.
May you have peace in your hearts this Christmas.