It had been raining all week. It was still raining miserably when the first Breinton recital of the year 2014 was about to start. I feared people would be delayed due to the weather – on the contrary, everyone arrived right on time, seated themselves promptly and waited eagerly for the recital to begin.
The concert of the novel "Alicia's Gift", performed by acclaimed author and music critique Jessica Duchen and prize-winning pianist Viv McLean, was a pioneering event for Breinton. We had never put on an event of this kind, a uniquely formatted concert combining the spoken word and piano, and, to be honest, it is one of those kind of events where it is impossible to imagine what it will be like until you actually see it, hear it and experience it. I could see many members were unsure what was going to unfold in front of their eyes while waiting patiently and curiously for the concert to start. However the