I had never heard of Flexicare before I was invited to review this concert. And, impressive as the music was, I came away even more impressed by the charity it was supporting.
Flexicare provides a free, expert child-minding service for families in Oxfordshire who have children with disabilities. So that means, for example, if the parents have to go out to another child’s school concert or parents’ evening, then Flexicare will step in and look after their child with special needs until they get home.
This is the sort of care that is often too specialised for grandparents or friends. And it allows families of children with complex needs simply to do things that other families can do without a second thought. It gives those families a few hours of assurance that their child is being well looked after, and it frees them to engage in activities that would otherwise be incredibly hard.
They’re not a massive charity. But they make a massive impact. They support a total of 45 families. And without them, those 45 families would be in dire straits. This is the way you save the world: one person at a time.
I’m not here to advertise, but how can helping something as simple, honest, well-intentioned and well-run as this be wrong? To find out more, visit Flexicare’s website, or to make a donation just aim your phone at the QR code.
Flexicare is forty years old in 2025. And each year they have a fundraising concert. The Natural History Museum donates the space, and the Ivel Flute Trio, composed of cellist Catherine Wilmer, flautist Emma Halnan and pianist Jill Morton provide the music. It’s charming, beautiful and educational – an evening straight out of the days of culture and civilisation.
Tonight’s concert focused fascinatingly on some little-known women composers of the 20th century: Peggy Spencer-Palmer and Alice Verne Bredt. Their phantasies, bagatelles and sarabandes were lilting and learned. But the high point was Karl Jenkins’ Ryers Down, an evocation of the Gower Peninsula written especially for flautist Halnan, who performed it. With innovative techniques like turning away from the audience to simulate the fading sound of a retreating bird, or blowing pure air through the instrument to create the effect of wind rushing across the Welsh sands, the performance was not just musically stunning but also thrillingly experimental.
What adds an extra frisson of thrill to the whole affair is the fact that it’s not done in one of Oxford’s many music rooms, but in the Natural History Museum. This evening Tyrannosaurus Rex stood still to listen, his bony jaw open in what I swear was a smile of peaceful understanding. A gaggle of animal skeletons, including giraffes, elephants, crocodiles and zebras, huddled in a picturesque group, quiet and attentive, as if they’d been waiting all year for their favourite event to come around again. It’s a meeting of science and art, and a moment when the living and the 100-million-year-old dead can come together to appreciate the wonder of music – and take that opportunity to support a charity that may never grab the headlines, but does wonderful work every day of the year.