NEW - Advanced Exercises for Chromatic Harmonica - the Exercises Douglas wrote in 1976 in preparation for 'Play Difficult Music Well on the Chromatic Harmonica' but never published. The book contains facsimiles of Douglas's original manuscript as well as engraved versions and is both a useful practice tool and a unique memento of a great and generous musician. For more information see the Books Page.

COMING SOON - An Evening with Douglas Tate and Peter Jenkyns - recorded live in Sweden in 1977. Alongside works by Gabriel Faure, Marin-Marais and Peter Jenkyns the CD will also include a highly entertaining attempt by Douglas to explain 'the mouth organ' to his Swedish audience. As with all of the existing recordings of Douglas playing (with the notable exception of those made for the BBC) these have been extracted from amateur recordings made on now aging magnetic tape and have some residual noise as a result. Here is an example of what's in store as Douglas 'calculates' with a Harmonetta -

"An Evening with Douglas Tate and Chris Collis" - a CD of the entire recorded concert from November 2004. The original recording has been resampled and re-engineered.

For more details see the Music page

27th June 2007

See video of Douglas's performance at the 2003 NHL Festival in Bristol on YouTube.

12th November 2006

This week will see the first anniversary of Douglas's death on the night of 15/16th November. It was good that we were able to celebrate his birthday in Bristol and leave this week for private reflection and personal memories.

28th October 2006 NHL Harmonica 2006 Festival

The Grave from the Trio Sonata by Jean Baptiste Loiellet was performed in Douglas's memory at the Saturday evening concert by Carol Axford, Helen Cooper and Lee Axford. Appropriately - for what would have been Douglas's birthday - there were friends attending from the UK, Europe and the USA many of whom shared Douglas's last festival and public performance a year ago.

Douglas will be among those remembered in a Service of Thanksgiving for the Dead at Olney Parish Church at 6pm on Sunday 5th November. Friends and family are welcome to attend.

4th July 2006 - Tommy Reilly Harmonica Course

26th April 2006

Douglas's memorial service in Olney Church closed with a recording of Douglas and Tommy Morgan playing Douglas's own arrangement of the Loeillet Trio Sonata No 1 at SPAH in Denver in 2001. To hear the slow movement (Grave) and download the score, please visit the Music page of this site. We are grateful to Tommy Morgan and to SPAH for permission to use this recording.

22nd May 2006

There have been lots of visitors here this week looking for references to Philip Achille who played so movingly at Douglas's memorial service and who was such a good ambassador for young harmonica players on TV last week in the BBC's Young Musician of the Year Competition

Click here to visit the NHL site and use the link to the Tabor award for more information about Philip.

22nd April 2006, updated 28th April

Family members, friends and others gathered at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Olney for a celebration and thanksgiving for the life of Douglas Tate. Visitors were welcomed by the vicar, the Rev Philip Davies and the service was led by Rev Steve Barnes, Chaplain of Willen Hospice. There were spoken and musical contributions from Philip Achille, Cheng Jang Ming, Paul Davies and the Board of SPAH (read by Roger Trobridge), Jamie Dolan, Gerry Ezard, Alan Haughton, Colin Mort, Eddie Ong, Harry Pitch, Alison Tate, Helen Tate, Hilary Tate, Kathy Tate, Anne Tweed, Roger Trobridge … and of course – Douglas Tate. A book of messages In Memoriam which contained emailed messages, all of the good wishes left on Douglas’s website and some from the harmonica mailing lists was available to be viewed at the church. Refreshments at Douglas’s local pub meant that convivial conversation went on well into the night. We would like to thank everyone who contributed and worked so hard to ensure a fitting tribute to a very special and much loved man.

Roger Trobridge and Steve Barnes worked from an Order of Service which had evolved over many weeks of planning by several people, that document has been edited by Roger to give a picture of the service for those who were not able to attend and can be downloaded from here .

For those of you unfamiliar with William Lloyd Webber's piece "Mulberry Cottage", you will find an mp3 file of Douglas and Chris Collis from the concert at Wrecclesham as a new addition to the music page.

Respects had also been paid to Douglas and his work with the National University of Singapore on 18th March at the annual Soireé Concert given by their Harmonica Orchestra. This concert was recorded and you can listen to the tribute here This recording is ©NUS, used with permission

Barbara Tate

10th March 2006

There will be a simple memorial service to celebrate the life of Douglas Tate at the church of St Peter and St Paul in Olney at 3pm on 21st April 2006 ... and afterwards at Douglas's local ... the Cowper's Oak, Weston Underwood ... it is open to all who knew him and would like to attend.

There is a special edition of Harmonica World magazine dedicated to Douglas, visit the NHL site for details