Happy Birthday Alfie!
Your amazing fans wanted to wish you a happy birthday so from all of us we hope you have a wonderful day!
All the birthday messages are on the Birthday Messages to Alfie page
As he has done for the last five years, Alfie is using his birthday to fund raise for Nordoff Robbins –
if you haven’t yet donated, click here to do so
if you haven’t yet left Alfie a message, don’t depair, leave a comment and I’ll update the birthday messages
xx
September is over half way through and that means that it is nearly Alfie Boe’s birthday! Yes, on September 29th, Alfie will be 43…and getting younger every year!
If you would like to post Alfie a birthday message, pop it in the form below and it will be featured on a new Message to Alfie page next week:
This video is from the Classic BRIT awards in 2013 and I chose this video as it was just a few days past Alfie’s birthday and a group of fans were there to see this breathtaking performance and give him our own birthday card. Amazingly, he then tweeted a thank you alongside a picture of the card…still gives me goosebumps thinking about it now.
Definitely one of my top Alfie moments!
This year, as he has done for the previous five years, Alfie is fundraising for music charity Nordoff Robbins in honour of his birthday (click here to find out more about the charity). Overall, Alfie fans have raised over £8600 and of this year’s fundraiser, Nordoff Robbins CEO, Julie Whelan, said
We are thrilled that our long-standing ambassador Alfie has chosen to dedicate his birthday to us at Nordoff Robbins again this year. This initiative has raised crucial funds for our services and has really helped to raise awareness of our work over the years. Alfie first started supporting Nordoff Robbins in 2011 and we are so proud to be able to say that we have his continued support to this day.
If you would like to donate something to celebrate Alfie’s birthday, click here to go through to Nordoff Robbins – you can choose Alfie Boe as a reason for donating. Let’s see if we can raise more than the £1719 we raised last year! Go Alfie Boe fans!
Don’t forget there’s still time to enter our competition to win a Sunflower Jam DVD featuring Alfie singing I Wanna Know What Love Is and others – click here to enter.
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It’s our birthday! Two years old today – woohoo! It’s been a fabulous year, interviewing Alfie, interviewing several of the former and current Jean Valjean actors and of course, becoming the Official Alfie Boe Fan Blog at the end of February.
To celebrate, I’ve got a new competition for you! Up for grabs are three signed Finding Neverland playbills. All you have to do is be a subscriber to this blog and answer the following question:
Winners will be picked on Friday 6 May – good luck!
Thank you for reading and sharing this blogging journey with me – wouldn’t be the same without you. Thank you for all your comments, I love reading them all so keep them coming!
This is one of my favourite videos from the last twelve months, what’s yours?
We don’t get to hear that very often these days, after being a staple of Alfie’s earlier Bring Him Home tour.
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xx
Celebrities these days usually have a number of charities which they support and Alfie Boe is no exception. Many of his charities are long standing associations and one of these is the music therapy charity, Nordoff Robbins. Alfie became an ambassador for Nordoff Robbins in November 2011 following his win of the PPL Classical Award at the 2011 Nordoff Robbins O2 Silver Clef Awards. His ambassadorship was launched alongside the 2011 Christmas appeal which he spearheaded. Since then, Alfie has dedicated his birthday to the charity and his fans have responded with enthusiasm, raising the huge amount of £8605 in five years. Wow! Click here to see what that means for the charity. In response to this amazing effort from fans, Alfie said “Once again I’m overwhelmed with the generosity shown by fans who have donated to Nordoff Robbins in honour of my birthday. I’m passionate about music education and therapy and I really appreciate every single donation. It’s the best birthday present ever”.
So, who are Nordoff Robbins? Although the fundraising charity is now celebrating it’s fortieth year, the foundations of the therapy itself go back to 1959 when Paul Nordoff, an American composer and pianist and Clive Robbins, a special education teacher first developed collaborative music making which they termed ‘therapy in music’. Over the next fifteen years, this therapy was developed and delivered all over the world with the first centre opening in South London in 1970. Programmes for adults began in the latter part of this era. Since then, the charity has grown and grown and is now the largest single music therapy organisation in the UK, dedicated to transforming the lives of vulnerable and isolated people. Although Alfie’s special area of interest is providing music therapy and education for children, this is by no means the only group to be helped. People with dementia, depression, terminal or chronic illnesses and people with brain injuries are also amongst the recipients of the specialist therapy available. In some cases, music therapy is part of palliative care. In addition, the families and communities of those who receive therapy are also helped, thus ensuring a broad reach approach.
As if all this wasn’t enough, Nordoff Robbins also delivers Masters of Music Therapy (MMT) training in both London and Manchester as well as accessible training and short course programmes for people who want to learn more about music therapy.
In order to provide these services, the charity relies on fundraising efforts from individuals and events such as the Silver Clef Awards and the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2016, Nordoff Robbins are the official charity partner for the BRIT Awards, held on 24 February. Free downloads of the live performances will be available on the night, with Google Play Music donating the costs to the charity. Last year’s charity received £250,000!
Click here to find out more about Nordoff Robbins and here to find out more about Google Play Music at the BRIT Awards.
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A week into December and as we draw closer to the end of the year, I thought it would be a good idea to see how much money the fans have raised for Nordoff Robbins in aid of Alfie Boe’s birthday. Since the fundraiser opened in September, you wonderful fans have raised £1719 (at the time of writing). That’s fantastic!
Since we all deserve a pat on the back for raising such a great amount for one of Alfie’s named charities, here’s Alfie from the UK tour last year:
If you haven’t yet donated and want to do so, the birthday page for Alfie is open until 31 December.
Whether you have donated or not, you might well ask yourself where your money goes to. What does my £10 donation actually do? Well, wonder no more as I asked the lovely folk at Nordoff Robbins how the money raised is used and this is what they said:
£32 pays for one music therapy session
£10 pays for an instrument to be used in music therapy sessions
£50 pays for someone with learning difficulties to attend music therapy for a half term
£100 pays for six children with learning difficulties to attend a music therapy session
In real terms, Alfie Boe fans have, this year alone, paid for the equivalent of 53 music therapy sessions or 17 groups of six children to attend a music therapy group. That’s impressive enough but the total amount of money raised by Alfie fans since 2011 is £6885 – add that to this year’s total and we get a whopping £8604!!!!!
£8604 means Nordoff Robbins has been able to provide 268 music therapy sessions over the last five years – amazing.
Now, if you are someone who hasn’t yet donated and thinks that your few pounds won’t make any difference, I hope this shows you that small donations mount up into big donations and huge fundraising goals achieved. Thoughtsofjustafan will also be looking at Alfie and Nordoff Robbins in more depth next year.
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It’s that time again…Alfie Boe will be 42 on 29 September and as usual, he’s celebrating by fundraising for Nordoff Robbins. For the fifth year running, Alfie Boe’s birthday focuses the spotlight on the music therapy charity, for which he has been an ambassador since 2011. Alfie says
I am delighted to donate my birthday to music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins for the fifth year running! As an Ambassador for Nordoff Robbins I have seen first-hand how music therapy helps people in ways that sometimes nothing else can! I want to thank all of my wonderful friends, family and fans for your ongoing generosity and support. I am very proud to be associated with such a wonderful group of people who feel as passionately as I do about the power of music!
The target Alfie wants to reach is £1,000 which going on past years seems eminently possible (surely we can surpass this?) and fans can leave messages for Alfie on the site.
Alfie is a keen supporter when he’s in London and earlier this year, he accompanied the Nordoff Robbins choir at Somerset House (thanks Nikki for sharing):
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This post is dedicated to wishing Alfie a very happy 41st birthday – hoping you had a lovely day Alfie! With any luck you’ve had the day off as you really have been working hard lately…which is all good for us Alfie Boe fans! Just this week we’ve had the pleasure of listening to Alfie on BBC Radio Devon and the absolute beauty of Addio Sogni and Chitarra Romana at Classic FM Live (thanks to Marcia for sharing):
I asked Alfie fans to choose a song that Alfie would like on his birthday blog and thank you to Sylvia who remembered that he picked Song to the Siren as a favourite in a recent interview (don’t ask me which one). And then I remembered Alfie’s own video featuring this song, so this time it’s thanks Alfie for sharing!
As usual, Alfie Boe celebrates his birthday this year by asking fans to donate to Nordoff Robbins charity. And a massive shout out to Alfie fans from as far away as Alaska who are walking the Cotswold Way, starting today and raising money for Nordoff Robbins!
Yes, a whole year has passed since thoughtsofjustafan first started! Time flies when you’re having fun! My very first blog post was titled The Trials and Tribulations of An Alfie Boe Fan and there’s been a fair few tribulations in the last twelve months, especially if you live anywhere other than the UK!
However, the end of the year looks set to remedy that with the forthcoming release of Serenata and of course, the UK tour in November / December.
Our birthday treat is courtesy of Alfie himself…thanks Alfie for releasing this on our birthday!
Thank you for reading, commenting and following thoughtsofjustafan – it’s been a great year and can’t wait to see what the next year brings
xx
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