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Southwell Minster Echoes to Music from the Lace City |
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23 July 2007 |
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| "Music from the Lace City’ reverberated round the rafters in Southwell Minster on Wednesday evening as The Nottingham Concert Band (Robert Parker) joined with The Lace City Singers to present an evening of light music as part of the 2007 Southwell Festival. | |
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for the first time in the Minster, the band compiled a diverse programme for the
occasion. Musical Director Robert Parker led the 50-strong band through the
rousing Marching Song by Gustav Holst, followed by the sumptuous harmonies of
Gershwin’s Summertime and a stirring rendition of the Dam Busters March by the
Nottingham-born composer Eric Coates. For the band’s second set, Southwell
Minster’s perfect acoustics picked up every detail of the daintily-scored
Popular Song from Walton’s Façade, and the interval was heralded with an
outstanding performance of Charivari, a challenging suite of three contrasting
movements written specifically for wind-band by Malcolm Binney.
The second half opened with Roy Kaigan’s march, Powergen. This contrasted with a performance of Corsage for Winds by John Cacavas and Percy Grainger’s Children’s March, where the players took a simple, familiar melody and built it to a powerful conclusion. Then came Jazz Works by Andy Hampton who plays with the band. He rose to take the solo spot on alto saxophone, and the formal programme closed with a Tribute to Benny Goodman, an arrangement of the bandleader's most famous swing-time numbers which left the audience cheering for more. In response, Robert Parker and the band provided a surprise encore in the form of an archive arrangement of Teddy Bears' Picnic. |
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| Jill O'Sullivan 23/7/07 |
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