Trinity Girls & Leyland Band

Deanery High School, Wigan
Sunday 29th June 2003

The Sports Hall of the Deanery High School, Wigan was the venue last Sunday night for an evening of first-rate entertainment. This was a joint concert featuring the Trinity Girls Band and the Leyland Band.

At 7.30pm Trinity Girls took the stage to a near-capacity audience and conductor Stuart Barton immediately got the concert underway with the march ‘The Jaguar' (G.Richards). The acoustic in the hall did have quite an echo but the playing was bright and clean so this negative effect was more than offset. This piece, played on CD by Trinity Girls, had featured earlier that day on John Maines BBC GMR Brass Programme when Denise Grundy – Chairperson and Wendy Freel – Fund Raising Co-ordinator visited the studio to take part in the show as guests of the presenter.

Following a great cornet solo by Anna Spedding playing Alan Morrison's arrangement of ‘Georgia on my Mind' the band moved on with a warm ensemble piece with Norwegian origins entitled ‘Love Song' (T.Brevik)

For their next piece percussion instruments were distributed liberally around the band as Emma Barton took centre stage. She delivered a Bass Trombone solo in ‘I wanna be like you' the Jungle Book favourite, another arrangement from the prolific output of Alan Fernie. The acoustic didn't help in this item as the solo line did get lost a little at times but overall the playing more than matched this and continued the high standards set by the band in this concert.

More music from the pen of Goff Richards rounded off the Trinity Girls set with some lively and enthusiastic playing in an arrangement of the show tune ‘There's no business like show business'. Throughout the evening the band had on display a collection of trophies and these included the cup they received when they qualified as North West Regional Champions – 4th Section in March and their part in this concert fully demonstrated their continuing development.

Sponsors of their new CD ‘Ladies in Red' Faber.Maunsell would be well pleased as the band certainly played to their strengths to compliment the compact disc, as mentioned earlier featured on GMR Sounds of Brass, that was launched that evening to coincide with the concert.

Under the baton of their Guest Conductor, Mike Fowles the expertise of the musicians was evident from the first notes as Leyland Band opened the second half with the vibrant piece ‘Fanfare and Flourishes' (J.Curnow).

The All England Masters were in top form and their reputation in entertainment mode was most evident with a programme that contained the symphonic, operatic and light entertainment pieces.

The trademark fireworks, dramatic crescendos and lyrical solos that are the hallmark of the music of Rossini were all well placed as the band took the audience through the overture ‘Italian Girl in Algiers'. This music gave one of the longest serving members of the band Soprano Cornet Brian Heyes chance to shine. Principal Cornet, Leon Renilson was simply amazing as he delivered a simply breathtaking account of the most lyrical Faure piece ‘Apres un Reve giving the music a delivery and tonal quality that had the audience spellbound.

The musicianship of the Masters Champions was so evident in a rendition of the ‘Hoe Down' from Copland's ballet music ‘Rodeo' before they played to their absolute best with the band arrangement by Robert Childs of Evelyn Glennie's marimba work ‘Evening Prayer'. The unity and expressive playing of the band here was worth the price of admission in itself.

To conclude their individual programme the Finale from Symphony No2 (‘Little Russian') was played with a real intensity which brought well deserved ringing applause and there could be no doubt that the audience were won over by the quality of this performance. As an encore the Leyland Band trombone section of Neil Samuels, Leigh Brown and Paul Warder stood and led the way in a cracking performance and arrangement of the Mancini film score ‘Peter Gunn'

After a short break the Trinity Girls and Leyland joined together and with Mike Fowles conducting the massed band played the well-known ‘Serenata' however this was just a foretaste of music to come as a triple trio featured in the Jack Peberdy arrangement of 12th Street Rag. This piece, as had the whole performance, featured the unique comedy talents of Repiano Cornet Andy Lord who whilst not detracting from the playing constantly brought a smile to the faces of the audience.

To round off the evening Stuart Barton took the band in the ever-popular ‘Bandology' however the audience were in no mind to let the concert finish so in encore the combined bands turned to the effervescent Irish arrangement Peter Graham's ‘Gaelforce' to round off a most entertaining evening.

John James

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