Waitakere City Trusts Brass

Conductor: Andy Snell
Guest Soloist: Richard Marshall

Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand
Sunday 8th June 2003

A little while ago we posted an article on Phil Lawrence. The interview talked about his compositions and his thoughts on the brass band movement. Here he provides us with an account of the concert where many of his works were premiered - including a new championship test piece 'Gregoritas' and a cornet concerto performed by Richard Marshall.

Phil Lawrence

Well, its Friday night before the concert and the last rehearsal has started. What surprises me and intrigues me, is the individual commitment of the band. I mean, here we are, they are three weeks into an alien programme, one of the items would take most UK bands five weeks to sort (Gregoritas) and they are chomping through it with delight. Admittedly I have had a few percussionists, a third cornet or two, and 2nd baritone approach me asking if I held some kind of grudge against them. But, after buying them a beer in their fantastic band room which inc's piano, stereo, bar, kitchen, BBQ, pool table, several comfy seats and a TV, they said they didn't mind coming out of retirement so much! I'm really knocked out by the percussion section here, there are 6 of them, what a luxury (this is a bone of contention I have with the UK bands, we should be allowed and have more percussion in our bands (and yes, I know there is an expense of purchase) it can make such a difference to the
colour) to have.

One of my pieces "Serge's Circus" a comedy piece has 2 xylo's, kit, temple blocks, car horns, police whistle, gun shot, squeaky toy, triangle, duck call, bird warbler! I'd never heard it all go in till the concert, but what an impact on the audience, and what choreography form the section! Richard, is playing like a cross between and demon possessed and an Angel, I'd not reckoned anyone to play this concerto with such devastating accuracy, and in some sections he's playing faster than the metronome marks, and one of those is a crotchet 152!

The day of the concert has finally arrived and we entered Auckland town hall, its Victorian and just like some of the town halls I've played in up North like, Oldham, Blackburn, Bury and Leeds. The concert is to be in the smaller half of the town hall which will hold around 700 people. On entry we met the hall manger and lighting engineer (hmmm, I thought) who
instantly asked our requirements. The rehearsal started and tops and tails began, the lighting engineer and Andy had planned a good show. Evening came and the show began, and to my surprise the audience was close to 500, I had been hiding out of the way downstairs to let the band and conductor get on with pre prep, I took a seat at the back and sat nervously. The fanfare like first number was underway and sizzled along with excitement, it was received well! Andy's spiel was well rehearsed and he began to tell the tale of my journey to NZ. The lighting was superb, colours trying to match the mood of the music, and musical motif's glittered on the back drop. Richard stepped on to give a very cool rendition of "I've Got You Under My Skin", the audience loved him!

The first half finished with "Gregoritas" I made a brief intro to the work so all would catch the basic ideas. I have to say that the wealth of sound that the band produced was too much for the hall in the triple forte passages, this was also observed by a member of the audience who happened to be a great grand nephew of non other than William Rimmer, he was an ex horn player form the Auckland Phil and now conducted himself, he was very encouraging indeed.

I went for a beer in the interval, and many of the audience kindly congratulated me, this was indeed real food for a composer! The second half started and it was soon time for Richard to step on to premier the concerto. His composure is coolly uncanny, as if nowt could rock his determination. Off, he went like a sky rocket, indeed, a "Blaze" I could see members of the audience physically catching flies in some of the passages, and also witnessed smiles and a relaxed sit back in the slow movement. The concerto wound up with some powerful fff top C#'s and D#'s to then round up with some
glissandi pyrotechnics to finish the concerto on a super F#, game set and match to Marshall, the audience went wild! Richard gave an encore (yes, some lip left), "Marion" a work in memoriam of a young band friend of mine, I managed a brief bow, the tears were evident to all. Then there were fun and games with "Serge's Circus" followed by trombone trio "It's Not Unusual"
(Tom Jones) and as unlikely as it sounds it works a treat, and the trombones camped it up to finish up on a top E!

The applause at the end was well deserved the band had slogged hard, the programme had been tough, but they all said that they had enjoyed it. It seems that the New World embraces new, how many bands look in their pads and find stuff in there that was there not just last month, but from last year and the year before? Embrace new, could seem like a watch word for the
UK BB movement as a whole! I had a great time in NZ, I enjoyed the way the band did things, decisions were made quickly and executed once those decisions had been made, and with full commitment by all, does this sound familiar?

Andy Snell

With a view from the conductor's seat, it's me, Andy. If I'm honest I've been having sleepless nights punctuated by terrible nightmares of the unspeakable things a composer could do to a conductor who mis-interprets his music. (Why do all composers look like Beethoven in your dreams?)

I needn't have worried. Phil is a laid back a composer as you could possibly imagine. That's not to say he doesn't care about his music, nor that he doesn't have strong views as to how they should be played, but he is very easy to work with and communicates with subtlety (not violence, ala Ludwig!) Having had only three and a half weeks to work up the programme from scratch I was concerned as to how well we had covered corners and how well the band would remember what we had done. So it was with not a small amount of fear and trepidation that I stepped out to a decent sized audience at the Town Hall. The band opened up with Phil's 'Anblasen Fanfare' a piece loosely based on 17th century town fanfare trumpeters. There were two camps of trumpeters, the bog standard fanfare trumpeters and the 'high class' melodic players. They hated each other to the extent of one camp visiting a member of the other whilst he was practicing, taking his trumpet from him and knocking his teeth out with it! And you thought some bands had a rivalry?

It was a good start to the programme and things settled down with arrangements of music from Debussy to Robbie Williams. Then came the 'biggie', Gregoritas. Apart from the inevitable clips in a piece like this it went very well indeed, Phil was delighted and the audience loved it.

Having played many first performances with Grimethorpe this was unusual, an audience liking an extended original work for band - contest organisers take note!!! The band have loved working on it, but to hear the audience enthuse about it made the evening complete - roll on Rotorua, let's see what contest audiences (and adjudicators!) make of it.

In the second half Richard had to contend with easily the toughest cornet concerto I've ever seen (but then I'm a bass trombone player!). He seemed to whiz through the 9 minutes in about 45 seconds and before we knew it was over. It really was a 'Blaze' and again the audience was astonished at the playing, but also the music. I was expecting great things from Richard, having heard him from the bass trombone seat night after night deliver faultless performances of standard cornet solos, but this was different, this was huge! One of the band commented after hearing him that they couldn't understand how he could play so well without moving at all from the neck down! This really is the finest player of his generation.

So through to the end of the concert with some more great arrangements and novelty numbers. I must mention Serge's Circus, a 2 minutes 'throw away' number that rivals any test piece for technical difficulty, but it's bloody funny music!

I reached the dressing room looking as if I'd been standing under a shower for a couple of hours and collapsed in a heap. It had been hard work, but boy had it been worth it.

Richard and Phil had had a great time, it's just a shame that Phil had to come half way round the world to hear his music (some of the performances in the concert were the first time he'd ever heard pieces he'd written years earlier.

I also must point out that Phil GAVE us the music FREE OF CHARGE and paid his own air fare out to be with us. He's planning to be with us again for the contest, but this time by cell phone!

So huge thanks to Richard and, of course, to Phil, and I just hope that the exposure given to his music by Waitakere City "Trusts" Brass wakes up the dormant monster of UK banding and gets the old stick-in-the-muds to take an interest in his music.

Richard Marshall

What an enjoyable time was had by all!! My New Zealand tour started off in Christchurch (as was mentioned on the article for 4barsrest) and then it was on to Auckland to spend time with my old Grimey mate Andy and Phil. This was to be the first time I had met the man that composed the concerto Blaze and it was to be a sincere pleasure, not only performing his work but
being in his company and now a friend. The work as you can gather is very difficult and tests the agility and musicality of the cornet player, but I was over the moon that I was to be the first to perform this wonderful piece.

I had a few rehearsals with Waitakere and Andy and the piece fitted together well once the band had got use to my tempo's!
The day of the concert came around fairly quick and this was to be one of the highlights of my young career. All of Phil's music that was performed that evening was super and the band did him justice with some great playing and now it was my turn!!

The concerto went well and I enjoyed every minute of the performance and I would love to give the UK premier of the work sometime.

May I sign off by thanking Andy, Lindsay, Harvey (the dog) and Waitakere and not forgetting my good friend Phil who made a young man very happy by giving him the opportunity.

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