Fairey FP (Music) Band

Conductor: Major Peter Parkes
Annual Christmas Concert
Stockport Town Hall
Friday December 10th

Christmas is a time for celebration and reflection, with music playing a big role in many peoples' lives. The playing and singing of carols can uplift those who for one reason or another have not had the best of times and bring comfort and joy to millions of people.
    
Fairey FP(Music) Band in their Annual Christmas Concert certainly set out to bring some comfort and joy to fruition. The evening got under way with the march ‘Shining Star' by Peter Graham which is based on the carol ‘O Come All Ye Faithful', and it provided a nice lively opening to get the large audience in the Christmas spirit.
 
Peter Parkes informed the audience it was ten years since he last did the Christmas Concert with Fairey, but he felt he had never been away and soon brought some very descriptive playing from the band in Leroy Anderson's ‘Christmas Festival Overture' - a great favourite with audiences all over the world.
 
Nick Walkley, the bands principal cornet then chose music once more from the pen of Peter Graham in ‘A Time For Peace' taken from ‘The Essence Of Time' by the composer. The soloist produced a superbly shaped performance with a lovely clear tone, and showed why he has such a big future in front of him. There should also be a special mention for the band who kept the accompaniments well under control.
 
Sandy Smith has arranged many pieces for bands and in ‘Santaclaustraphobia' he was on a sure fire winner with songs like ‘Santa Got Stuck up the Chimney' and ‘Santa Claus is coming to Town'. The audience certainly enjoyed it as well as the band and although some Christmas music, dare I say, can seem mundane at times when the musicians are just going through the motions, this was not the case this evening.
 
The bands solo euphonium player Michael Howley always plays with great feeling, and in the beautiful ‘O Holy Night' he played with a sensitivity that captured the music perfectly and showed what a fine player he is. Music by the Russian composer Prokofiev in ‘Troika' kept the concert flowing along at a lively tempo, followed by the hymn tune ‘Nicea' arranged by Ray Steadman Allen. Peter Parkes told the audience no other musicians can play a hymn tune like a brass band - providing it is played correctly – and on this occasion the band backed his words with some sublime playing all round the stand.
 
The first half ended with music from ‘West Side Story' by Bernstein. ‘America' and ‘Somewhere' were the chosen songs and the band carried these of with plenty of energy and despite some uncertainty in the trombones in ‘Somewhere' it was an excellent choice to end a splendid first half.
 
Irvin Berlin's ‘Let's Face The Music And Dance' got the second half of to a great swinging start before Rebecca Crawshaw on soprano cornet gave a stunning performance of ‘Memory' from the musical ‘Cats' by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This young lady is improving all the time and she played with great feeling, well backed by the band, and is certainly one of the rising stars of this band and the movement as a whole.
 
‘Slaughter On Tenth Avenue' – Rodgers arranged by Sandy Smith is certainly dramatic music and takes a lot of control to pull off. The bass section in particular were in fine form in this music, as were the percussion section and it all added up to a tremendous performance.
 
Darrol Barry's arrangement of ‘One Day In Your Life' gave us the pleasure of hearing another of the bands young soloists in the shape of Chris Pannell, and he is already one of the outstanding horn players in the band movement and on tonight's showing it was easy to hear why. He has a lovely sound and projection along side good technique - the hallmarks of a gifted musician.
 
‘Ticket To Ride' by Lennon and Mcartney arranged by Alan Fernie kept things chugging along so to speak (well it is Christmas) with all the train effects along the way, before the audience joined with the band in six verses of ‘The First Noel'. 
 
‘The Irish Blessing' played as a quartet with some delightful touches from the rest of the band gave us time to relax and that was then followed by ‘The Christmas Song' before Chris Preece on xylophone gave a sparkling rendition of ‘Helter Skelter' arranged by Ray Woodfield that was taken at a cracking tempo by the Major as if daring the soloist to go even faster. A draw was a fair result. 

Gillian Hammond, the bands publicity officer then announced the Player of the Year and the award went to Nick Walkley. The Bandsman of the Year went to Jimmy Leggett - a real stalwart of the band. ‘Festive Overture' arranged by Peter Kitson and excellently played with some fine work from euphoniums and baritones led us to the finale with ‘Schneewaltzer' followed by ‘Jingle Bells'.
 
A most enjoyable concert by a band that is working hard to establish its self at the very top of the banding tree once more, and on the evidence of tonight they are well on the way.

Dave Tinker 

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