Haverhill Silver attracted a sell-out audience for a concert that touched on an engaging variety of musical as well as emotive subjects.
 
Cory’s principal cornet Tom Hutchinson was a fabulous guest artist, whilst new works from the pens of Craig Sanders and Tim Pannell added a great deal of fun as well as thoughtful impact.

Fine form

The evening opened with Philip Sparke’s ‘Concert Prelude’, before ‘Mack & Mabel’ and ‘The Girl I left Behind Me’ provided evidence of a well prepared band on fine form under Mark Ager’s baton.  Tom Hutchinson simply wowed with ‘Don’t Doubt Him Now’, ‘Tico-Tico’ and ‘The Paragon’ - played with a breathtaking combination of nonchalant ease and stylistic nuance. 

The first half closed with the premiere of ‘The Yompers’ by the band’s percussionist Craig Sanders. Depicting five key elements of the Falkland’s Conflict - from invasion to ultimate triumph, it was enhanced by multi-media video extracts that brought an added level of almost raw immediacy to the music. There was a palpable sense of emotion that had seeped into the audience at its close.

Depicting five key elements of the Falkland’s Conflict - from invasion to ultimate triumph, it was enhanced by multi-media video extracts that brought an added level of almost raw immediacy to the music. There was a palpable sense of emotion that had seeped into the audience at its close.

Entertainment mode

Following the break, Haverhill went into full entertainment mode; with a fizzing performance of ‘Birdland’ segueing into the suave smoothness of Alan Fernie’s gentle arrangement of ‘Moon River’ and the cartoon antics of ‘Tom & Jerry’ - with the percussion section using every household implement you could think of for the soundtrack. 

HS2

Tom Hutchinson rattled through Mark Freeh’s arrangement of ‘Carnival of Venice’, before being joined by the front row cornets of Tim Pannell, Ian Jacobs, Jennifer Raffe and Ryan Morley for ‘Trumpet Blues and Cantabile’. It was followed by a brand new duet take of Paganini’s ‘Moto Perpetuo’ that saw the arranger, Tim Pannell, join with Tom to simply whizz through the semi quavers at HS2 train speeds.

The concert closed with ‘Lest We Forget’ by Chris Bond.

The effective tribute to those lost in the ‘War to end all Wars’ was played with poignancy as well as uplifting spirit - something also shown to fine effect by the encore of ‘Light Walk’ that sent everyone home with a spring in their step.

Steve Penny