Poles Apart – Close to the South Pole!

Review: Brass on Sundays
Centrestage – Invercargill
Featuring: Ascot Park Hotel of Invercargill Brass Band, conducted by John McKinlay with special guests, Riki McDonnell and Alexandra Kerwin

On a rain swept and bitterly cold Sunday in Invercargill, the soul was warmed by a wonderful concert featuring international soloists, Riki McDonnell and Alexandra Kerwin. Fresh from a similar successful concert in Brisbane, Riki and Alexandra showed exactly why they are in such demand across Australasia.

The band opened in fine style with the Wilfred Heaton march, Praise, which showed off the band's rhythmical precision. Alexandra was the first soloist up in Hungarian Melodies by Vincent Bach and arranged by the soloists husband, Simon Kerwin. The compere, Peter Richardson whilst extremely informative, thorough and clear, failed to introduce Alexandra (and this trend continued much to my frustration for the rest of the solo spots) so the young lady had to take to the stage unannounced. Alexandra played all of her four solos from memory and was impressive with switching from Bb cornet to flugelhorn and to Eb soprano cornet. Her tone was pleasing and she had a real rapport with the audience. Feeling Good again arranged by her husband Simon was a real highlight. Her other solos included, Gethsemane and Song of Hope on the soprano cornet, a very moving performance indeed.

Riki McDonnell made his first appearance onstage in the duet Poles Apart. The duet is a musical exploration of a northern hemisphere versus southern hemisphere battle. I had to admit to chuckling as did most of the audience when Alexandra played the theme to Coronation Street and then Mr McDonnell struck up with Neighbours, a very clever piece of writing by Mr Simon Kerwin.

Riki had a brief moment to reflect as the band played A Rainy Day (very apt given the poor weather outside), then he performed his solos (again unannounced!) beginning with a very stylish delivery of Largo al Factotum. He is a musician of the highest quality with a real sense of emotion in his sound. He followed this solo with Let Me Try Again, a wizard like performance of Carnival Cocktail (with some of the highest and lowest notes I have ever heard), then a thought provoking and captivating account of Pokare Ana.

A real showstopper for it's simplistic and quite old-fashioned style was Ivor Bosanko's duet, I'll not Turn Back.

The Invercargill Band can boast the accolade of being the most southern band in the world. They can also proclaim to be keeping brass banding alive due to their marvelous youth policy. The band were featured again in the concert with Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter and also finishing the concert with Ray Farr's arrangement of Toccata in D Minor, with extreme vigour. Several new young members were welcomed officially into the band at the concert. Whilst, not all of the bands numbers were faultless, the smiles on the young faces and the inspiration they received was surely worthwhile.

Congratulations must go to conductor John McKinlay for directing the band so well as accompanists in what appeared to be very difficult solos and for his encouragement of the younger players. Kevin Dell must also be thanked for putting the concert together on..

Let's hope it is not the last time we see Riki and Alexandra in Invercargill.

Philip Hodge
Invercargill

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