South London Fellowship Band
25-Nov-2006Conductor: Major George Whittingham
Upper Norwood
Friday 17th November
Braving severe weather conditions a good audience turned out for the third of an annual series of concerts, promoted by the SLFB on behalf of Cancer Research UK, and compered by Upper Norwood Commanding Officer Major Mark Herbert.
The SLFB opened the proceedings with the March ‘Keep Singing' (Pat Rivers), the male voice chorus then sang the A H Mallotte setting of ‘The Lord's Prayer, following which the band played ‘Songs of the Soldier' (Charles Skinner)
The first soloist of the evening was Kevin Ashman, principal cornet of the International Staff Band, with a superb performance of ‘Golden Slippers'. (Norman Bearcroft) For his second item Kevin gave an out of the ordinary presentation of Erik Leidzen's classic solo ‘A Happy Day' in that he performed this on a variety of historic cornets!
Kevin explains; The first one I used was a pocket cornet from the mid 1800's – it has unusual valves in that the airways run the air down the valve casing! The second was an American ‘one off' prototype instrument from around 1920 that was built with a fully compensating valve system, but never commercially manufactured. The third was an old German rotary valve cornet, again from the late 19th century. The slow movement was played on a French made echo cornet (probably around 1900) and the finale on a long model American cornet from the 1920's. ( for the record, Golden Slippers was played on a Besson Prestige Cornet)
The second guest for the evening was pianoforte soloist Bandmaster Simon Schultz from Chelmsford, whose controlled and musical playing of Beethoven's variations on ‘God Save The King', and a setting of ‘Jesus Loves Me' in the style of ‘Claire De Lune' were the perfect antidote for an evening that was very much ‘brass'.
Following a homily from the scriptures by Bandsman John Hockley, Pauline Bennet of Cancer Research UK made an appeal on behalf of the Charity's ongoing work which resulted in a collection of over £800.
The Band supported throughout the evening, with Leslie Swift singing ‘There will be God' (Joy Webb), while band items included a new march written for the SLFB's 10th anniversary by Terry Camsey ‘Slfb – X', ‘Les Toreadors' (Bizet) and a favourite Bramwell Coles arrangement from yesteryear ‘Treasures from Tchaikowsky'
Major George Whittingham has recently celebrated his 80th birthday, and it was fitting that George should bring the evening to a close by directing the band in the youthful sounding, foot-tapping ‘Bandology'
Roy Horscroft
