Leyland Band

Brass Arts Festival 2007
Conductor: Russell Gray
Regent Hall, London
Friday 19th October

The Leyland Band conducted by Russell Gray warmed up for its appearance at the Royal Albert Hall the following day in fine form with a programme that set out to entertain a cosmopolitan audience. 

Having opened up with a fine performance of Dvorak’s ‘Carnival Overture’ that made the most of the acoustic within Regent Hall, the band changed the mood completely with ‘The Catskills’ from Nigel Hess’s ‘East Coast Pictures’.

‘East Coast Pictures’ is in fact a trio of musical portraits of the area of the USA that encompasses New York, the Catskills Mountains and Long Island. Arranged by Philip Littlemore, Leyland portrayed the moods and colours of the Eastern seaboard with real beauty.
 
Russell Gray’s varied programme also included the delightful slow fugue known as ‘Cathedral’ from Elgar’s ‘Severn Suite’ which was one of the highlights of the whole concert and where the band performed with an authentic touch of delicacy and Elgarian eloquence.

In a current era that appears to be dominated by new commissions for contests, the inclusion of ‘James Cook - Circumnavigator’ by Gilbert Vinter for next year’s Regional Contests is a timely reminder of the unique quality of his compositions.  Leyland in fact closed the first half with the final section of his rarely heard (in the modern era anyway) ‘Symphony of Marches’, which included some sublime solo work from Brenden Wheeler on euphonium.

The guest soloist for the evening was Rex Richardson, an artiste with an exceptional talent who has made a name for himself as one of the finest trumpet players in the world today.

Russell Gray hinted to the audience that they would be impressed with what they were about to hear on the night, and in all honesty, ‘impressed’ was an understatement – Rex gave an unbelievable performance that left the audience (and players on stage – you only had to look at the expressions on their faces) dumbstruck.

Vizzutti's ‘Rising Sun' was a piece of contrasting musical portraits of Japan, with the soloist changing between instruments as the concerto progressed.  In the opening section, ‘Mount Fuji’, you could almost see the sun rising whilst the final cadenza in the ‘Bullet Train’ where the soloist moved up through the gears with ease was mind-blowing stuff. 

Rex’s second contribution came with the familiar ‘Concerto D’Aranjeuz’, whilst he had fun in Eva Cassidy’s ‘Hallelujah I Love Him So’, that featured the band’s Vicky White as fine vocalist.

Leyland featured two other soloists during the evening.  Matthew White, the band’s second euphonium player is clearly destined for a bright future.  Matthew is at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester studying with David Thornton and also plays trombone and piano, and arranged ‘Hallelujah I Love Him So’ which his sister Vicky, as previously mentioned, was the vocalist.

In February this year, Matthew got to the final of the BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Soloist Competition where he performed ,'Devils Duel' , written by Peter Meechan for David Thornton. On this occasion, Matthew performed Peter Graham’s ‘Bravura’ with supreme confidence and no nerves and David Thornton’s influence has certainly rubbed off on him.

The other featured soloist was the band’s principal baritone and current British Open Solo Champion, Katrina Marzella.  Katrina chose ‘Concerto Per Flicorno Basso' by Ponchielli, the same work that brought her the solo title nearly twelve months ago.  Katrina demonstrated what a wonderful instrumentalist she is; although it was just a pity that at times the band accompaniment had greater prominence than was needed.

Leyland has recently acquired the services of the talented Simon Dobson as ‘Composer in Residence’ and the second half opened with the World Premiere of ‘Clarion Alarum’ – ‘Fanfare No.1 for Brass Band’ in his presence.

Percy Grainger’s ‘Molly on the Shore’ was polished off with the blink of an eye whilst Andy Lord, Brenden Wheeler and Richard Walker vied for supremacy in Peter Graham’s ‘Cossack Fire Dance’.

Stuart Pullin was a gifted musician both as a performer and arranger who tragically died recently after a fight against leukaemia.  In tribute to Stuart, the band performed his arrangement of ‘Deep Harmony’.  Stuart’s death is a huge loss to the banding movement, but the music he has left us with will live on.

With a touch of tiredness creeping in towards the end of the night Leyland closed its programme with ‘America’ and ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story and the circus march ‘Bombasto’ by the band’s Dave Timmins.

The audience had been royally entertained and left to leave the band to conclude its preparations for the contest – if they had any lips left.

Malcolm Wood

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